Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

Frank
I had to wear shorts up to the age of 13 (1971) ... most boys were like me in having to wear them to the end of junior school... only the taller boys were allowed to wear longs! I remember flares in the senior school a short-lived fashion, though. Seemed to be over before the end of the 70s.

This History site is quite quiet this year there were some good comments last year and the previous. I read some comments from respondents who will be in their sixties now boys having to wear those awful grey shorts as part of their uniform until as late as forteen I experienced this until 1973.99% of my friends and classmate were in long trousers by that year and fashions changed so much!IE flares!Did anybody else experience this?

Cont. Was not an issue but a perfectly normal procedure.p

To Dan Jones.how is your son finding Trinity school Nottingham?You had some issues about the showering policy at his middle school following P.E and Games.Judging by other comments on this and the Burnley site you are lucky to have such a hygene policy at Trinity.Nowadays many schools are lax about making showering mandatory after P.E and games encouraging pupils to be negligent in washing their bodies after physical exercise!I know I was educated in a different era and being naked with my classmates after P.E. and games posed no same or embarrassment for me personally.

Response to Neil and Roy.Some disciplining did occur in the changing rooms,some of my second year form received a couple of rounds on bare bottom.I incurred same for forgetting my PE shorts it didn't happen again as an alarm bell rang in my brain.Didnt seen anything untowards during my years there.

Derek

My experience and feelings, too. What school did you attend and in what years?

Certainly when I was at school we had open showers and I don't even recall masters being present but I suppose they must have been.
Nothing inappropriate ever happened as far as I recall and I agree with Derek that there is a lot of hysteria around these days in our PC world.

What kind of showers did you guys have at school?
I assume that today's schools have more private showers, unlike the ones we had in our days with open showers.

Our PE teacher also supervised us during showers and I don't think any teacher in his right mind would make any inappropriate move without risking losing his job or even prosecuted. So this talk about pervert PE teachers is just hysteria in my opinion.
In all my time at school I never saw or heard of any inappropriate behaviour by teachers, the only exception was maybe that some teachers used excessive corporal punishment which was what most of us boys were concerned about and which the school authorities did not seem to care much about.

I agree that it is unhygienic not to shower after PE especially if the sessions are followed as they often are by classroom lessons.

Dan - I find your comments about showers quite disturbing. It is really only common sense to shower after p.e. I remember most of us were a bit nervous to start with but soon it became a normal and quite enjoyable process.

Why did you find it a miserable experience - did you feel inadequate in some way or did your father project his fear on to you in the same way that it seems you might be doing with your son?

As for child protection issues - do you think the p.e. teachers are perverts waiting to pounce in front of the whole class when they are naked in the showers?

William & Dominic, I agree entirely with your comments, and Dafne, your right,it is gross not to shower after sweating in gym class. Until recent years it was normal for boys to wear just a pair of shorts with nothing underneath, no shirt, and perhaps plimsolls without socks.We were certainly made to sweat but glad that we were not wearing anything else and felt really great about ourselves and looked forward to getting in the showers afterwards.No wrapping ourselves in towels though, just shorts off and walked naked to and from the open showers. We were apprehensive at first but quickly gained in confidence & thought nothing of it. Dan, I appreciate how you feel; I have two sons and they had to shower naked after PE but you need to stop worrying and let your son lead his own life without him feeling anxious about his body because he knows that you are concerned about him in this way. We weren't concerned when our sons went to secondary school and they in turn had no problem about it.

Showers are definitely mandatory in my sons new school.

Please read the school rules below.

P.E. is compulsory throughout the school and children must bring the correct school P.E. kit and a towel for showers.
Hair Gel or other deodorants, cosmetics etc. are not allowed. Aerosol cans may not be brought to school.

This is at trinity nottingham

Dan, Dominic is absolutely right. You don't say why you think showers are humiliating. Bodies are natural; we all have one; we all know what they're like. At school we were alarmed at first but in no time forgot we were nude and that gave us confidence.

If your boy doesn't shower with the rest might he not become anxious or repressed about his body? It is sad to see young men in changing rooms so inhibited that they shower with trunks on when the groin is the last place you want sweat or chlorine. Dafne's right.

We still have showers at my school! I don't know if it's "mandatory" or anything but we all shower after gym class.. seems gross not to. Even the guys all shower as far as I know. I guess it is a thing we all get used to- have always showered after sweating at every school i've gone to. the showers at my school are pretty nice though. Always have warm water and even though its not fully closed off, there are some partitions for some privacy.. We just wrap our bodies in towels in between the shower room and locker room. Not sure how it is on the boys side, I assume pretty much the same

Dan - that is quite encouraging - a school that still has showers after p.e. Your son will only find that humiliating if he has been told it will be. If you are supportive and positive and point out that all the boys will be in the same position he might find it less of a problem. Most boys were a little apprehensive at first but after a few times thought nothing of it. If you arrange for your son not to take showers when the other boys do won't that cause him humiliation?

"Child protection" should really concentrate on actual dangers and should not be used as an excuse to get out of something you are not too keen on.

son moving up to middle school next year and having read the school brochure, saw it said about having showers after PE.
I can't believe (from my own experience) that they still subject chidlren to the misery of standing naked in a school shower with no curtains.

