NATURE COLUMN: Bill Cawley
WHAT is the connection between conkers and the foundation of the state of Israel? The answer to this intriguing question is at the end of the article.
It is rapidly approaching conker season, a sure harbinger of the coming autumn. When I lived in Oakhill near Stoke in the 80s, motorists faced the problem of sticks thrown by small boys in an attempt to bring conkers down which then fell on passing cars.
The area on London Road along the route had a number of magnificent horse chestnut trees that line the perimeter of the old Mich factory.
I remember my brothers playing the game and one bringing down triumphantly the winning one-er with a cry ‘they think it’s all over – it is now’ as the vanquished conker disintegrated in the impact.
It wasn’t until the Victorian period that the horse chestnut fruits – the conkers – were recorded as being used for the game. After the 1850s, the use of horse chestnuts to play the game was referred to. From that time on, its popularity grew throughout Britain until relatively modern times where children play the game less.
It is said to suffer because schools now request the competitors to wear goggles in case they are hit by fragments. The Health and Safety Executive deny that is anything to do with them although that has not stopped the myth.
To finally answer the question about the conker and Israel, I have to go back to the First World War. A snippet offered up in a Coventry newspaper in the autumn of 1917 offers a clue.
School children were invited by the Government to collect conkers as a food stuff freeing up demand for grain. This appears at first glance an odd use for the chestnut as it is inedible to humans.
Later schools are named that have been successful in their aiding the war by collecting conkers by the sack full. St Mark’s
School in Tewkesbury collected half a ton.
Why you might ask?
A vital ingredient in its manufacture of cordite used in explosives was a solvent called acetone. Although some acetone was produced in Britain, most was imported. The sinking of Allied merchant shipping by German U Boats the middle of the war made the search for an alternative vital.
Chaim Weizmann a chemist at the University of Manchester discovered that acetone could be made from horse chestnuts and hence the requirement to collect them was established. It was never explained to the children why they were needed, but they could earn 7s 6d for every hundred weight collected. Acetone was produced from their graft and the war won.
The British Government was pleased by Weizmann’s help and began to discuss with him his cherished desire to see a homeland for Jews. His dream was realised in 1948 with the creation of Israel and he became the country’s first President.