Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

James, Nick

Those satin finish shorts were definitely above my pay-grade. As they seem to have been tight-fitting, did you wear anything under them?

Nick,the Adidas shorts that I wore didn't have a cotton lining inside and were not lined.

I preferred Umbro shorts to Adidas as the Umbro shorts were not lined where Adidas shorts had a cotton slip inside.

I never liked wearing jeans or anything with a rough feel.

Nick,I agree to get the full effect of wearing those shiny satin shorts they should fit tightly.Certainly when most of my friends at that time ,most wore jeans on their school holidays,so I was slightly perturbed to be told that on the next shopping excursion that I was to be kitted out in some new shorts.
After going to many shops we eventually found an array of satin shorts by Adidas that was to my mothers liking and after trying on several pairs my mother decided on the colors that she preferred .
My simple request to purchase some jeans was turned down under the assumption that I wouldn't want to wear my new shorts if I wore jeans.
Most of my friends found it quite amusing to see me wearing satin shorts at 13

I agree James, the Umbro shorts in any colour were designed to be worn tight and I never really felt self conscious. It was the 80s and we didn’t worry about that.

If only they made them now and in adult sizes, ideal for these warmer days.

Mr Dando, I think this gender discrimination is outrageous too. The Chinese communists had the right idea with identical uniforms for all.

Phil we must use the school break to stop gender discrimination in schools. Even today boys are forced to swim in skimpy trunks and go topless whereas girls can wear one piece costumes. Here is one such academy!

https://woodslee.coopacademies.co.uk/parents/uniform/

P.E. and Games Kit – Foundation 2 – Year 6

· Boys and Girls: Black shorts, pale blue t-shirt with Co-op logo and black plimsolls. Navy blue jogging trousers can be worn during the winter months;

It is the responsibility of children, parents and carers to ensure that the correct Co-op Academy Woodslee PE uniform is worn at all times;
It is the responsibility of children, parents and carers that PE kits are kept in a named navy blue drawstring shoebag with Co-op logo;
It is the responsibility of children, parents and carers that named PE kits are kept in school during term time;
It is the responsibility of children, parents and carers that when swimming boys wear swimming trunks and not shorts. Girls should have their hair tied back preferably with a swimming hat;

Another school has mandatory shorts & optional tracksuits for boys while girls have mandatory tracksuits with shorts only an option.

https://harton-tc.co.uk/year-7-11/information/school/school-uniform-information/harton-academy-pe-uniform/

Boys
Essential items Optional items
School rugby reversible top Base layer top (black, navy blue or white)
Plain blue shorts Plain black or navy tracksuit bottoms
School blue/yellow hooped socks Swimming goggles
Football boots and shin pads Rugby mouth guard (strongly advised)
Training shoes (not plimsolls or Converse type) Swimming cap
Swimming trunks (not shorts)

Girls
Essential items Optional items
Navy school hooded sweatshirt Swimming goggles
White polo shirt with school name Plain blue football boys style shorts
Plain black or navy tracksuit bottoms Base layer top (black, navy blue or white)
Swimming costume (one piece blue or black) and swimming cap
Training shoes (not plimsolls or Converse type)

It is time we introduced a gender discrimination law in schools which mandated the same kits for both boys and girls. We should also ban rugby so boys would have no need for mouthguards.

Nick/Phil, I too loved wearing those soft, plush shorts and I enjoyed wearing them for home and when they became fashionable for sports at school. They were always purchased in an assortment of colors,but the ones that I wore for school to depict my house team was in yellow.
When we wore them a' little tight and to grow into them',rather than a cost cutting exercise it improved the look and style of the shorts.

Phil, I know I was lucky. I loved wearing the soft shorts both at school and at home.

I also had to grow into the shorts and wear them a little tight before new ones were purchased.

PhilJ we did a lot on the playing fields all year round as skin's vs vests or just skin's. Whipping your vest off on a cold day was as common as stripping to the waist in the gym.

Phil,I am sure we all felt the cold when going outside onto the playing field and of course we were required to wear minimal clothing which sometimes just meant wearing shorts. I was accustomed to wearing short trousers in the cold weather and when adults complained about the weather they expressed no concern for myself wearing shorts.

