Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Paul 1975 on 17th May 2025 at 03:00



"...It was not quite so set in stone for PE like many of you guys when I was at secondary school, 1987 - 1992......."

I wish I had been a student at your school, Paul!. Your school embraced exactly the kind of regime I would have encouraged, you could wear what you like, so you were, all, automatically, relaxed and comfortable. You have also confirmed what I have always suspected, that most lads preferred to wear a top.

The shower thing - I like showers myself, and didn't object to taking them, it was our pervy P.E. teacher sizing us all up, so to speak, which I objected to.

Hi.

It was not quite so set in stone for PE like many of you guys when I was at secondary school, 1987 - 1992.

They were fairly relaxed in our school gym and you could make your own choice. Unlike many here I liked to get out of my restrictive school blazer, strangling necktie, shirt with top button done up, my long trousers and knee length socks and hard leather shoes, so I always preferred just getting along to gym in my bare chest and not bothering with either a tee shirt or a vest. I also liked the feel of being bare foot and did that too, and always took my pants off before putting on my PE shorts so I didn't put any clothes on that I'd worn for PE. I liked having an hour like that in PE doing gym.

How I seem to remember it was that it was a mixed bag among the boys, most did wear either a mix of tee-shirts or vests for PE, and boys like me who actually chose to wear nothing on top at all were the minority, I seem to remember about 5 or 6 of us would often be shirtless in the school gym for PE out of a class of about 20 to 25 of us. It was generally a mix of bare feet and trainers too, the majority wore trainers but not everyone chose to. Some who wore tee-shirts chose going bare foot, and some who went bare chests wore trainers.

Our teachers seemed fine with any combination going in the gym, and we had one quite young PE teacher in the late 80's who would frequently also do gym with us shirtless from time to time. I'm unsure why he chose the moments he did that, it was just here and there, rather random, but you noticed because teachers didn't usually take their own tops off to do PE with us.

I suppose this way kept us all happy. If you wanted your top off you could, if not you didn't. There were skins v shirts team games though where bare chests were asked of boys to make up the teams, I seem to recall it was mostly done for basketball, but do recall volleyball and indoor football the same.

I never ran a shirtless cross country, and reading this now I rather wish I'd been brave enough to give it a go. I don't think the teachers would have minded, but the weather when we did them always seemed the worst. We never ran cross country in the spring or summer. I did do a lot of summer sports outside with my top off like in the gym though.

When it came to showers that was where the freedom to choose ended. Nobody could refuse to shower properly at school and they made you do it, fully stripped bare with nothing on. Luckily for me I liked having a shower at school and didn't mind sharing the deed, and I do think making us do that was sensible even if it does give some people a nervous breakdown. School showers were never that bad in the end where they, after three or four years everyone was well used to doing that. I did notice how some teachers took more notice of us doing that than others. None ever attempted to share though.

Mark, I watched that and it's true. I did swimming for the final two years at primary school and the first two at secondary school, and swam at one of our swimming galas, a series of races for the stronger swimmers at school. At that age there did seem to be some quite big girls compared to us, I can remember them now and boys did seem to be less big than some girls before we had our own growth spurts. I did swimming and PE with girls and wasn't in the least bothered if they saw me shirtless or in a small pair of swim trunks, and if we had to share the gym PE with girls I was no less likely to choose to do it without my top on like I did just with boys only.

I think the only difference between people like me at school and others on here is that I didn't think too much about it and it seems like others did. My own physical appearance was not earth shatteringly awesome, I was a normal looking schoolboy with a slim to medium sized physique and a pale while skinned body much like others.

Here's another one of those children's schools TV programmes showing up a bunch of boys (bare chests of course!) and girls at the age of 12 for their differences at the same age, poolside.

There's a clearly overweight boy in this. I bet he was picked for that reason too. Imagine that, and for TV.

Everybody's Different - https://youtu.be/QyJAo5SAT68?feature=shared&t=277

Comment by: Martin on 15th May 2025


What some people may not get Martin is that it's very hard for men and boys to admit to certain feelings, even online from relatively safe anonymity.

It must have been a very big deal if so many of you are now saying things like this after such a lengthy time has passed in most cases.

I was a crushingly shy schoolboy in my youth (the late 80s and 90s) and was not very sporting at all, I'd much rather have gone and read a book or done something else. I knew I was going to find comprehensive school PE really difficult and so it proved. I remember a chat with my parents and it was actually my dad who first informed me that thought I would have to shower at school after PE because he had done this. I thought he was joking, and remember saying - but they can't make you do that can they - and he told me they could. I remember being absolutely frantic about this discovery as an eleven year old, still about six months away from even starting comprehensive school and the transition arrangement to go up.

In the June we went up to the school for a pre-arranged visit where our teacher guide took us all around and tapped on various doors where a teacher would come out and say hello. I especially remember the metalwork teacher and looking in and being interested in what they were doing. Then we walked off to the school sports hall and the door was already wide open and you could hear the lesson going on, so we waited outside while the attention of the PE teacher was got from our teacher guide, I could already see a few boys inside and none seemed to have a top on. The PE teacher came out and invited us to quickly look inside the sports hall and I couldn't believe it but everyone in the lesson was shirtless. I had so many questions but he didn't take any and we went off quite quickly, but the boys in there stuck in my head. I'd never done PE like that before and absolutely didn't want to very much either. I was thin with a very slim waist.

So there was this prospect of doing PE shirtless to come and showers as well, everything that set me off into big time worry about myself and I was horribly concerned by all of it. Plus I was already informed they were going to make me play regular football and rugby, neither which I had any liking for at all and actually couldn't stand the thought of.

On top of all that, I was a very early onset puberty at age eleven as well, this only became apparent to me when I started and had to use the showers for the first time. I was the only boy in the whole class with very obvious signs of puberty and some very thick and noticeable hair and size. I would have done anything to avoid the school showers anyway, but this made it so much worse and got me targetted with comments like - do you stroke it to make it that size - a reference to the hair I had and being a bit bigger than the others. There was some really awful shower taunting and the teacher took no notice of it. My dad had been right, they could make you take these showers at school and there was little say I got about it, horrible when it means being naked and self conscious. There was always some messing around in them and comments, the quiet boys always the targets.

