FT270


The myth

The traditional game of conkers has been banned from British schools for “health and safety” reasons.


The “truth”

In October 2004, the head of Cummers­dale Primary School, Carlisle, made a schoolboy error: he imagined that journalists were capable of understanding satire. Fed up with filling in what he considered to be excessive forms when taking children on school trips, Shaun Halfpenny decided to stage a protest against the Health and Safety Executive’s obsess­ion, as he saw it, with red tape. He arranged for a group of his pupils to play conkers while wearing safety goggles, and invited the local press along to watch.