Burnley Grammar School

My primary school wanted me to go outside for sports day in the early 70's without my top on when I was 10. I remember crying about it, and instead of letting me wear something the teacher refused to let me take part at all and I had to spend two hours sitting all alone by myself in class as a punishment just staring at the walls. No family had come to watch me so they got away with it as I wasn't missed by anyone.

When I was 10 years old I hated teachers telling me to take my top off at school like that. By the time I was 20 I couldn't get my top off quick enough when the sun came out and it got warmer. A few years of secondary school finally knocked some sense into me I think!

Comment by: Danny C on 4th July 2025 at 00:43

Fantastic films there from the YFA of Roundhay Park, Leeds Children's Day.

Could that be the World Record, or at least UK record for the biggest PE lesson ever, and even the biggest bare chested boys PE lesson ever? Although it was hard to count I'm sure there must have been anywhere from 500-700 shirtless boys doing that gym, before you add the girls with them. They really were a fit lot weren't they, and another thing I noticed was their very smart well kept haircuts even when doing that. When I watched it I was wondering how many of them had the issues that get described here, there must have been a few even in the fifties. It was film from what I always think of as the last of the old fashioned decades.

Great photos from your school too Samuel.

Ian, when our class got shown around our new secondary school on a visiting day for the soon to be new intake children in 1977 we were walking around the outside grounds and I suddenly noticed lots of people doing a PE lesson up on the sports field and realising that all the boys, and even the teacher were shirtless on that day. I wasn't too sure what they were doing though. We walked around the school itself and I could see through a window into the gymnasium there that there must have been another PE lesson going on and many of the boys I saw there were also shirtless. When we waited in reception to leave the school I was browsing a board with school pictures on it with lots of team images including swimming and cross country teams and many of these seemed to show boys shirtless with folded arms.

At that age I was unused to being shirtless for PE and had never done so at middle school and was not a shirtless kind of kid in other respects much either, so there was definitely a tinge of nervousness anticipating ahead.

This was exactly the case for boys I discovered when I began, it was a largely shirtless PE environment at school at that time, not because boys elected to be but because shirtless was instilled into us as the way a lot of PE was done. The elite boys cross country team always ran shirtless, and posed for photos that way. Infact I was on one of the elite cross country teams at one point, and there was also an elite girls cross country team as well, and we had a combined photo taken, boys shirtless beside the girls with the posed photo arm fold men and boys do in sports pictures like that.

The sports day at our school in 1978, 79, 80 and 81 was definitely compulsory shirtless for boys as I have the evidence in full technicolour on slides and other snaps taken by my mother at the time and much like the film clips from the Yorkshire Film Archive that relate to Timothy in the mid 50s at that impressive event, in none of the many photos I have of my own summer sports at school do any of us boy pupils there at the time have a top on ourselves, we are all there shirtless, including one young teacher in a few of them.

I went to school in Ireland.

"the most socially-retarded, gormless boy in the year"

I can't believe YOU are describing YOURSELF like this Yours Truly.

I attended a strict Scottish grammar school 1962-68 in secondary.
I remember well the first communal, naked shower taken after the first gym period of our first year at secondary school
We had been well forewarned by our primary PE teacher that it would happen (see my post 21 July 2024 – about 38 pages back, if you can be bothered) and we had spent our time fretting about it over the summer holiday.
After the toughest period we'd experienced (“you're just not fit enough boys”) – out of breath, red faced, not, sweaty, came the dreaded moment: “Strip! Shower! Quickly, or else!”.
I felt that I had lost my virginity but, more importantly, on someone else's order. And I thought I had a skinny, bony body – not attractive at all. It was only later that I was told that I had a decent body worth seeing, which explained to me the feeling of being ogled more than other boys when in the showers. And ironically I felt more in control of the guys doing the ogling (other boys, prefects, teachers and various guests, including fathers) that they were of me.
I did not mind the showers but always suffered from erection anxiety, which prevented me from enjoying showers as much as I should have done, including checking the other guys out.
Although we had an excellent PE teacher, his motto was “Hard work, obedience and discipline” enforced by methods similar to those in Geoffrey's post (24 June 2025). Glad I was not the only one!

Before I went to my senior school (this is late 60's) , there was an open day for parents/new boys.

Included in this, was a gymnastics display on the school playing fields, given by boys, all of whom wore only their shorts. Later on in my first PE lesson, I discovered this was what we were allowed to wear in the gym - no shirt, bare feet.

Comment by: Greg2 on 6th July 2025 at 09:21
Comment by: Samuel on 5th July 2025 at 21:13
Your photo Samuel was taken by James Ravilious, during his Beaford commission. James Ravilious took wonderful photographs, so beautifully composed, and he's well known for his wonderful work photographing farming life in Devon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZJHttqCPwQ
There was a great tv documentary about him and this work made shortly after his death.