There was no top to wear for PE in the school sports hall, just like I'd seen on our visit. I really struggled with this requirement because although I hit puberty very early I didn't feel I had the upper body to match and was forever thinking I was not getting as big as I should with my body and disliked even having to look at my own shirtless body in my early to mid teenage years. Nearly everything I did in the school sports hall didn't need me to be shirtless, and I was often quietly angry about it to myself when I started, but I was also highly aware when I began these kind of PE lessons how much my heart would pump faster as I got changed and went to PE in my shirtless body, I could feel my heart easy with my shirt off and it raced through the nerves this whole situation at school gave me.

For me, all this was torture for a long time. I built up a tolerance to it but never got used to it.

The PE teachers were all fine, but despite that, none seemed to have any sense that some of us find all these things extremely difficult and hugely nerve wracking.

Why was it important to PE teachers to make us do the lesson shirtless anyway, and I could never believe how madly severe and strict they all were about imposing mandatory communal showers on the whole class after PE, hurrying us all up to strip naked and get in as if our lives depended on it. That is not a pleasant experience for shy and quite lads.

When I enrolled at secondary school the uniform requirement for boys was long trousers or short trousers.There wasn't a debate about this phenomenon at home,my parents agreed that I had the physique and the statue to continue wearing short trousers as I had only a 26"waist and could wear shorts with a two inch inside leg.When I attended my new school I informed my mother that there were over 200 boys wearing long trousers and I was they only boy in my class in shorts,to which she replied'you are not an ordinary boy,'

David Borthwick has natural understated comedic talent and I also found myself amused and chuckling away at a few of those comments.

I also take any top off over my head (how else) by grabbing the back of the neck and sliding it forward in one move. That's the easy way, I have even been known to remove short sleeved shirts that way because I can't be bothered with the buttons! Isn't the other way of doing it, by grabbing the front crossing your arms the way that men like strippers do it to look all sexy and suggestive. They never pull from the back of the neck do they and over the front. I've never even thought about it before, that's just come to me as I ponder my reply here.

Borthwick, look what you've started! Sorry, I meant David. Discussion on surname only by teachers has been a previous mention on here. Is it rude, or is it practical, or something else? There were about 3 Chris's, 3 Robert's and 3 David's in one of my classes at school, names were often duplicated two or three times, sometimes four times a class. Mine wasn't ever though. Some people don't care if they are called by their surname only, others do. Most of mine used my surname alone, but there was one who called me Terry and it did make him seem friendlier at the time.

Good points also about changing rooms. We were introduced at a young age to the need for communal hygiene that was strictly expected in most schools after PE lessons but it was also that communality and often the dampness of everything that went together to spread things about. The school cleaners were known to clean the classrooms but did they go and clean the changing rooms, and what about those shower areas, who cleaned them properly each day, regular school cleaning ladies didn't do that did they, or maybe they did? Any old school cleaners out there let us know.

Regards all this measuring and perfection. Perfection isn't perfect because if you are perfect then the only way is down. Poor Mickey will now be wondering what the perfect belly button is. Isn't what you get there down to how they snip you off at birth? You need a midwife who can tie a nice little bow or something, or maybe I'm completely and idiotically wrong.

At school, or even out of school, children pick up on any kind of perceived imperfections going don't they and some will pick them out on others. It's probably surprising how few of us made personal comments to each other in PE lessons where we stripped off and showered with no clothes on, all our potential imperfections laid bare for scrutiny, and that is probably at the root of why so many hated such things.

David Borthwick on 12th May 2025 at 22:31, what great comments. Your well made points made me laugh. I think you should have just gone ahead and booted the football into the middle of next week. Not sure how your games teacher would have reacted, but it would have been a memorable moment. I used to feel sorry for kids who so obviously had no interest in football, but unlike my two older brothers, I just did. My dad always followed football and perhaps was waiting for a son to come along who showed more interest. He eventually took me to my first football match when I was 7

Whenever I took a top off, I was always a, ‘Grab the back of the neck and pull off over the head forward in one go’ type of person, and I still am.

I really do hope the 231mm size you gave is the distance between your nips and not the size of them…but as this measurement transfers closely to the magic 9 inches, then yes this must prove that you are indeed, perfect :)

Thanks Greg for that wonderful reply to me, I really appreciate how you are prepared to answer so fully to anything asked.

Isn't it often the way that those with the least to worry about often are the ones that spend time worrying, such as overly shy boys with good looks and a physical appearance to match. Often, like the 'ugly naturist' comment that was made, those who are not as great to look at don't seem to care much about it. There seems to me to be a sweet spot where it's good to be, with just the right amount of self awareness without it being a problem turning into excessive self consciousness or shyness, and too little self awareness that can maybe make you act over confident, arrogantly or inappropriately.

I remember being told in my younger days that girls really were attracted to bad boys for some reason, but then I met someone who told me she liked shy lads a lot, so take your pick!

I've actually got a hair comment too from school. What a silly thing to suggest a lad wafting his hair from his eyes like himself too much. At least they didn't tell him to cut it. I remember having a lot of hair at one point and a side parting with it combed from left to right. I always liked it looking just right but if it was windy at school it blew everywhere and looked a mess and made me self conscious. I always took a comb to school. One breezy day I was caught looking in a doorway window while outside using it as a mirror to check my hair and was accused of being vain or something like that by a teacher who approached out of nowhere. It was lunch hour. He then ruffled my hair up a bit. This was in my primary school when I was 10! I remember this phase because for some reason I had to keep looking to make sure I looked alright in front of a reflective window when outside. I hated wind blowing my hair all weird at school. But this period passed and I think the solution was to get a shorter cut or something.

The while still at primary school someone told me I walked with 'a bounce' which I didn't understand. I went home and told my mum and she agreed! I then used to walk past shop windows in town and try to see what they were on about and could never understand it or see it. I remember having to get up and walk to the front in assembly one day and was intensely thinking about the way I was walking up front. This must have gone on for a year or so, self conscious about the way I was walking, as a primary age boy. This phase also passed and was never mentioned again, and still remains mysterious to me because I walked quite normally as far as I could tell, but it fed into self doubting.

I don't know about you Greg, or anyone else here, but I always heard the criticism loudly and tended not to hear or absorb any praise. I feel the criticism from family, friends and school teachers always outweighed all the praise. This may or may not be true however.

