Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Matthew S on 30th January 2025 at 23:27
Terry, thank you for your kind comments to me and to Danny yesterday evening.


Matthew I agree with Terry on your little anecdote about the teacher and your vest top which I found a rather sweet little dynamic the way you put it there. Now you mentioned at the age of 5 feeling uncomfortable having to bare your body. I have no idea how unusual that is so young to feel like that. I'm not aware at that age that I felt like that and certainly did a few things with friends, male and female same ages, up until the age of about 9 with my top off, almost always involving water. But at my infants school I cannot remember doing PE myself with my top off very often, but can remember others doing so, even girls, in just their knickers. and boys in their pants. At that school we were encouraged to keep our small amount of PE kit in our plimsoll bags almost permanently in our class cloakrooms and everyone seemed to have a similar style plimsoll bag in 1974/5/6.

The thing where I really relate to you Matthew from being the age of 5 and 6 at infants school doing PE isn't about being barechested, it's about not being allowed to wear shoes and socks on the hall floor when teacher took our PE there. I had a strong aversion to doing PE in my bare feet at school when I started, and the teacher insisted on it a lot even though we had black plimsolls and plimsoll bags! Now my first teacher was not a young teacher and had quite a severe pulled back hair style and I thought she was very strict. I don't remember her smiling much. Actually she wasn't too bad really and became a good family friend in the end and got a less severe hair style too. But when I was first at infants school and she took me for PE and told us to to remove all footwear and be barefoot I almost panicked at times. I really hated it, and felt embarrassed by this. Do not ask me why. At just the very young age of 5 or 6 this was the one and only time in any PE lesson in my whole time at school that I actually confronted a teacher about my discomfort, at that age! I easily remember going up to her one day and saying something like - "Mummy would prefer me to wear my plimsolls in PE please". This was a little white lie and not strictly true, and mummy had said no such thing to me. Anyway, even if mummy had wanted it and I certainly did, I was not getting my request and could not wear my plimsolls and she made me go barefoot as she wanted, very many times. Fear of my bare chest was not strong at that point but fear of my feet being on show was. Where this kind of thing springs from so young only a psychoanalyst could maybe get an answer to. That is something I've never quite grown out of even to this day all this time later. When I was 11 and doing David & Goliath at school for Christmas for our parents over three different nights most of us were expected to be barefoot for that but I asked and was allowed to wear plimsolls for that without any trouble, I remember feeling relieved at that. The previous year having wimped out of the main Joseph role because it involved a spell shirtless. I remember going on a school trip to the beach for a day at the age of 12 in my final month at primary school and digging my feet into the sand as I sat there just to hide them! My mother actually used to tell me I had good looking feet as a child and so I feel so daft even admitting to any of this but I think it's helpful to be honest here.

But even with that issue I've just described, when it came to going swimming at school the issue seemed to diminish quite a bit almost to nothing, but only when swimming, much like the barechested issue did, and for others who have admitted this too about swimming. It is a fascinating thing that. Perhaps it is because swimming is strongly associated with a certain method of very minimal dress for obvious reasons of getting wet and we subconsciously accept this without question because we know we can't get in the water fully clothed, and perhaps it really is just because we are up to our neck in water being covered, even if the water is mostly transparent.

Reading what you have said Matthew, and what many others have said, and what I have admitted to, it does make you wonder just how many others were out there at school with just these same thinking processes about ourselves and why we had them so young. Nothing used to please me more in the summer when I was an infant school child when I would go to school in a cool patterned pair of trainers, coloured ankle socks, a nice pair of smart tight shorts on and a pretty t-shirt and was allowed to go off to do the PE lesson just as I had come to school, and afterwards just return back to class the same with no fuss. I looked good, I felt good and I enjoyed the lesson. Some people have mentioned problems wearing shorts to school, well I was always very happy to do that and show my legs and knees and spent most of my years under age 10 in shorts, with the grazed knees often bandaged to prove it at times.


Milton's questions. What did they do to try and make us blush, well just personal comments and that type of thing. I remember getting a sexual question once, not knowing the answer and getting my left nipple suddenly tugged at. Imagine boys doing that to a girl. Big trouble I bet. We had been sent off into small groups and I was among just girls in mine so chat was not being overheard easily. The touchy feely stuff was just hands holding onto body areas mainly or laying across people or against them, either one on one or many people. This happened lots. Nobody was ever asked to kiss each other like you suggested with Romeo & Juliet. Just regular interactive stuff.

Terry you asked if my drama teacher ever did the same as he asked the boys and did anything barechested, well what do you think? Surprise, surprise the answer is no, never. To make clear I never thought he might be gay either as was suggested, nothing gave me that vibe about him and it didn't when I recently met him, and even if he was it would make no difference to me and of course gay teachers should be allowed to teach all subjects without prejudice. I have never understood straight people who would get worked up about a gay person the same gender in their midst in a changing area or a shower, who cares.

The one and only time I ever saw one of my PE teachers shirtless was when I was in my first secondary year, aged almost 13, in the early summer athletics we were doing on a hot day and the head of PE suddenly whipped his top off and we got sight of his bare chest unexpectedly for that lesson, and never again to the best of my knowledge. He was not young, and I remember the sight well because he had what would nowadays be described as a "dad body", quite filled out and bulky with a lot of dark hair all over his chest. Certainly he did not have a traditional fit body but it didn't stop him being PE head. I have definitely got a much trimmer and fitter looking body now at my age than my head PE teacher did at an age probably not too different to me now.

