SO WHAT else can we do to scare the living daylights out of our children? One serious contender for the 2004 prize for contributing to the project of boring the pants off childhood must surely be Shaun Halfpenny, the headmaster of Cummersdale Primary School in Carlisle. Mr Halfpenny decided that enough is enough, something had to be done to protect Britain’s children from the scourge of that dreaded threat to our way of life — conkers.

Clearly raising awareness of this public health issue has not worked. Far too many children, it seems, still suffer from the life-long trauma of grazing their knees while looking for conkers. Setting up a helpline to support victims of conkering is clearly beyond the resources available to a local primary school, so Mr Halfpenny did the next best thing.

Children in his primary school have been banned from playing conkers unless they wear two pairs of safety goggles. And just to show that he is no ordinary killjoy, the headmaster went out and bought safety goggles for his pupils to wear while engaging in this highly risky adventure. To be exact, two safety goggles were purchased from the school’s limited funds. It appears that children now queue up and wait for their turn to wear the goggles before they can get their hands on those risky chesnuts. No more free-for-alls as children rush off to be the first to find that extra large shiny conker — this is safe and responsible activity at its best.

Of course, Mr Halfpenny should not take all the credit for this blow on behalf of child protection. He admits that “you cannot be too careful, especially when health and safety inspectors are watching”. So our thanks must also be extended to the Health and Safety Executive. Incidentally, the promoter of the “conker goggle” also possesses a wonderful sense of irony. He believes that his initiative will contribute to the survival of the age-old passion for conkering.

“This is a rural custom that should not die,” he argues. “You can’t wrap children up in cotton wool all the time, you have to let kids be kids”. Which is why lining up pupils in orderly queues and getting them to wear safety goggles will do so much to let kids be kids.

Frank Furedi is author of Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting Philistinism in the 21st Century

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