The falling of leaves in autumn also brings with it another familiar autumnal tradition in the form of conkers, one of the most popular games in Great Britain that involves wholesale nuts that cannot otherwise be eaten.

The playground game of swinging chestnuts on strings until one breaks is so popular that a World Conker Championships series exists and receives regular coverage in the middle of October.

It has even led to myths and legends such as the infamous safety goggles hoax, but its exact origins are largely lost to time. One fact that is known, however, is that the game was not always played with chestnuts but instead with a nut that is far more edible.

Chestnut trees were introduced to the UK in the 16th century, and before they arrived, a similar game to conkers was originally played with walnuts, snail shells or seashells, according to the poet Robert Southey.

The game started to be played with chestnuts by the middle of the 19th century, with the first reference to the game being played on the Isle of Wight in 1848, spreading quickly throughout Britain and beyond from then until the middle of the First World War.

In 1917, during the height of fighting in the trenches, children were asked to collect as many chestnuts as they could in secret, which the Ministry of Supply used to make acetone, a material used to make cordite, which was a type of gunpowder used by the British Army at the time.

It was believed at the time that acetone could be made with starch, which was believed to be available in horse chestnuts. However, when this plan was put into action, it turned out the chestnuts could not be processed effectively and thus the plan was scrapped, leaving mountains of conkers to rot.

This did, however, lead to a second boom in conkers, as children who had collected them during the war continued to do so to play a game that has endured to this day.