I cannot imagine never having experienced the painful whack of a conker across the knuckle on a cold day, but it seems many youngsters are being deprived of this dubious pleasure.

According to a new survey, 88 per cent of youngsters under 25 have never indulged in playground games or even played indoor 'parlour games' like Blind Man's Buff.

While Halloween grows in popularity (though I went off it when children trashed my elderly mother's front garden when she refused to answer the door), other traditions like harvest festivals are disappearing.

Oh the joy when my parents would arrange a few carrots and a marrow in a little basket covered in cellophane for me to carry proudly into school to pay homage to our agricultural past.

Of course growing up in Birmingham meant we didn't have much of an affinity with the Plough and Harrow (apart from the well-known pub on the Hagley Road) but we could bellow All Things Bright and Beautiful as gustily as our rural friends.

(Mr F still laughs at me for thinking, as a child, that 'We Plough the Fields and Scatter' meant we dig up the land - and run away!)

Sunday Best tops the list of customs dying out, with only five per cent of Britain's under 25 getting dressed up on the weekend's traditional 'day of rest', preferring to trot to Tesco in a tracksuit.

Keeping a diary and writing letters to family and friends is also waning with under a fifth (15 per cent) favouring social networking sites to using snail mail.

The British seaside holiday is in favour again, though withmore than half of Brits (54 per cent) bravely dipping their toes in the briney but I am pleased that only 45 per cent of them have seen Punch & Judy or had a donkey ride.

The demise of the wife-beating puppet show and the retirement of the mangy, miserable-looking donkeys would be a definite plus... but I say, keep the ice cream kiosks and the stripy collapsing deck chairs.

Not all British traditions are dying out in favour of newer practices as apparently we still munch a Sunday roast, love our bonfire nights (81 per cent) and almost half of Brits (47 per cent) see a pantomime at Christmas.

Oh yes they do.

* From a study of 2000 Brits commissioned to mark the launch of new TV channel Blighty.