The world recently crowned a new King and Queen of the conker. Sounds strange? This news come from Reuters – competition ringmaster Richard Howard said: “This year we had entries from 19 countries.” Amid much revelry and competition on the village green in the town of Ashton, Chris Jones, 48, of London was declared Conker King out of an initial field of 256 entrants. Sandy Gardener, 35, from the Dordogne region of France, was likewise crowned Conker Queen for the year out of an entry of 64 women.

It goes like this – each player has a conker (from the horse chestnut tree) supplied to them by the competition organisers. It is attached to a piece of string and they take turns in trying to break their opponent's conker by swinging at it. The prize? Last year's prize was a year's supply of a brand of ice cream supplied by the sponsor, this year the new Conker King and Queen received just a trophy for their efforts.