Can the school make the chidlren have showers after PE? I would have thought not due to child protection issues but not sure. Anyone know and anyone told the school that their child won't be having humiliating, naked showers after PE sad.

I'm late into this discussion but thought I'd add my experience. I went to an all boys prep school in Surrey from aged 9. Pe kit was shorts and white t shirt and black pump style plimsolls. Often we played games in and outside and one half would be topless as the skins team even when cold.

Our swim lessons were naked. At 13 you went up to the big school and were allowed trunks, if you forgot them it was naked and a spanking on the side of the pool from Sir with plimsoll. Designed I suppose to make sure you didn't forget again. Happened quite regularly though. For me twice, first time I was so worried as our lesson was late afternoon no time to go home but also no one to borrow a pair. Quite humiliating.

At the start of yr7 I think we were all an shocked about what we had to wear for PE that we all just got on with it. Later it became clear that for some girls, going topless was quite tough. I didn't really need a bra at that age but it still felt quite exposing to have to run around the gym with my chest bare, especially if a boy came in to get something from the store cupboard, or if we had a male teacher covering the lesson.

I think it was logical to wear the minimum clothing for PE to let the body breathe.
Unfortunately we have gone to the other extreme today of boys and girls doing PE in a full tracksuit in many schools. They don't even have showers after PE.
I think the "politically correct" society of today with its pedophile scare and multiculturalism have taken things too far.
I have recently been reading about public swimming pools in Sweden who are making separate swimming times for males and females to accomodate their large Muslim population culture. I wonder if this is also happening in some places in Britain.

Hi Hayley,

I'm glad we didn't have the same rules in our secondary school! Although I didn't start to wear a bra until the start of my second year, towards the end of the first year I was self conscious enough not to want my dad to see me without at least a vest on, let alone a male teacher!

Tim, We may have worn briefs in the late fifties and early sixties, but as you mentioned last month on the Burnley Grammar School site, when we changed for P.E.we had to wear gym shorts with nothing underneath,no shirt and plimsolls, so we were without any support from our underpants which weren't allowed in the interests of hygiene. After working up a sweat in the gym it was a pleasure to take our shorts off and all get under the showers together.

It seems incredible now that not so long ago year 7 (both male & female) had to do PE in just underwear especially as most boys would wear boxers and not the briefs like we used to wear
and which gave much more support.

Year 7 was ages 11-12. I guess that was quite old to have to do our lessons in just our knickers, but that was how it was and we didn't really question it.

It was a mixed school but PE lessons were done single sex. The boys has a similar rule and in year 7 had to do it in their underpants. Although our regular PE teacher was female, a few times we had a male teacher cover the lesson. That didn't alter what we wore (or what we didn't wear!).

Hi Hayley,
We had up to year 5 in primary and then Form 1 to Form 6 in secondary back in the 60s, so I assume that year 7 would have been age 12 or 13 which I think was a bit too old to do PE in just underwear. Even more so since you are talking about the 90s.

Was this a girls school, and if not what were boys made to wear for PE?
Did you ever have male teachers when you did PE in just knickers?

Hi Hayley,
I would imagine that for some, running around topless towards the end of year 7 must have been uncomfortable and embarrassing? Was it an all girls school, or mixed?

Our indoor PE kit was the same for all years at Secondary school - navy blue gym knickers and a white aertex shirt.

Our PE teacher had a rather different attitude to bras than yours; far from forbidding them to be worn, she would sometimes 'suggest' that it was time that certain girls started to wear one!

RobinC,

I agree with you that it would have depended on different factors whether swimming without trunks would have been enjoyable, or no big deal, or whether it would have been humiliating as in your case.

At what ages and under what circumstances were you made to take swim lessons nude at your school?
Was it private or public school and was it mixed or boys only?

Can you mention the factors which made your swimming lessons so embarrassing or degrading at your school?

Wow, so many posts! I've not read them all but I thought I'd add my own. My secondary school was pretty old fashioned when it came to PE and what we had to wear for it. I was there in the 1990s. We did lots of gymnastics rather than things like dance and circuits that are popular now.

Our PE kit changes as we went through the school. In the top two years we had gym knickers and aertex tops. In yr8 we had to do it in gym knickers and a white vest. But on yr7 we weren't allowed PE kit and had to do it in our underwear. What was worse though was that when the teachers said u derqear, they meant just our knickers. We weren't allowed for wear bras or anything else on top!

I've read Marshall's post and I also did swimming lessons without trunks but my experience of it was a lot different. None of us thought it was normal and we weren't comfortable with it overall. I think it's fair to say that Marshall's experience doesn't represent everyone who did swimming lessons at school without trunks. I think it depends on different factors.

Marshall's post made me think of my friend in junior school who rarely wore a shirt at home. His parents, as I recall, felt it was much healthier for their sons to go shirtless as much as possible, and when I went round to their house the boys were usually in just shorts.
When we moved up to senior school we suddenly learned that the boys' PE kit did not include a top of any description! This was quite a shock for most of us boys, who just weren't used to displaying our chests in public (other than while swimming). Not so for my friend, who was perfectly comfortable in shorts only, and couldn't understand why the rest of us were making a fuss!

Gerald you're right about most of us being shirtless at home. That's why we found doing PE shirtless perfectly normal. These days a lot of boys wear full pyjamas even in the summer. Clearly that will cause them to be more replied by shirtless pe