Really Greg! I had no idea the photographer was anyone notable, I wonder what we did to get him to grace our school in 1988 for that then. There are some other photographs available to view also. It captures the ordinary everyday mundane, almost boringness of PE in a way. It would have been nice in colour, it was 1988 after all. It must be quite unusual to have a photographer in your PE lesson.

Despite the image, we did lots of our PE shirtless with the girls there, which was no bother to me. There were showers too that we had to use. Our school even had its own outdoor lido style pool, so there was a lot of summertime swimming, probably more than other schools got.

https://beafordarchive.org/archive-image/untitled-7229/

Sports day in 1989, I remember it was very very hot. We wore tops. No exact rule on tops but it had to be mainly white, so technically I suppose I could have been a skin as I was quite white. Anyone who chose to be would probably have been allowed, I'm sure I do remember some occasional boys being so, but not here in 1989 anyway.

https://beafordarchive.org/archive-image/untitled-7601/

Comment by: Yours Truly on 6th July 2025 at 11:16



Hi YT - Don't take this the wrong way, or Andy, but the quickest way to find yourself in A & E or with a black eye would have been to have got caught looking, still less commenting, on other lads "proportions" at our school. I often heard the anger of some of the more aggressive lads at what they would have liked to do to Roberts, our P.E. teacher, when they clocked him looking at them. I agreed with them, (and wished they had turned their words to action) but they took this suspicion out on everyone.

Hi Andy,

'A clear indication or admission you had the smallest willy in your class!'

Har har! Should have seen that one coming, shouldn't I?.

The reason I felt so self-conscious was because I was bullied all the way through my school days. In the second week at a huge secondary school I was struggling socially more than I ever had. Being forced into showering with other boys, several of whom had already started to bully me by a glowering, menacing tyrant who was a bigger bully than any of the boys in his charge was the lowest point of my life - to that point! I've had several more, bigger ones since then. Okay?

If you really want to talk about this I developed early and have always been on the larger end of things. And I was bullied for that as well.
The boys in my year told the girls, who found it a hoot that the most socially-retarded, gormless boy in the year was also one of the most developed. It felt like a particularly sadistic evolutionary curse.

Comment by: Mike L on 5th July 2025 at 22:14


"My school made us wear vests to go into the gym then our teacher would give the instruction to become skins. Our vests had to be dropped in a straight line by the nearside wall. Skins vs vests were very common outdoors on the field for team games (football)
vests had to be dropped in a straight line along the sideline....."

I am sure those P.E. teachers who were not closeted paedos had some sort of kink. Barechested football?, and how did they know that each lad got his own vest back?. They might have got mixed up and if any of the lads had some kind of dermatological infection they could have unwittingly spread it.

I was lucky I did not stay on at school till I was 18, but if I had of done any teacher who told me to remove my top would have been told where to go. It is control freakery at it's worst, which is why I would like to see all P.E. teachers made to undergo psychological examination, and weed out the wrong-uns.

Comment by: Samuel on 5th July 2025 at 21:13

Your photo Samuel was taken by James Ravilious, during his Beaford commission. James Ravilious took wonderful photographs, so beautifully composed, and he's well known for his wonderful work photographing farming life in Devon, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZJHttqCPwQ
There was a great tv documentary about him and this work made shortly after his death.

Anyone else on here have to face their PE teacher seeing you walking out the showers and point at you, telling you 'turn around and get back in, not long enough' and you'd not say a word back but just sheepishly turn and go back and then be made the last allowed to get back out again. That was me a few times, yet I always thought I'd done long enough. It was only slightly warmish water with no soap anyway. A PE teacher actually told me to stop playing with myself once because I was rinsing my groin with shower water, exactly one of the areas Anthony noted was vital to clean in the shower after PE, along with armpits. Some PE teachers just loved the mild humiliation of certain boys, and I was often picked on by mine for reasons unknown.

Comment by: Ronnie on 5th July 2025 at 14:43



Hi Ronnie. He made quite a thing of shirtless P.E. - he waxed quite lyrical:



Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 25th June 2025 at 03:30



"....... and it is especially important for adolescent boys to become more aware of their appearance and body image and this is best done with exposure of themselves and to each other, and that is why our school insists that boys come to their gym classes with bare chests, school shorts with the crest on them and we prefer bare feet during gym as a rule because it is far healthier and reduces sweat there. Exceptions to this are not generally permitted, we expect the same from everyone......."

Then on 29th June he wrote::


"....
do PE in bare chests tomorrow at school, which is the intention of me and a couple of colleagues who have already spoken online via video on Microsoft Teams tonight about our week ahead, which includes a sports day outside on Friday.