James, as we had to wear long trousers at school, putting gym stripping naked and putting on cotton shorts for PE in winter always felt cold, the changing room windows were wide open every day of the year. As you say though, for those of us kept in shorts at home of more adjusted to the cold more easily while lads who were used to longs all the time shivered and hugged themselves trying to stay warm.

At the time I never understood either why we were made to have cold showers after PE in winter but of course they used to burn and sting all over too and make you more red than you were already and of course now I know that a hot one would have been all the worse on that score, for once our PE master was being kind in making us all have a cold shower!

Phil, I do remember how our legs used to'burn 'when I came indoors and my thighs would be red raw with cold and our house didn't have central heating either, so it took a long time to warm up.
My mother also said that cold'legs are healthy legs for boys'but that didn't apply to girls as they were allowed to wear warm tights to keep warm. I couldn't understand how being so bitterly cold with cold legs could be a sign of being healthy. Funny how I thought that wearing shorts in cold weather was a distinct disadvantage,my mother thought it was beneficial.As you say being outside in plimsolls and shorts wasn't so bad as we were being active and some of the boys who wore long trousers would suffer more severely.

James, it certainly was cold in the winter in shorts but yet again, my mother maintained the cold was good for boys so my legs could be scarlet with cold and she said it was a sign of being healthy. Remember how your legs used to burn once you came back indoors in the winter even if the house wasn't that warm - ours never was and we certainly didn't have central heating.

Somehow that was worse than being outdoors for PE dressed only in white gym shorts and plimsols - no underpants of course - it never seemed quite as cold on your legs but I guess we were more active and on return indoors we were always made to have a cold shower which never felt so cold after being outside.

Phil,yes,I was used to hearing the usual platitudes about'boys needed air at their legs' and'boys looked much smarter in shorts',however no comments were ever made about how cold I would be during the cold winter months.Unlike yourself I didn't have the option to wear longs for school,although boys were allowed to if their parents preferred them to do so. I think their understanding would be that if I wore longs I would not wish to go back into shorts.

James, on the occasions anything was said about wearing shorts my mother used to maintain that boys needed air at their legs! When I had to start wearing longs at school, my father wrote to the school complaining that long trousers were not appropriate for boys of thirteen, fortunately he didn't get anywhere with that and so I had to have longs but on arrival home, I had to get changed.

The other line used sometimes was that boys looked much smarter in shorts and there would be plenty of time for longs later in life. Equally there was for this and many other things the 'my roof, my rules' line which you probably heard to, most of my friends heard it too and if you didn't hear it clearly enough, the cane cracking against your bottom would remind you!

Phil,I agree that there was no point in protesting about wearing shorts as failing to accept my parents demands would have dire consequences the same as you mentioned. Of course no logical explanation was given as why I had to wear shorts through my teenage years,but it was something that I grew to accept. By that age most of the boys were wearing longs and teasing was quite prevalent although most of the teachers tried to stamp it out. I always considered it most unfair to be tease as it was my parents' prerogative to maintain that I should wear shorts and not my wish.Of course when going through a period of adolescence it gave us a particularly youthful look which was probably my parents' desire.

James, at home there was never any point in protesting about anything because there was only ever one consequence to pushing too far so it was better to wear shorts at your waist with good grace than have them and your underpants around your ankles while you bent across the back of a chair!

I wasn't the only lad among my friends who suffered the same fate although most had longs. No one really bothered about it and we were almost never teased because it got back to the parents of one lad who did tease others and the next time we saw him he was in shorts too and he'd had the belt for his trouble. Others didn't risk the same fate.

In the 1960s and early 70s, rebellion was always put down quickly.

Phil,did you find it disconcerting wearing shorts at home when you were nearly 18 or did you wear them with alacrity? I'm sure many boys of that age would have rebelled and refused to wear them. Like yourself I succumbed and accepted wearing shorts until my parents would allow me to wear longs.

James, I totally agree, although at 13 I had longs for school I had to wear shorts at home right up to the summer I was eighteen and any complaint resulted in them coming down and bending over. A favourite saying of my parents was that 'boys were to be seen and not heard'. Making a noise resulted in you 'being given something to make a noise about'.

