A GAME of conkers in the playground may soon become a thing of the past if disease takes a hold of our conker trees.

Thousands of Horse Chestnut trees across west London are being threatened with three different problems - the leaf miner moth, a fungus of the bark called bleeding canker, and the drought conditions of the last three winters.

Some trees have already been felled on Ealing Common, while a monitoring eye is being kept on the trees in Hillingdon and Harrow.