I see nothing wrong with obliging the guys to either remove all top clothing for PE and conduct themselves in their bare chest, even less so in current conditions."


There were in other messages, the information that sunscreen is needed, and he erroneously suggested Factor 30 was the minimum requirement - which I have pointed out elsewhere is too weak - Factor 50 is the recommended strength - look online, go to a pharmacy, they will all tell you the same thing. When I am working in my yard in the summer, dismantling equipment, I always put Factor 50 on my arms, (I wear short sleeved shirts), face and back of my neck - you then have to scrub your hands because the damned stuff is so oily it would not be healthy to get gunge on PCBs etc and any paperwork would resemble fish and chip wrappers if you didn't. It did cross my mind how much time will be wasted before lessons while the "guys" applied the stuff to the whole of the top half of their bodies, including the back. But that's the way he likes it. There is the implication there, and Friday was a hot day.

Of course back in the 80s you didn't hear about skin cancer - at that time the concern was about the ice cap melting and holes in the ozone caused by spray deodorants. If Anthony is sending boys outside in only Factor 30 (the school "minimum requirement"), or any other body conscious P.E. teacher let us hope that they don't suffer any bad consequences later in life.

Comment by: Timothy on 5th July 2025 at 13:18
"That's just wonderful Danny that you have found some old films of the Leeds schools Children's Day events from all those years ago, including 1955 there, just as I remember it. I have never seen a film of it before, I did look a few years ago but came across nothing at the time. I have spent the morning trying to search for myself but many of the boys are just too distant to be clear enough for sure, but I will keep looking again and again."
"Thankyou again Danny for kindly sharing your discovery with me."




Pleased to be of service to you Timothy and given you something to enjoy looking at after all these years. My pleasure. If you would like to say anything further about that event and your own personal thoughts and feelings then I will be more than happy to hear it.

My first secondary school sports day took place on this date 43 years ago today, Monday 5th July 1982, a day and afternoon I always remember as it was my own introduction to spending hours at the sports day barechested with all the other boys in school and even getting our photos taken. Whether anyone took any video I have no idea, it wasn't obvious if so, 1982 was after cine films but still a bit before camcorder video use was introduced I think.
I remember we had a very early light lunch at about 11am and by noon were outside in shorts/trunks and nothing else ready for sports afternoon and stayed like it to well after 4pm, doing our games, gymnastics, running and quick a swim, sitting about and mingling with our dressed teachers, parents, lots of visitors watching, and the girls too doing their bits like us, some boys only things, some boys and girls games. Amongst that lot we boys really did stand out in our bare minimum state. We boys that day were all the same, through a variety of ages. It was an exceptionally vulnerable and self conscious feeling to me, like being a young boy of a certain age had condemned me to being treated that way when all around me, including the girls doing sports day were nicely dressed. Quite innocently I had always assumed come sports day in that situation our PE teachers would let us actually stick a bit more on than we did in the school gym. When I first found out that was not going to happen I nearly had an internal melt down to myself whilst still managing to keep my composure. I remember how hard I used to try to hide my feeling about it.

When I went to a reunion last November one of these teachers actually said he thought I was confident and had never shown signs of lacking it, I was a good actor there then, better than I thought. That was the first of 5 sports days I did in successive years until 1986 in lower sixth. Yes, the boys of the lower sixth got dragged to do sports day and do PE just like that too, but by then it was not the deal it had been. You get used to it no matter how shy or insecure you might have started out.
I never changed my base feelings about these things, but as school wore on through time I have to reluctantly admit that it probably did get me used to the compulsory barechested PE and being that way with many others and maybe just gave me a fraction more confidence, but it didn't feel like it at the time and I always felt anxious ahead of all those sports days we had, as well as many of the early PE lessons during 1981-82 as I got used to the strangely strict no shirts, only bare chests rules of school PE, including outside summer term and cross country.

When all that was said and done I had drama class to contend with double period once a week too which ended up barechested close to half the time, which I've mentioned numerous times here before because it was so crazy to find myself with PE on three days a week, a drama class on another, and in summer find there was a period where I would be shirtless for a time during the school day on FOUR out of five days in the summers of 1982, 1983 and 1984.