I spent six years at a grammar school in the 1950s, and in all that time the boys in the school gym there wore an all white PE kit of plimsolls, short white socks, small white shorts and a simple white t-shirt, no vests, only t-shirts, so not even a bare shoulder.

When we were outside we were always covered up too, and wore the same white t-shirts for summer athletics. At no time were we ever asked to do PE lessons with our t-shirts off and remain without as a bare chest.

The only time any of us saw each other without clothing on was while changing and obviously there was the mandatory shower to be taken without fail.

We did some swimming but not a huge amount, and went on a couple of school trips, one involved time at the coast where we swam in the sea, but but that was the sum total of it, not a lot really.

We never even did any of this PE shirts against bare chest skins type of thing that seems to have become popular later on.

When I joined the RAF on leaving school we would do PT sessions and none of those involved us doing the PT without a proper PT kit on which always included top, vests permitted as well as t-shirts and plimsolls. Even in the RAF it was uncommon to see anyone doing PT without full and proper kit on.

But it does seem to me that somewhere along the line, making note that the boys of 1959 are shirtless for their grammar PE, after I went to school there became this new fashion within schools to discard the need for t-shirts doing PE and go to a very basic, almost beach style way of doing things that become quite widespread across most schools for a long period of time and boys of the 70s and 80s seem to be common here saying these things more than others. I had no boys, only girls, so can't compare.

The effect of this on some people appears to have been deeply profound. In my RAF days there would not have been one of us who would have hesitated to do our PT in a bare chest if that was asked of us but obviously going to school is slightly different as a minor.

Our secondary school was very keen on school PE for boys being done in bare 'skins' chests. I remember having to remove and not wear a top in PE over many years there. Not baring your chest in gym PE would be very unusual. None of it voluntary, all teacher/school instructed.

Schools used to send regular newsletters home didn't they in the days before online was a thing. Our secondary school did this with a monthly A4 we got given to take home. I should think most people just read them, kept them a few days and threw them away.

When I was clearing some of my late parents bits up a couple of years ago I discovered they'd kept literally everything related to my schooldays. Photo's I didn't even know existed, even official class ones I couldn't even remember being taken, and a whole raft of paperwork and school letters, including the monthly newsletters I would bring home.

In one of them from the time I was in secondary school it is clear the school was attempting to deflect parents from making contact about certain PE related issues at the time.

In a newsletter home dated 23rd September 1977, by which time I myself was actually a fourth former so not a new boy, there is a piece about incorrect PE kit being brought into school by many new pupils and reminding parents what is expected. There is also a line which says - "I would like to remind parents that we do not need telephone calls to school regarding PE unless it is medical related. All our pupils are expected to take part in PE and shower fully unless there is a valid medical reason not to do so. No other reasons are valid. Please remind your child of this, make sure they bring the correct items and a towel."

This gives me the impression that in 1977 my school in that month must have had some parents ring the school up and mention this. It could have been girls parents or boys, it doesn't say. Something about the newbies of 1977 got up the nose of somebody, the school receptionists were a bossy bunch of women, I could see them complaining about moaning parents on the phone. The newsletters were written by the headmaster or his deputy and and signed off by both.

These newsletters had no photos on them, it was just type written but they did put various school PE sporting achievements into them and the results with our names.

When I started in in 1975 they listed the boys PE (gym) kit as "boys go shirtless", so that was quite clear to everyone male at school. When we did team games in gym we simply had to wear a silly little annoying blue or yellow ribbon over one shoulder and under the other arm diagonally across the body to denote which team we were.

I think most of us at school in those days had far better body image than they do today with young people wanting to constantly modify what they look like or stick another tattoo on themselves. We shared showers with each other, did our PE without our shirts on and most of us were fairly rounded sensible and natural looking youngsters not wishing to be something we were not.

Comment by: Mark on 12th May 2025 at 15:46

Hi Mark, I’ll try to get this out of the way first. I never liked the term, ‘Adonis’ but I have dug myself into a bit of a hole here haven’t I, which I sort of dreaded. I just wanted to try to expel a few things from memories over the years, and I did have a few strange moments when growing up. All I’ve written was just how it was, and I do understand it could be taken as a writing by someone with an inflated ego about themselves, but I’m just not like that. I do come from a good looking family, so there’s not much I can do about that, but at times this didn’t mix too well with someone who hated attention and was always a bit self-conscious. I certainly used to get fed up with older girls asking me about my older brother, who’d just left the school the year before I arrived at 11. My sister, 12 years older than me, was the one in the family who lapped all this up much more than myself or my brothers ever did.

I think we all just had a slightly different look about us somehow, maybe because of our German/Northern European background? This very appearance our headmaster seemed to dislike about us so much, as he’d been in the RAF during the war and so hated the Germans, so both my brother and myself immediately copped it from him. For instance, my elder brother’s hairstyle always had a long, floppy fringe, that used to hang down when he worked at his school desk, so that when he looked up he had to move it out of his eyes, as you would. Can you believe that the headmaster once complained to my German mother at a parents’ evening, that he thought my brother fancied himself rather too much as he was always running his fingers through his hair! What utter nonsense! Thankfully I never had such a hairstyle as my hair was always an unruly thick mop that stuck up everywhere. But my sister did say she’d swap her straight hair for mine anytime, which I would have happily done!

No, I certainly didn’t ever feel full of confidence when I had to get my kit off, and would describe myself as being naturally bodily shy from an early age. I was even uncomfortable wearing swimming trunks during school swimming in front of the staring girls, and never liked school showers. I remember I was the first one out of there my first time, and already with my shirt back on before I’d dried myself, which got me my first shouting at by our gym teacher. My first school shower experience was delayed but reinforced that it was coming, due to having to attend gym for weeks but not being able to do the lesson due to still recovering from a bad leg fracture that happened during the summer between the two schools. So it was towards the end of the second term before I eventually arrived, by which time the other boys were all so used to showering, having shared that first experience together; but I wasn’t, as I’d missed all that. This seemed to make the moment of my first school shower even more awkward for me, as for weeks the others had been asking me when I’d be joining them in there, so that when this time did arrive, I felt like I was even more on display. But at least by then I’d already discovered that I was very average down there, so like all the others, just got used to it by becoming resigned to it… rather like I’d had to get used to the morning ritual of naked bed baths given by two nurses before I could eat my cornflakes every morning, when previously in hospital with my leg in traction for months on the children’s ward; I really hated that too.

