Nostalgia with Robert Heaven

NATURE'S changes in and around Ciren continues to delight and enchant me in much the same way that it has done since I was a child.

Autumn has particular place in my heart and always makes me think about, and remember, the ending of long summer holidays and the first days of a new school year - times when the air had a slight chill and the Beech trees that once lined the Beeches estate road, surrendered an evocative scent as I kicked my way though the dropped leaves on the walk to Lewes Lane School.

Conkers! Seized upon from where they’d fallen or knocked from the trees up Ciren Park with a convenient stick.

Conkers, small, shiny and glowing with the promise of autumn, were once irresistible to generations of Ciren children who baked them, dipped them in vinegar and put them on strings to enjoy conker fights.

Doing anything to conkers other than drilling a hole and stringing them, was regarded as cheating in Ciren; but many did it!

Conker fights were not just childish games.

Ciren policemen regularly held so called "Championships" at the Police Station in the Forum.

These were well publicised and were reported each year in the Standard.

I don’t know when it all finished but in the early 2000s a myth sprang up that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) had banned conker fights and perhaps the Chief Constable thought it was inappropriate for Ciren coppers to be seen to flout the law.

In the event the HSE were forced to post a rebuttal on its website describing the story as, "an old chestnut".

The real old chestnut in the Forum was the tree that had stood for many years directly opposite the Police station.

Sadly it was felled in 1976 and, much like the games with the fruits it once bore, now a nostalgic and melancholic memory of times past in our old town.