My school made us wear vests to go into the gym then our teacher would give the instruction to become skins. Our vests had to be dropped in a straight line by the nearside wall. Skins vs vests were very common outdoors on the field for team games (football)
vests had to be dropped in a straight line along the sideline. Cross country, athletics and detentions which compromised of exercising on either the yard or field followed by laps of the field and a cold shower were always performed barechested with your vest coming off outdoors at the start.
I'd said something to mum who firmly told me it was in my best interests to be stripped for all exercise throughout the year and entirely approved of the school's stance. My elder sister had a fixed kit and there were no variations. We did cross country runs with the quicker girls and often their times were very close. They saw us barechested through from 9-18 yo. it was such a normal thing to look out of the windows overlooking the field and seeing boys stripped to the waist throughout the day.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 5th July 2025 at 18:51
My first ever school shower was one of the lowest points in my life. I had never felt smaller or more timid or ashamed or vulnerable.




A clear indication or admission you had the smallest willy in your class!

Showers were fun, and a free go at sizing everyone you knew up and judging them quietly.

But the worst moment of your life! Your entire life? A shower and a couple of minutes stripped off! That's a big comment to make.

I went to Chulmleigh School in Devon in the late 80's and into the early 90's and there's a photo online of me doing a barefooted gym class when I was just 12 years old. I'm in the glasses seven up the bench next to the smiler. This gym was not my favourite place at that age. We were always barefoot in it that I can ever remember, and if I could choose I would have worn trainers and kept my top off instead. Actually the picture is a bit set up, we often did PE in this gym more in our bare chests without the white tops on than wearing them, but always had the bare feet. I have absolutely no idea why the picture was taken like that, they did take a proper into camera class one too.

https://beafordarchive.org/archive-image/untitled-7234/

Hi Donna,

I was not suggesting that girls never experienced communal showers, I am aware that sometimes they did. But it definitely was far less common for them. It was predominantly a boy thing. You were particularly unlucky. Most men seem to have resentful memories of the girls getting shower stalls and curtains while for them it was the ubiquitous ritual humiliation of the open shower. To say nothing of men and women both on here who have stated that the showers were enforced only for the boys.

As I have stated before I don't think showers were ever truly about hygiene. They made us shower but provided no soap, shampoo or deoderant. I think it was really about discipline, about demonstrating the school's authority over their charges: strip them off, of their dignity above all, make them feel vulnerable which makes them less liable to play up. No school should have the power to make children or young adults strip naked, whether they arere boys or girls. And the the 'tween' years, with the ominous challenges of adolescence looming, is surely the worst time in life to do it. My first ever school shower was one of the lowest points in my life. I had never felt smaller or more timid or ashamed or vulnerable.

Believe it or not there have been one or two women posters on these forums who have stated that they really were forced to undertake secondary school PE wearing nothing but their knickers. I don't know what the rationale for it can have been.

Those boys in that film may have looked relaxed fine about it but quite possibly they weren't feeling alright bout it.

I think you are attributing comments to Anthony Hayman that he simply never uttered Alan with the following paragraph you wrote;

"All that was 70 years ago - it is sad to think that only yesterday, teacher Anthony, by his own admission earlier this week said he would be conducting an open air sports day with the boys dressed the same as those all those years ago. Progress in education, and the understanding of the feelings of boys and young men has obviously passed that individual by. Perhaps he, and all those like him, who conduct such old fashioned lessons need to be retrained, and if unwilling to do so, be removed from their jobs."

He didn't say he was going to do that with sports day. He said he might do PE without shirts in gym because the boys would probably be keen to do it when it was very hot at the start of the week, on Monday I think it was. Of course he can come along and add further thoughts if he wants to about all that.

I agree with you on the understanding of others from PE teachers and everyone in life, it's called respect, but to call for removal of their jobs is just far too reactionary and a little bit foolish. Let's save the dismissal and removal of people's jobs for actual serious incompetence or unlawful actions rather than personal attitudes to a PE kit whether it's old fashioned or not.

That's just wonderful Danny that you have found some old films of the Leeds schools Children's Day events from all those years ago, including 1955 there, just as I remember it. I have never seen a film of it before, I did look a few years ago but came across nothing at the time. I have spent the morning trying to search for myself but many of the boys are just too distant to be clear enough for sure, but I will keep looking again and again.

It's a shame to think that some people might raise their eyebrows nowadays if 1000 boys, or however many hundreds or thousands it was, turned up at such an event with that appearance, but in the fifties I think most boys in school would have been the same, you said you were too in the eighties Danny, and therefore to attend something like Children's Day to perform some PE and gymnastics like that was expected, I never wore a PE vest at school, just my shorts, with plimsolls on or off.

I certainly remember the day and the two times I did it. I don't have any personal pictures of it which is a great pity, people then were not so keen to constantly keep taking images of everything, and anyway film cost a lot of money and so did cameras for many families. It's wonderful that someone had the forethought to film with cinematic camera these events and the 1951 as well. I hope others turn up also over time.

Thankyou again Danny for kindly sharing your discovery with me.