Nick, you were lucky with those shorts at school. For PE we had to have white cotton ones. My mother always bought them a size too big so that they would 'last'. They did indeed last. At first I almost had to hold them up and as I 'grew into them'. I had to outgrow them before I got new ones. In the end I had to squeeze into them and even then she would say they could last another term at which point they were indecent and they used to chaff badly - she always starched white things so they would rub badly on the tops of my legs and up the crack of my arse.

Danny, you clearly had a different experience to others. At my school the cane was in every day use. It was not the first line of attack in PE, that was the slipper but the cane was used too. Other masters only used the cane and it was used with frequency, as I said earlier, carrot and stick without the carrot was the culture of the school.

Shiny Umbro shorts in white for PE, red or blue for house competitions and black for football were my uniform. I would wear them at weekends and in the holidays too.

Phil,boys wear frequently caned at the school that I attended ,usually for the slightest misdemeanor and like your parents mine were firm believers in corporal punishment, so I got the cane at home mainly for disobedience or talking back.
When boys go through a period of adolescence is a particularly awkward time and wearing short trousers for school and changing into satin shorts for home was extremely galling.

Am I to understand that people would be given corporal punishment not just for actual blatant misbehaviour but for simply not being up to scratch and doing well enough during PE lessons? What kind of years are we talking about here? The closest I can come to this is when I had a teacher who picked up a towel in short tempered frustration one day after a lesson when he thought there had not been enough collective effort and proceeded to towel flick at about five of us as we entered the shower walking past him on his shower guard watch. I recall seeing him do it to a couple of the classmates ahead of me but thought he would stop and not do so to me as I was always well behaved and was utterly shocked when I also felt the swipe of this towel across my lower back and bottom, even though I felt it without it actually hurting. I held no respect for that kind of behaviour and loss of control and would never have responded positively to a PE teacher who thought it was acceptable to smack a towel across the rear of naked lads about to shower.

James, I wasn't a particularly bad lad - just average. The culture of the school was to cane first and ask questions afterwards or more often just to cane. Whether it was lower marks than you were expected to get, being late, two detentions in a term, almost anything, the cane was waiting and ready to impart a stinging message that you needed to do better or of course there was always plenty more where the last dose came from. It was just how it was, I know mates who went to other schools who barely got it if at all but at my school the cane was ever ready. My parents were both strong believers in corporal punishment and so I got it at home too.

Phil,what did you do to warrant such a harsh punishment?
At my school when we were caned it would be entered into the punishment book and then the number of times that I had been caned would go into my end of school report. When my parents read the report they would reiterate the punishment by the number of times that I had been caned at school.
It was my mother's preference that I wore satin shorts which as you say did little to hide my cane marks. Often when I was taken shopping I would wear blue satin shorts,polo shirt,short black socks and trainers.

James, the regime at my school was carrot and stick without the carrot!

There were always a number of striped bottoms to be seen in the changing rooms and showers, mine as often as any other. Shorts back then were short and it was quite common to see a lad who had been caned low down which of course was where it hurt most showing marks when wearing gym shorts.

The Adidas shorts though showed the ridges of the cane through them and certainly if you bent over in white ones the marks were quite clear. I only did that once at home and my father saw the results and that had painful, immediate consequences.

Phil,thank you for your reply, I agree the satin shorts which we wore were nice and comfortable to wear and of course became very fashionable. I couldn't wait to get out of my school uniform short trousers to wear my satin shorts when I got home. Of course it was very distressing and alarming to be caned for wearing the wrong kind of shorts and the cane marks could be seen below the hem of my shorts.

James, to think that shorts which were so nice, comfortable and I thought fashionable should have caused two sore bottoms! I bet we weren't the only ones either. Certainly our PE teachers were never slow on that score.

Phil, I wore those Adidas shorts at my mother's instigation and they were packed in my PE kit unbeknown to myself.I was caned on my bottom for nt wearing the right shorts that should have been plain and cotton material.
Actually I preferred them to my usual shorts and they had a beautiful shimmering effect.

James, I remember those Adidas shorts and I wanted a pair so badly but they were not allowed with school uniform which had to be cotton and plain white so my mother wouldn't buy them. I saved up for a pair and was so proud of them and took them to school where I wore them for gym and promptly had my bottom slippered for having the wrong shorts!

I did still wear them and they lasted until I was about thirty when they finally dropped to bits. They were so silky smooth and comfortable. I do have a similar pair these days made by Under Armour which I mostly wear to lie around the house in.