Now the measuring student moment. He seemed to just appear one day after we’d all got changed for gym. I don’t remember being told, but perhaps the others had been. I think we all found it quite interesting actually, as I'm sure I remember him explaining about what he was doing, and at least it was a change from the usual shouting we all had to put up with from our gym teacher.

He seemed keen on the differences of measurements between joints, and how these all differed slightly on us all. So things like wrist to elbow; elbow to shoulder etc. Then similarly on our legs. I do remember he even measured our hands and fingers, then writing all this down. I know he spent several minutes on each of us as we stood on the bench in front of him, while others waited their turn and just sat and watched. It does seem strange now I agree, but things like this must have gone on somewhere if someone was doing a particular study of research I suppose. I think he seemed to be interested in how we all differed from one another as much as anything else, and in some way trying to confirm a theory of how he thought we’d be when grown up. We couldn’t possibly understand any of this at the time, and so just did as asked. But having given this some thought again after all these years, he must have been doing some research for his thesis or something, as all degree subject students would have to do. Perhaps it was something to do with a growing body during the years of puberty? Thankfully we were all allowed to keep our shorts on!

People describing their body shapes and the discussion about being measured (never happened to us, how bizarre!) leads me back to being very self conscious about my belly button more than anything else. I didn't mind shirtless PE in theory (mainly shirts and skins) and showers were just something you did. But revealing my upper body, including the putie navel, was the awful thing!

It's funny in a way, looking back now. No idea why they are so unusual.

Comment by: Jeff on 12th May 2025 at 20:38




"........Without wanting to single out Phil's young son, I'll speak in more general terms. It seems to me that the average twenty something year old nowadays acts like anything that happened before they were born was unlikely to have really happened if it wasn't exactly the same as they live their lives now......



Some people consider the imposition of shirtless PE or mandatory showering as abusive acts, especially when demanded of those who were unhappy about it or shy, sensitive or unconfident. I disagree, that is a poor argument to make. Making boys like many of us on here run cross country in our skins against the elements or do general PE shirtless was not abusive it was more about self discipline and moving us out of a place where we might have felt more comfortable to remain in, and there's nothing wrong with that. Pushing the limits of our endurance maybe. That's how I saw it and still do.

Over the past day or two I've heard a 101 VE Day veteran say he doesn't think the young of today have what it takes to defend our country or hold the same values he did when he was 20. You sit up and listen to men like that when they say that. It was one of the saddest things I've heard anyone say all year. I do hope he's wrong. Some of the things we went through at school as youngsters are nothing compared to what men his age did as youngsters......."

A few comments, only, Jeff. A man of 101 would have gone through things we can't even imagine. No doubt his parents would have been affected by the great depression in the late 1920s and throughout his childhood the ugly machinations of Nazism in Germany from 1933, when it must have been obvious war was coming, then the unimaginable horrors of the war itself. That said, all of us think the young people of today are not so good/tough/robust as we were. No doubt in 30 years time the teenagers of today will think exactly the same. It's human nature. That said, I am sure boys in the nineteen thirties were not preoccupied with their pronouns, and fretting they were born the wrong sex, or even the wrong species. Neither did we - or I HOPE we didn't!. I never thought I was a tabby cat or an Aberdeen Angus. I doubt any of us did. The longer school goes on, the more we are encouraging teenagers to act like children. I learned more in my first year at work, and in the band, than I did in the whole of my secondary education. These days they are restraining the teenagers from growing up and finding independence, which I think is as ugly as the mad doctors (and politicians) who want children to be allowed to take "puberty blockers". I am convinced that this "control" the state wants over what are virtually young men is what sparks a lot of the bad behaviour we see - low level vandalism, smoking marijuana etc. Let them leave and find that independence we all need. Prolonging childhood is the problem, not what they are not "allowed" to wear - as a result today a lot of young men and women seem helpless - expecting help from "the bank of mum and dad", an expression that was unheard of twenty years ago. If you wanted something you had to go out and earn the money to pay for it. These days, through no fault of their own, they are kept in school till they are 18, if they have no job to go to (and finding a job is a grown up adventure in itself), thanks to the dreadful economic policies of so many governments of the past few decades - really reaching a crescendo today with an inept Chancellor.

On this never ending question of communal showers and minimal kit - when you are at school the teachers (God help us!) were acting in "loco parentis", but I am willing to believe that no parent of a 16 year old stands over him when he is in the shower to ensure he washes properly, then or now. If they did they would be regarded with deep suspicion by both their son and the neighbours. As people keep bringing up physicality, lets be frank about it - they mature much earlier and these days a lad of 12 looks not much different to how we did at 15/16.

I am honestly glad that Phil's son can't imagine the sort of stuff we went through, and I hope that many, many more are treated with dignity and respect now. Teachers demanded "respect", but it is never to be demanded - only earned.

David Borthwick makes some excellent points - what PRACTICAL use was football to most of us?. - except the very few who might have had a chance of carving a career out of it, and I believe in natural talent. If a lad has a gift it will develop naturally - you can;t instill it in everybody, and for those really proficient, an hours lesson will be neither here nor there, and, like David, our changing room and shower often smelt worse than a zoo-keepers boots.

Comment by: David Borthwick on 12th May 2025 at 22:31


Great comments! Quite accurate and humorous David.

I spent many miserable mornings in PE over autumn and winter continually being told to and having to demonstrate how to dribble a football between my legs across the grass. WHY? This is not a skill that has served me any purpose in life whatsoever, but week after week on wet grass the PE teacher was on our backs about learning this vital skill as he saw it. The only thing I ever really wanted to do with the ball was boot it right over the fences and into the nearby back gardens.

Rope climbing. We were made to reach the top, I got rope burns coming back down too quickly, sliding rather than climbing back down. I couldn't get back down quick enough. What practical use is rope climbing unless you want to be a sailor climbing the rigging. If I want to climb up to something I will get a ladder.

The school showers - 30 boys all pretending they are fine being told to do this in a stripped naked state with each other but at least three quarters just wanting to get the hell out of there as quick as possible, dry and cover up and pretend we haven't been clocking all the ample selection of willy's on display when we have. The great lie of the school showers. Never mention another classmate's penis even though we're all there with them out up close. The great silence. I first noticed at school how much they wiggle when you walk with nothing on. You cannot walk and keep one still. I wish I'd had a brother.