How things used to be: the general consensus was that boys were free to view. Most men gym teachers thought so; most women didn’t want to challenge this so thought so too; girls, similarly, thought so; even some boys did too, but also some didn’t. Those who didn’t would never have been considered and had to accept it, as we all know. That woman who Matthew D mentioned who wanted to spend her time watching the young boys undress and dress, was fully confident she wouldn’t be questioned, as she left the girls to themselves. I’m sure she would have even had a prepared and accepted retort: that she needed to hurry the boys along, and to keep them quiet. All this while the girls no doubt were left to take their time each week and to make as much of a racket as they wanted.

Despite what most would think, because she did this means it’s equally fine for a man to monitor same aged little girls, after all, he could also have raised three daughters. It’s only culture making people question some things and not others…I just couldn’t imagine most men comfortably paying close attention, with arms folded, remarking on the best way to make sure they dried themselves!

Boys are just starting to become bodily aware around the age of 9 and wanting this respected, I know I was. I’ve tried to imagine how I’d have felt with my female teacher staring while I changed: I wouldn’t have liked it, and others wouldn’t have either. Some boys would have coped with it by making sure she saw them while feeling a little naughty; others would have been uncomfortable and shy while she insisted they needn’t be; others not bothering either way. There’s a great variety of human beings of all ages, so despite what most would want to think, had a male authority figure been in there with same aged girls as that woman was with the boys, I expect a variety of them would have behaved in exactly that same way.

It’s culture, but it’s biased, so some people will always take advantage. How I wish there was a more respectful understanding for balanced equality.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 4th July 2025 at 08:13


"Hi Alan,



".....In my experience teachers were very ready to exceed their authority...."

Very true, YT. I wish our school had been like yours and insisted on proper and full kit, and didn't have dirty old men watching us shower. I would have even been prepared to convert to Catholicism to feel more comfortable!, I was interested in one line that Tony wrote: (3rd July) "....not only were a number of PE teachers present while you showered, they actively watched and I have to say it, were staring straight at our penises quite often as they did so......."




I frankly think that far too much trust and reverence is given to professionals, many of whom hide behind their "caring" persona for their own gratification. For example, here is a BBC report this very week about a now disgraced GP. Note that the first complaints made against him occurred eight years ago, in other words he was able to carry on carrying on even though concerns had been signalled:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8z78kln7go

I am sure Tony is just as suspicious as we are - and he has every right to be so. A P.E. teacher can be just as much a dirty old man as a G.P can. These sort of cases come before the courts far too often. In fairness, most of those convicted, in the case of doctors, usually involve female patients. However, in the case of pervert P.E. teachers they are almost invariably male. I am glad in this particular instance, the judge has treated the miscreant with the same severity he would have done had the complainants been female. What is outrageous about that case is that for eight years he was known to have been committing offences. Had that man been a lorry driver, for example, the police would have arrested him as soon as the complaints were made all those years ago, because he could hide behind his professional front, however , he was able to indulge himself and assault patients for many more years.

At the very least, teachers, be they P.E. teachers or geography masters should be banned from changing and showering facilities.


Comment by: Donna on 4th July 2025 at 17:14


"......Lovely old clips from the 50s Danny, I do think boys look just fine performing like that without their tops on, and not a single non white person in sight....."

A lot of women seem to have this attitude - they like to see boys and young men disporting themselves in this way, regardless of whether they are doing it by choice, or have been compelled to, and it is almost always by compulsion. No thought of how it makes the boys concerned. How would you have liked to have been filmed in a minimal bikini?. Typical. I also don't think it matters what colour their skin is, we all have the same inhibitions and feelings regardless of race and that remark seems gratuitous.

All that was 70 years ago - it is sad to think that only yesterday, teacher Anthony, by his own admission earlier this week said he would be conducting an open air sports day with the boys dressed the same as those all those years ago. Progress in education, and the understanding of the feelings of boys and young men has obviously passed that individual by. Perhaps he, and all those like him, who conduct such old fashioned lessons need to be retrained, and if unwilling to do so, be removed from their jobs.

All the women who took the girls classes for PE that I was in through my time at secondary school from 1978 - 85 watched over us while we showered, it's not just a boys thing at all. One even used to stand on the wooden bench raising herself an extra foot in the air so she got an even better viewpoint over us all. It was never an enjoyable thing to be told to do, and as I didn't have a sweat problem I was often good to go really, we used to play netball out in November in the cold and have to shower when we'd done that, yet there was no sweating, no dirt on us, and we'd been well and truly freshened up by the wind outside, but they still made us all strip for the showers regardless, and then sometimes complain about time moving on. I'm happy to report I was not asked to do any bare chested PE lessons at secondary school, but I do think I remember a handful in only my knicker underwear at first school about 1972 -74 time.

Lovely old clips from the 50s Danny, I do think boys look just fine performing like that without their tops on, and not a single non white person in sight.

You're on the ball to get a bee in your bonnet about two tier teaching Yours Truly.

When I was at primary middle school at the age of 9 which was 1979 we began swimming lessons in the summer months after a temporary pool was erected for our use. It wasn't as great as going to a proper swimming pool but did the job it was meant to do, enable us to learn some swimming strokes.

When we changed for swimming our class teacher Mrs Easton would come into the boys changing room and stay there keeping watch on us with her arms folded until we were ready to be led out. She thought because she had given birth to 3 sons of her own that it gave her the right to see all of us boys in her class too. She told us not to be silly when she noticed boys acting all coy and shy because she'd had 3 boys so knew what boys looked like. I remember how I used to keep my school shirt on until last, take my pants off and hope it was covering enough of my bottom and hiding my jiggly bits enough until I pulled up my swimming trunks, then took my shirt off, but I was obviously visible. Other boys did actually go full naked in front of her before pulling trunks on, and when we got back we had to dry down in front of her and that shirt trick getting ready wasn't so easy, some boys dried with their swimming trunks on, she used to tell them that they couldn't dry properly like that, and others just took them off and dried while naked with her in the room keeping guard. I actually remember these things remarkably well! I do not remember much towel hiding, and it never occurred to me to do that either when slipping pants and trunks on and off. I think towels were too tiny to tie around even our young waists.

Our teacher never stood in the girls changing room watching them, they were allowed to get on with things and line up by themselves when ready to be led to the pool. I think even 9 year olds know when an adult is slightly taking a few big liberties with their position and reasons. Having three male children she must have felt easily gave her the right to stand in on the boys in her class as we changed for swimming like that. She did the same for PE too much of the time.

When I was in the year above, Mrs Veitch took us and she never set foot in our changing room, only gently tapping the door to tell us to hurry up or tap it louder if there was too much noise. But she left us alone. I think she may have had a daughter but no boys of her own.

Boys PE in the school hall in 1979 was shirtless and barefoot, similar to swimming really, so we got used to that style of appearance and being so alongside the opposite sex at that quite young age long before senior school beckoned. My comprehensive was very similar to what has already been written by others, plenty of shirtless PE and skins games, mandated showering, so I won't bore with all that.

Hi Alan,

'Justin, it might well be - in fact I think it was that those teachers were exceeding their authority. They insisted you shower and watch you do it?. I don't think they would dare do that today.'

In my experience teachers were very ready to exceed their authority.

From what I remember our teachers never used to stand and watch us in the showers, in fact I remember them making a deliberate point of not doing so. I never realised till reading this forum how unusual that was and it makes me speculate if there might have been some incident which a parent complained about and so the teaching staff were specifically directed not to stand and stare. Who knows.

We actually were left to get on with it by ourselves, it was a case of, get those balls out and no nonsense. Which we did. You weren't allowed dignity or vulnerability, those stayed on the benches with your pants and you got in there and got on with it. And it worked well enough.

I absolutely loathed my school days but honestly I don't remember any deviants. I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences, Alan. My school was like a real-life Grange Hill, with a cast of little bullies, nasty pompous tyrants and bumbling incompetents.

Comment by: Timothy on 16th June 2025 at 22:38
"I attended school in Leeds, where I was at a middle school in the mid fifties. I remember taking part in something called Children's Day back in 1955 and again in 1956 when I was ten years old. This took place in Leeds at the well known and large Roundhay Park area. It seemed like a huge event where schools from all over the area sent pupils to take part, many of us in sporting events and gymnastics. It certainly seemed well organised. I would describe elements of the day as being like a massive inter school sports day, but there was more than just sport about it. I am sure that members of the Royal Family once came to it, quite possibly even the young Queen.
There was one thing about it that fits in with this discussion a little which I remember well from both years I took part with my middle school. All the boys that went to the event, from whatever school, to do the sports and gymnastics did not wear shirts or vests. I remember all the boys as far as the eye could see from whatever school we came from were taking part in compulsory bare chests and so it was quite tricky to know exactly which boys were from which schools at some points. This is how I remember it, no boys at all, hundreds of us, without any tops on, and the crowds watching us were enormous. I think the event attracted many thousands of people to watch, and heaven only knows how many boys and girls from locally, it could be many hundreds or even a thousand or more quite possibly and all the boys went out shirtless. I might be wrong but I seem to remember some practice for events taking place also beforehand, as we mixed with other schools doing a variety of displays in synchronisation with each other in some very large groups, girls and boys took part alongside each other. This was not on a school weekday from memory but rather unusually for the day of rest which was important then I think, but may be wrong, that it took place on a Sunday. We all seemed to be very fit and active young children in those days and led disciplined lives."