Being a skin in PE and always feeling victimised by it. Skins again. Discovering there are two ways boys take their tops off, are you a grab the back of the neck and pull off over the head forward in one go, or the arms across your chest and pull up from the bottom and off inside out type. If there was a third way I didn't see it. I was the first.

The entire PE staff who had a total phobia about using anyone's christian name. How rude was that! Did they even know our christian names? Was it a sign of weakness to slip up and use a christian name. How they liked emphasising Borthwick. They were Sir of course, or Mister.

Bare feet. Don't dare mark the sports hall floor with your wrong trainers. Bare feet were common. I was drawn to looking at other bare feet, was anyone else? I thought they were looking at mine. Feet could be ugly, the boy with huge size 12s, or really nice. I noticed the nice ones, just like a shiny pair of new shoes. Our bare feet stayed only in the gym class. Outside, never! I'd have to use the nail brush on my feet as well as my fingers if that was the case. Obsessions about fungal foot infections, the dreaded V word.

I had an aversion to dirt and germs and sharing them with others. The changing room was an overused, damp odd smelling flea pit. A place of hygiene, a place of speading anything going around more like.

Sudden unannounced press ups. When the teacher had a spare moment, more press ups, just for the hell of it. Keep going until you fall flat on your face on the verge of an asthma attack. Feel unwell, the PE teacher suddenly becoming your qualified GP and pronouncing you're alright while gasping for every breath or struggling with a pulled muscle or tendon. Suspected fractured bone, it can wait until we finish. Now do the parallel bars with your broken wrist.

My rather attractive nips are 231mm Greg, I'm nothing but precise, that appears to be the magic 9 inches, you needed to know that I think you'll agree, am I perfect then?

It must be a year since I last looked in on this thread. Plenty of reading to catch up on.

Without wanting to single out Phil's young son, I'll speak in more general terms. It seems to me that the average twenty something year old nowadays acts like anything that happened before they were born was unlikely to have really happened if it wasn't exactly the same as they live their lives now.

I did the same Phil as you.

Some people consider the imposition of shirtless PE or mandatory showering as abusive acts, especially when demanded of those who were unhappy about it or shy, sensitive or unconfident. I disagree, that is a poor argument to make. Making boys like many of us on here run cross country in our skins against the elements or do general PE shirtless was not abusive it was more about self discipline and moving us out of a place where we might have felt more comfortable to remain in, and there's nothing wrong with that. Pushing the limits of our endurance maybe. That's how I saw it and still do.

Over the past day or two I've heard a 101 VE Day veteran say he doesn't think the young of today have what it takes to defend our country or hold the same values he did when he was 20. You sit up and listen to men like that when they say that. It was one of the saddest things I've heard anyone say all year. I do hope he's wrong. Some of the things we went through at school as youngsters are nothing compared to what men his age did as youngsters.

Comment by: Phil M on 12th May 2025 at 14:54


"I have got a 22 year old son with quite a bit of streetwise about him, university educated, has travelled about a lot in his young life, who does not believe me when I tell him that when I was at school back in the 1970s the PE teachers made boys like me run three or four mile cross country runs barechested and even barefoot, and not always in the best of weather.

He will not believe this......."

Phil I am sure he doesn't believe that you are lying. I think it is great that somebody in their early 20s was at school at a time when PE teachers were human beings and didn't demoralise them, use physical punishment on them, or demean them. He sounds, in fact, a bit like Simon W a few weeks ago who is a modern PE teacher that doesn't force lads to do things against their will.

It must sound draconian to younger men what some of us went through, not even that many years ago - our dump used corporal punishment up to the last day.

I hope more and more lads get treated better as time goes on, especially as they have to endure school for longer, so that the old farts of the past really are consigned to the dustbin of history, where they belong.

My primary school didn't have showers but there was definitely one end of the changing room that could have been adapted into them and looked like that sort of an area. Until I came onto this site and read other people mentioning it, and also saw the well remarked showers clip from the primary school that was filmed that got a lot of attention, I would never have imagined any primary/middle schools would have bothered with such things and that it only applied to the eleven plus age group as a starting point.

Greg, I'm intrigued by your 'student' visitor doing his anatomical research and find it all a bit strange that one. How can anyone say to a young person they are well proportioned while they are still growing? Who decides these things anyway? Human beings are not all meant to be the same shapes and sizes, lengths and whatever else. I couldn't resist the nipple measure and came out at 9 inches on a 40 inch chest. I guess that's good? What does it matter. I looked this up a bit myself this afternoon, there is even meant to be a perfect triangle from navel to nipples, who knew! The worst thing you can start doing is start measuring every aspect of yourself and deciding you are not exactly as someone somewhere has decided you should be. I always thought I was going to grow up to be well over six feet tall, I was five nine at about 13 or 14, but I remember when I was about 16 suddenly noticing I had not grown in the previous year or more and seemed to have hit my adult height, which I had, I didn't grow taller after 14 years old. I was quite disappointed by that at the time.

BMI is another thing, Body Mass Index. Working your own one out can be quite misleading and tell normal height and weight people they are fat.

Just what did this person measure on you Greg, and did anyone actually tell any of you why they were there doing what they did? From what you say Greg you sound like quite the adonis, tall, handsome and well shaped, but did this give you good self esteem in general or when faced with getting your kit off? Someone has already mentioned whether it is only the unsporty kids that have excessive body shyness issues, what's your view, I think it makes no difference myself, anyone can, even the best lookers, otherwise why do we see so many ugly naturists!

I have got a 22 year old son with quite a bit of streetwise about him, university educated, has travelled about a lot in his young life, who does not believe me when I tell him that when I was at school back in the 1970s the PE teachers made boys like me run three or four mile cross country runs barechested and even barefoot, and not always in the best of weather.

He will not believe this, yet I did this at least 20 or 30 times just like that, told in the changing room to go outside like we went to gym itself. The reason for doing it barefoot was I think down to a combination of practical and a bit of toughening up that some PE teachers seemed to favour. Cross country was a lot of soft, earthy ground we ran on which would wreck trainers but also it was often waterlogged in large areas and we had a couple of actual water features including a shallow brook we ran along for about 50 metres up to our ankles in water too.