I have just discovered two films from the 1950's about what you say on something called the "Yorkshire Film Archive" this evening after reading your comment from a couple of weeks ago. One of them is from the year you mention, the other from 4 years earlier. They both certainly corroborate your memory quite clearly, and in wonderful cine film colour. Maybe you can spot yourself.

Children's Day Leeds 1955, the gymnastics is mostly from 3 minutes onwards;

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/2499#:~:text=LEEDS%20CHILDREN'S%20DAY%20(1955)%20was,be%20asked%20to%20take%20part.


Children's Day Leeds in 1951, the boys gymnastics and PE begins around 5 minutes into it;

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/6222#:~:text=Description-,This%20is%20a%20film%20of%20Children's%20Day%20at%20Roundhay%20Park,boy%20in%20a%20policeman's%20uniform


This was apparently an event that took place at a place called Roundhay Park in Leeds for about 40 years from the early 1920's until the early 1960's involving lots of schools coming together from across the area.

The crowds watching are absolutely vast from one angle in one of these films. It's all very disciplined and choreographed, militaristic some might say, but it was the 1950's. A huge number of children are taking part, both boys and girls.

The boys doing the mass PE are almost without visible exception all barechested doing this, which suggests it was mandatory to be so, from whatever schools came together for it, they turned out exactly the same, even down to the black shorts, a look I recall all too well myself.

Looking at the boys here from the 1950's at these events was a reminder of my own sports days of the early 1980's which looked just the same for us boys, and was a big event with lots of spectators, but obviously nothing on this kind of grander scale.

I hope the links I've pasted up work so you can see this Timothy if you haven't before, and for any others. Apparently today (July 3rd) was the 70th anniversary of the 1955 event, and as there were many other children's days maybe others can find even more films from them. I struck gold finding your 1955 one Timothy. I noticed one film was showing up on the BFI (British Film Institute) site but was classed as unavailable to view.

It showcases perfectly the barechested culture of British PE for boys in this era and the decades that followed, as well as considerable fitness we used to be drilled into, and to not expect to feel self conscious even in front of crowds while we did it. I know the feeling well, and like Lance has said, I agree fully, I remember many times the butterflies and sinking feeling I got at the prospect of this kind of barechested PE, the sports days especially where tops were not allowed on, but after a year or so of getting this drilled into you, you do begin to lose the anxiety and fall into total acceptance of your lot.



Greg2, there was a great post you made about March this year that I always intended to answer but I was away shortly after spending a few weeks in LA, so I've been doing catch up since I returned in late May. I was reading pages of this site on a borrowed iPad on the 10 hour flight home on a BA A380 Airbus, and if you fly the same plane with Emirates you can actually have a shower at 38,000 feet on the flight because they give each passenger, not sure if it's just first class, a set five minutes of hot water to do so. If that had been available on the British Airways I would have done it just for the sake of being able to say I had done it even if I didn't need it. The mile high club of showering, alone, or do some pair up. Probably not the room even on those massive aircraft.

One other thing about LA, a lot of much older men in the age bracket of those on here, in their 40's and 50's, and even older than that like hanging out at places like Long Beach, Sunset Beach, Laguna Beach and even downtown LA in back to front caps, on skateboards and without tops on and just know they look good with a certain arrogance about their body language, acting like men and boys under 25.

Hi Justin Carney,

I think your story is absolutely standard for the time and even up to the present day. Boys have always been treated as second-class citizens. But apparently we rule the world.

I was at secondary school the same era as you, maybe just a few years younger. My school year went on a field trip that same time, somewhere up north as well.

We boys were given somewhat more leeway than you. Told at the start of the trip that hygiene was essential and we better get into them showers or else. But then we were just left to get on with it, it just being presumed we would do as told. When myself and an other boy were caught out having not showered our male teacher just indulged in a moment's mild exultation, as in "ah-ha-ha, I've caught you out" sort of thing and then gently ordered us into the showers on the spot.

We were intercepted on the way by Towel Lady, who I have mentioned before, who proceeded to scald our eardrums before threatening to strip us herself and stand over us and inspect us while we showered, which was something none of our male teachers, not even the really nasty one, ever did or even threatened, in reality. We totally believed her and meekly stripped and showered, feeling quite chastened and with our ears still ringing.

She was just a bully, who located two easy targets and went in for the kill. Unfortunately back in those days' teachers could just take liberties and go beyond the bounds. And because they could they did. Which is why we nowadays have ofsted..

I was never at that age aware of any double standard. But then maybe that was just me. Maybe I just wasn't noticing.