Our tender and young bare feet proved to be surprisingly resilient to running on this type of terrain, but I remember how ludicrous it sounded when we first went out like that and felt upset about it. What a thing to inflict on 12 and 13 year olds. Girls would never be asked to run this way. The barechested part of cross country running was something that became strangely enjoyable in a way it's hard to describe these days but just being outside, feeling the weather on you, even if it was not warm and you were wet, with others the same, even if we hadn't chosen it, did seem to foster that cliched old lads bonding sensation without any doubt.

There was a water trough thing outside the PE block that we jumped our feet into to get rid of a bit of the dirt before going in and taking a proper shower to clean up fully.

Not one bit of this does my own son believe, and that's why pictoral evidence is so important. I wish I had some to prove it in my case, but I can't even find anything anywhere that clearly shows this method of PE, perhaps not surprising, who took cameras out on school runs in the 70s thinking of future history archiving and changes in how society views behaviour. If anyone knows of any pictoral evidence of any such PE that I've described I'd like to see it.

I did tougher things as a child in school PE like that style of cross country than I've ever been asked to do as an adult by anyone. Makes you think doesn't it. I don't know whether it was acceptable or not, but we seemed to get through it and learn to tolerate and adapt to such ways.

They even used to plimsoll whack boys caught not showering at school. I always remember one man just standing around with a plimsoll always in hand as if looking for an opportunity to use it. If he had to come up to you to tell you to shower you could get a whack on the backside, or even one for just being too slow. One lesson there was a bit of rowdy nonsense going on as we finished showering but I was minding my own business and a teacher ran in fully dressed with water still going and clouted the heads of everyone in sight with the plimsoll quite hard, including mine, making us run out, and I'd done nothing wrong and was just getting on with things. Again, something I've told my son in the past but he thinks it couldn't have been like I said it was, but it was and I know it was.

We didn't have showers at the primary school that I attended,but when I moved to secondary school we had changing areas and showers that were shared by all the boys.This was quite a shock as I was not accustomed to being seen nude by so many boys.We were supervised by our teacher so there was no way of avoiding showering.
Also,as others have mentioned we had to do PE topless and bare foot just simply wearing our shorts in front of the girls who made many comments,some derogatory.

I feel your pain on the showering teacher thing Leo! That kind of thing happened to me too earlier in the same decade as you, although in my case they weren't the state of the guy you describe but decently athletic and somewhat youngish. We had two that did this from four male teachers of PE.

I'm certainly not one of the guys who took against shirtless PE for a moment, that was reasonable to me and I didn't mind any decision that was taken which meant doing PE shirtless, and like everyone else here from those kind of years it happened a lot. Boys at school were not even expected to think twice about taking their tops off for PE lessons and keeping them off if required to.

I didn't really mind the showers at school all that much either. Would I have chosen to do them if I hadn't been told to, well, probably not, but I didn't have a problem being told I had to by a teacher as long as we were all being treated the same.

This kind of teacher shower sharing thing was happening a lot throughout my whole senior school period, much more the older we got. We had lots of outdoor lessons with two PE teachers together with us and the pair would both be in with us, fully starkers, although our communal showers at school were quite large and they were not close to us and could keep a distance, they were not literally treading on our toes closeness, and they never behaved in a way that made you think there was any more to it than just having a shower, other than the sharing bit, which did feel weird. It did only seem to happen in final period PE though, so I guess boys that had earlier lessons never encountered it. Even a busy gym teacher doesn't need three or four showers over a six or seven hour period 9am to 4pm.

But this was no big secret, most boys parents from school knew just what happened in PE and mine certainly did, I told them most things and there was no reaction to any of it. It does seem quite incredible and even amusing to think that both pupil and teacher could quite above board be in school time getting naked with each other after an often minor physical exertion outside or in the gym. I shudder to think how many boys in school my couple of PE teachers must have done this with over time and at what point this was no longer considered the right thing to be doing.

I'm not a prude, and am all for being at ease with stripping off for PE, but I think there do have to be some professional boundaries, and teachers like to consider themselves professionals don't they. The profession was held in far higher social status back in the early 70s, even PE teachers, and that may be why our parents left them to it more, even jumping in the school showers after PE with us all.

It's not worth getting all annoyed about nowadays though, I just laugh at it and find it amusing it was something I did at school once upon a time.

Comment by: Belinda on 10th May 2025 at 20:19
'I used to notice boys more for their dodgy eighties haircuts or clothes they wore out of school far more than the groups of boys in school PE with no tops on at all, or the bare chested ones on our school running team.'


Well there were certainly some iffy hairstyles in the eighties even on a few boys.

It's fine to say this Belinda but it's a bit like a doctor telling a patient whose got to drop their pants not to worry because he's/she's seen it all before, well yes you might have done, but you haven't seen 'mine' before. You sound mature for your age then, but the whispering girl comment to you about the possibility of seeing boys without shirts on in PE sounds more like girls I knew, almost like being given a chance to see some forbidden fruit.

Is it fair to say there is a connection between sportier boys and less sportier boys and issues over bare chests among each other in PE lessons?

I spoke to a PE teacher about showering concerns and was dismissed completely out of hand for even mentioning the subject. It was completely off the table as a subject of discussion, as I said at the start of this year on this thread if anyone cares to find it somewhere back in January I think it was. It was not for discussion, which is astonishing when you think what it involves regards the personal.

The double standard debate still draws comment I see, and is legitimate discussion. My double standard is type written onto a piece of paper in black and white. Why did I go to a school that said boys like me must take showers naked with each other as mandated by the school but then chose to allow all girls to completely opt out and not do so. This type written piece of information from my days back at school even goes as far as to specify how the shower should be taken, using the word 'nude' in the wording! I think we all knew what taking a shower meant being like without ramming it home quite so unsubtly.

At the age of nine in 1985 I had already been at primary school for a year and they'd been making boys like me do PE with girls without our tops on, fully barechested just about always in our primary gym designated area. I remember me and a couple of other boys expressing a liking to wear something in PE but it fell on deaf ears and I just had to get used to it, we were not allowed to, and the expectation was all boys must look exactly the same for PE, which was a bare chest for boys, and bare feet for all. I just felt like I was dressed for swimming without the water and saw it as unnecessarily strict on us. Doing barechested PE felt strict to me.