The 'In Loco Parentis' rule dates back, I believe, to the 1920s, where it was concocted to excuse a headmaster who had severely beaten a boy and was facing assault charges. Corporal punishment was coming into to its last days in in the first half of the 1980s. It was on the cards, it was gonna be abolished and so 'in loco parentis' was regularly invoked in the media.

It was all pure bollocks. My parents were my parents. They were the only people 'in loco parentis'. Some pompous little mini-tyrant with a rod in his hands, who felt all twisted up because he had failed to qualify for the bar exam, or get into banking or IT, was not.


I remember the real heyday of impromptu stripped-off-ness of was in primary school. I have stated previously how prevalent the practice seemed to be of getting boys -- and girls - out of their clothes in infant school. Whether it was PE or the annual school play or the traumatic, lingering horror of medical exams, there always seemed to be some justification for getting us into just our pants and bare feet. I mean, even our parents didn't do that to us.

Talking of sixth-form school residential trips, some time ago I did a facebook 'deep-dive', if you will, into my old school. Seemingly, back in the late-'60s, there was a regular residential trip to a stately home up the west-midlands,

This one year the sixth-formers snuck out to liven things up by buying alcohol from the village nearby. Unfortunately one of the returning girls was discovered and made to fess up and the whole thing was blown open. ,

The girls involved were made to hand over their stash and that was that. The boys involved had to take it in turn to make their way up to the room which the nuns (Yes, some of the teaching staff at my school were nuns, it was a weird place) had commandeered as a common room where they were expected to touch their toes to be lashed over their backsides with leather straps.

These boys were senior boys of seventeen or so. It is incredible they submitted to it.. t just makes me glad I wasn't born until the 1970s.

Simon W said -

<I used to get really very nervous anticipating shirtless PE lessons at school to the point I sometimes felt slightly nauseous with a queasy stomach, so the thought of it actually gave me a real physical reaction at times>


Same here. I didn't like anyone telling me to do much in school, but I really didn't like our sports teachers telling me to remove my top and be bare chested. I liked it even less when they ordered us into the showers with bare everything. It gave me stomach flutters too Simon.

There's one thing among many that I remember about one PE teacher who took us for football in PE in the mid 1970's and it's that he weaponised shirtlessness against boys as a sanction on them. If you were not pulling your weight in PE he'd be up at you, start pulling your football top and make you get it right off and fall to the floor for press ups. The removal of the top was clearly designed as part of the sanction he applied.

You never did PE for very long at my school without becoming shirtless at some point, either sticking out as the only shirtless boy in class for some reason or the full class shirtless. The term for being shirtless was always - skins - some boys clearly recoiled when that got said aloud and the finger was pointed at them to peel the top off.

I found it easy to take. I often welcomed a shower after football which could be quite messy. Showering was rarely avoidable. I never had a problem with them forcing me to do that.

Comment by: Justin Carney on 3rd July 2025 at 14:53
'Back at home at that time I only ever used to have one bath per week, and never had anything more than a quick face wash before school at a sink basin, and I think many others would have been the same then. Did any boys here ever have a daily morning shower at home before going off to school in the seventies or eighties?'


I was a once a week bather, but we did have a basic dribbly shower at home. I used it now and then before school, not often though, and certainly there was no point on PE morning days as I'd be getting one at school guaranteed before the morning was out anyway.


Comment by: Alan on 3rd July 2025 at 18:39
'I used to shower every morning at home, in term time and holidays. But like me - I bet at home you were not watched as you did so?. That begs the question, if you were capable of being unsupervised during your ablutions at home, why not away?'


It's been said before I think, just imagine having your dad insist he stands at the bathroom door watching you stand there showering at any age from 11 to 16, and you'd be shouting at him to leave you alone and shut the door behind him, but not only were a number of PE teachers present while you showered, they actively watched and I have to say it, were staring straight at our penises quite often as they did so.

But everybody says the same don't they, wherever they went to school at this age, it's a very common theme of teachers watching on, sometimes uncomfortably close, yet there are no boys of secondary age who would put up with dad doing that, and no dads that would want to I'm sure. But your PE teacher, all's fine to be watching and looking away at you, and many others.

Supervising the boys changing room did not mean they had to literally have one foot in the showers watching our every move, something my own ones were frequently keen to do.

I don't normally want to rattle on about this kind of thing too much but when the contrast between your dad and your PE teacher was made it sure as hell made me think, 'yeah!' that's spot on weird when it dawns on you.


Were the teachers overstepping the mark in Justin's case, they'd probably just say they were doing their job, if you are away for a bit you have got to wash yourself and boys away at that age can get up to all kinds, my way would be to let them get on with it and decide for themselves. I noticed the double standard you mentioned Justin with the girlfriend, quite honestly it didn't surprise me to read that.