Then after a year in primary we got back in September of '85 and it got even worse in a way I could not have imagined possible. They'd put some showers in our changing room over the holiday, basically just fixed some showerheads along an area that had already looked like a shower area without the heads, not a massive upheaval. We noticed them immediately on our first PE lesson back, and were told next time to bring a towel because we could use them in future. It wasn't a could, it was a would.

We got handed a letter about all this and I was packed off with a towel next time it was PE, but remember asking if I could not use the shower, and a couple of other boys said something similar to me. All that happened was we were told by our form teacher, a quite strict male, to just start growing up and begin behaving a bit more adult like. We were 9 years of age, only halfway to the official age of adults!

Anyway, just like pleading over barechested PE a year earlier our pleading not to shower also fell on deaf ears and that was the end of that as far as everyone was concerned. We were made to all shower that day, those who had expressed a desire not to as well, and did so continually from then on, there were 15 boys in my primary school PE class, and we were all showering by 9 years old, at least four in that class having made it quite clear we didn't wish to do it, but we were slowly made to get used to such a thing.

There was no double standard though and the girls had had the same fitted into their changing room over the holidays too and were expected to do the same as the boys. They did at least have the good sense to keep any unwanted female teacher attention away from us and only the male teachers kept an eye on us, I had a male teacher for three of my four primary years.

At secondary school from 1988 until 1993 there was still a lot of bare chested PE going on periodically but it wasn't constant. Sometimes classes of boys would be mixed shirtless and shirts by choice even, although if the teacher told you to remove your top it had to come off quickly.

I also remember with my best friend from primary school telling one of my new secondary PE teachers in 1988 when he was telling our class about something we may not have done before - showering - that we had already been doing that at our primary school and he seemed quite surprised to hear it. Needless to say they were compulsory to take and he made sure of that like all the teachers did then.

My parents were both teachers of non PE subjects and both thought taking showers at school, even in primary school, were an essential part of doing PE and quite acceptable for me to do. To bring the subject up with them, even the barechested aspect for PE was just to be called a fusspot.

We went on our first foreign holiday in 1987 for a week in Majorca and my father made both me and my brother remove our tops on the beach and stay that way. We even went sightseeing without, and all our mother would do is slap factor 30 ambre solaire on our bodies and say that was good enough.

If I am perfectly honest, I never enjoyed having two parents as teachers. You always felt you were at school even when at home because they brought school home with them in so many ways. I'm glad my dad wasn't a PE teacher though, he might have insisted on watching me shower in the bathroom when I was 15 like the ones at school did. Uuuughhh!

Comment by: Joanne on 8th May 2025 at 00:42

I would have loved to have had a go on a trampoline if it had been offered during our gym lessons, but alas it never was.

I went to a beautiful junior school, which I enjoyed more than the next place. It was a large, spread out building with no upstairs and surrounded by well maintained lawns. A large infants section on the right with its own facilities; and likewise on the left for the juniors.

What I think was a little unusual there was how cricket was taken so seriously, but only for the boys. We had all the equipment required and we’d often spend an afternoon out on our own lawns playing it. But probably even more unusual was that we also did archery! I remember the bow had to be placed on the ground and not touched by anyone until the previous shooter had retrieved their arrows from the target, or usually several metres past it. Both these activities were taught by the same teacher, whose actual class of children was a mixture of the final two year age-groups who were expected to progress on to Grammar School. He would tutor them through mock 11 plus papers. I also would go into his class for what was called, Practical Drawing, which was a simpler version of Technical Drawing, which I always enjoyed.


Comment by: Tony on 8th May 2025 at 01:25

Thanks Tony for the Norwegian archive film link. The address seems familiar and I will certainly be back there to catch up on some interesting footage, maybe even continuing from where I last left off.

You go on to mention what pleased you about your appearance at 14. I think 14 is usually an age when boys really start to grow up, as it was then that things seemed to accelerate from early signs of maturing over the last year or so. My general body frame started to develop then, and I also began to grow taller, becoming the tallest in my family at 6 feet 2, but according to my mother I was the heaviest baby at 10 lbs! It seemed my shoulders were achieving that v shape when viewed from the back against the slim waist of youth, according to my older sister who made such a remark when I was helping with some work in our family back garden. It was so hot I remember I’d removed my shirt and recall being quietly pleased with what she'd said. It was also not that long after ‘the student’ had taken our measurements in the gym changing room, and when he’d finished he'd mentioned rather quietly to me, seeming to avoid the others hearing, that, ‘I was the best, and well proportioned’ which were his actual words. I'm sorry that now, after all these years, this sounds terribly boastful, but it's exactly what I remember and how it happened. I wonder what particular proportions and measurements he was checking us boys for at so young an age, and with a connection to predicting our future shapes as adults, which is what I remember him saying? If only I could now read that piece that he seemed to be researching to write, as I think it sounds very interesting. I’d also now quite like to know what my measurements and proportions were at that age.


Comment by: Yours Truly on 8th May 2025 at 14:22

Thanks for your comments and thoughts. I always find others' judgements on what we’ve all experienced and written about on here to be very interesting. It’s often an intriguing area of rekindled memories for everyone to think about and comment on. But, I don’t always ask a question because I don’t have an answer to it myself; I’ll often ask it because I’m interested to know the answer others might give. Your comments and your point of view around gender or double standards seem quite uncompromising at times, and must be based on your own, still vivid experiences that bothered you when you were growing up. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s obviously so true that we’re all in some way or other a representation of what we’ve all faced, especially when dealing with all these things when so young.

What I found interesting was your angle about the two gym teachers chuckling about it afterwards in their staff room, and that he’d told her he'd punished us, and that she'd probably told him that she'd permitted it. What I decipher from this then, is that if they both came to an agreed conclusion that their different methods of dealing with it were both acceptable to the one and to the other, then she’s really quite an oddball, and he’s more of an idiot than I could possibly have understood at that time.


Comment by: Chris 1970 on 8th May 2025 at 21:56

Chris, despite being told I was 'well proportioned' by someone at those earlier ages, I was never any good at climbing those ropes very high either, at least not until I was a bit older. I really don’t think most boys from 11-13 have gained sufficient upper body strength in arms or chest until a little more of the good old testosterone had been flowing through the bloodstream for a few more years. I do remember that it wasn’t until well into 14 that I suddenly became more able to climb higher, and much more easily, compared to earlier. Also at that age it seemed I suddenly worked out how to grip and wrap my legs around the rope for extra traction to help get me moving up there too. This was due to developing muscle tone capability in my legs I expect, even though I’d always had quite strong legs since junior school where I’d been a member of the school football team for two years. I just interpreted it as, ’growing up’ and was pleased I’d achieved it at last…I never really felt too comfortable being up there so high though, and was always glad that I was able to get down again safely, especially since only a few years before, I’d managed to break my leg twice.

Yes, I did that measurement, just as you suspected I would. I wonder whether others have? No, I’d never done it before, or even thought about it. To tell you the truth, I’ve never really found nipples to be attractive things! Thankfully mine are not too big. I do find it hard to believe that there’s an expected distance between them as thought to be representative of anything, as we’re all different shapes and sizes at all ages.

What is the article that you mention about body measurements and proportions please, as I’d quite like to read that?


Comment by: Leo on 10th May 2025 at 20:48

I’ve just read your comment. There have been a few times people have mentioned gym teachers coming into the showers with the boys, and it’s something I’d never heard the like of before. I can’t imagine anything more awkward to have to experience in there than having your own teacher right next to you when you’re all still so young, that I’m so glad I didn’t have to experience anything like it. All I can think of is that this stupid and awful sounding gym teacher must have possessed an absolute zero self-awareness, to the point of a senseless absence. Yet some people still comment on here seeming to believe that they have attained some advantage by being made to shower in front of everyone and anyone from such an early age, that they also become almost insentient. People in boarding schools seem to be like this too for those very same reasons. I had a friend who went to such a place when I was growing up. I'm so pleased that I didn't.

Comment by: Leo on 10th May 2025 at 20:48
I was quite a nervous non-shirt wearer in PE and really hated myself for being that way. All the others always looked like it didn't matter at all to them.



THIS^^^

These few words speak for many told to go shirtless in school PE lessons against our will.

Thanks for saying it!

I am led to believe that sometimes long in the past a teacher might have chosen to shower alongside pupils in much less judgemental days but I'd like to do my own further research into what you say Tony regarding teacher training because that does not ring at all correct to me whoever has previously said so here. Training would never have encouraged a teacher to actively enter a class shower as policy, this is just nonsense. There may have been mentions of using the same facilities as pupils but after they had vacated them and gone completely, that's a much as it would go.

If there is a GENUINE teacher reading this who has done this then I would like to hear from them and their reasoning, or a genuine teacher who knows of colleagues who may have done this.

Teachers have their own space, it's called the staff room, and PE teachers nearly always had their own space for their own freshening up without needing to stand beside their own pupils doing so. I agree with your sentiments Leo.

I'm not aware this is a point that had ever been an issue for discussion or questioning in my inspection days but these only go back 30 years, it would be worth me trying to find out a little further back, 50 years.

Did any 1960's or 1970's boys face sharing their PE shower with their teacher? This does not appear to be a female experience with their teachers as far as I know.

In my own personal view as a retired school inspector there has never been a need for any PE teacher to share the facilities like a shower at the exact same time as a class. I would have said just the same fifty years ago.

Comment by: Leo on 10th May 2025 at 20:48


It makes you wonder if head teachers at the time knew what was actually going on in their PE departments within the school. I remember someone long ago on here saying that the PE department was effectively left alone to get on with things as they saw fit without much interference from the top. That sounds plausible to me.

Whilst I think it is far from appropriate for a teacher to do what you describe, and your description of him sounded visually unappealing, I think nearly all schoolboys would want their PE teacher doing no such thing, and many wouldn't even want him watching, but I also recall some on here in the past saying they wished their PE teacher had at least done what he expected of them, so in one respect in defence of it I suppose at least a teacher like that is showing that he's prepared to do what he asks of the pupils. A few might appreciate that, I wouldn't have done though.

With this kind of culture once allowed, or possibly tolerated, there will have been some who took advantage of these situations, it's hard to see how some wouldn't.

I remember reading a comment on here a long time ago from someone who hasn't posted in a very long time, I think their name was Ambrose, who even suggested on these pages that at a teacher training college he, or someone he knew, training to be a PE teacher long ago in the 60s/70s was actually encouraged to share showers with pupils which I found incredible if factually accurate in any way.

I was quite a nervous non-shirt wearer in PE and really hated myself for being that way. All the others always looked like it didn't matter at all to them.

When I left school and was out of the clutches of all these PE teachers I became a whole lot more confident about myself quite rapidly actually, did sport on my terms how I liked to do it and enjoyed it, cycling, rowing, jogging, swimming.

My view on school showers though....

Being forced into school showers after PE in my first year at comprehensive school always felt like an ordeal. In our second year things took an even more crazy turn, we had this PE teacher in our lesson just before lunchtime who kept coming into the showers with boys in my PE class at the same time as us for about a year. He was a really hairy man too, and he got too close at times to many of us. It was really disgusting actually, just him being there, having forced all of us to be naked for our own showers after PE and then him choosing to come in too. He did not even look PE teacher shaped, he was short and stocky, very hairy legs and chest and back. People like that should be nowhere near sharing a class shower, but this was 48 years ago now. I cannot begin to imagine wanting to share a shower like that, even in total innocence and teachers like that and all the others that did the same should have realised, don't shower with your class, some boys are bad enough with their own friends in the thing without the ugly teacher joining in too. We called him Grizzly because he looked like a bear there was so much hair, and he was always whining at us all over something or other. How he had the nerve to come in and shower with us I'll never know, I remember his penis being a small stubby tiny thing, there were boys in class who were longer and we'd not even grown up yet. It's a sight from the school changing rooms I've never been able to forget since the 1970s and would never in a million years happen now but was probably more common than many realise back then.

Thankyou Andrew for you comments and I agree with you own sensible response here.

I used to notice boys more for their dodgy eighties haircuts or clothes they wore out of school far more than the groups of boys in school PE with no tops on at all, or the bare chested ones on our school running team.

I cannot think of one single time I ever made any type of personal comment about the physical appearance of a boy in school in my presence without his shirt on. I saw being able to mix with boys and compete alongside them with other girls as a very commendable thing and healthy for all of us. We all treated each other respectfully on our school running team and there was very little nonsense even though we were 14 and 15 year olds. We all just seemed very much more mature at the time than many the same age I see now.