I've kept very healthy in my adult life and have mountain biked thousands and thousands of miles and walked lots too. Although I was good at running I've never been keen as an adult, all those barechested cross countries we did were more than enough for me. I certainly don't think school PE has had any part to play in my desire to remain healthy and active doing the things I actually like to achieve this.

One final thing though, there is a tiny part of me that would be tempted to join someone like Craig on his barechested (bareskins) running group. That runs counter intuitive to almost everything I've said. Call the psychoanalyst please!

Comment by: Paul on 30th January 2025 at 21:10


Thank you doctor - may I get up off your couch now?. I must go because I need to rush home to play my Judy Garland records, before binge watching Strictly Come Dancing and the latest drag show series, perhaps stopping off at a public lavatory on the way to do a bit of cottaging, then I will dance the night away at the.YMCA

It is a well known fact, Paul, that the acting profession is quite a stronghold for gingers, as is ballet dancing and ladies hairdressing.

I am not an actor laddie, a dancer or a ladies hairdresser, so bad luck. You need to do more than read The Ladybird Book Of the Bonce to be a psychiatrist!

Terry, thank you for your kind comments to me and to Danny yesterday evening.

I am sure my teacher did not realise I was embarrassed. We only turned five that academic year, and it would have been normal for her in the late Eighties (though not for teachers now, I gather) to help children with laces, buttons or other awkward parts of undressing - she did so for me for the rest of that school year. Also, I kept my thoughts very much to myself.

Changing for PE became somewhat more unpleasant for me later on (I recall the day on which it was held, and my churning stomach), and while I can't speak for others, it is a pity I was unable to put aside my self-consciousness earlier, as William suggested. I remember a certain sweet relief when eventually I began to do so.

I also regret Nathan Hind being obliged to leave this discussion site, when someone sent that foolish message to his employers. His professionally well-informed comments were always interesting, he came across as thoughtful and with some concern for his pupils, and he didn't deserve to be embarrassed. By the way, Alan, for what it's worth, I never doubted that you did not send that message, as someone once unkindly suggested.

Thank you, Christine Sanderson, for sharing your professional knowledge.

Earlier today Alan called out the teacher described by Danny C as a homosexual. I have no idea if he was or not but I will bet my house on it that you Alan are a homosexual and a self loathing one at that because all the clues are there written throughout many of your comments on here even if you don't realise it. This is at the root of your misery isn't it. It's so obvious to me, it must be to others. I know I'm right, you've given so many clues unwittingly, don't waste time denying it. The stuff about not allowing gay people into certain areas of teaching is because you are one of these gay people and you don't think you could probably trust yourself around young people. That's one clue, there are many others.

Stephen, you said your old school still makes boys go shirtless for PE. Does it say if they do it alongside female classmates?

Danny C, you said "At one point aged 13 the sport was trying to make certain boys blush red." What would they actually do to achieve this? Did your teacher notice?

You also said "Many of these lessons could be touchy feely stuff improvising with hands on others therefore bringing on even more unwanted close attention."

Could you elaborate on what you meant by touchy feely stuff and hands on others? Would you be forming human pyramids or partner dancing with the girls? Or would your drama teacher have you do Romeo and Juliet with them while he had you dressed like that?

Can national politics be kept out of this forum please.

Well written posts by Danny again and Christine, and it's good to see you return again Greg2, you're right, the reason the PE teacher felt he had to leave the forum was because one silly person identified as Dando was found to have taken the info placed on here and used it against that person and made direct contact with his school which is a very foolish thing to do. Dando never countered the allegation it was him at the time, so that said it all and he already had a long track record of pulling up school sites and plastering them on the forum, as if anyone should care other than those who attended those places. That teacher never wrote anything derogatory about his school or expressed extreme views, quite the reverse actually, so I am sure it was just a minor irritant to have someone unconnected make an unsolicited approach where he was. It would have made me very cross too, so I didn't blame him one bit.

I don't know whether Danny's drama teacher was homosexual Alan, many straight men are more than capable of being just like that with boys, he might have been the thoughtless type (was he ever shirtless himself Danny?) The worst part of that is where Danny says he singled boys out for stage plays he was part of without shirts knowing they'd hate it. That's wildly inappropriate. Give that to someone who doesn't mind. It sounds like he was trying to cure boys like Danny of their inhibitions but that's hardly the way to go about it, and does it need curing, we are all different.

I had a quite irritatingly self obsessed drama teacher who expected everyone to be a flamboyant all singing and dancing extrovert who should aim to be the next Gene Kelly or Laurence Olivier. One of his swipes at you could often be you won't win any Oscars for that effort. Most of us couldn't wait to get out of drama lessons but you could be a bit lazy in them I suppose and it beat sitting at a desk for a bit.

Jill Paige. The one thing about primary school teaching in your time was the need to be a tutor of multiple subjects without really being a master of any of them. Those that taught in primary education often stayed in primary education, although many teachers, often female, actually liked teaching children under the age of eleven more than the older ones. Of course that is not to say that many primary teachers did not have some types of specialist background, a lot did, certainly the older ones.

Primary school teachers having to take PE is an interesting area of their duties. What they did with children was not quite as random and made up as it would at first appear, there was a structure that had to be followed within the curriculum as set out in those days but it was a very loose one with lots of room for teacher autonomy. Encouragement was often given to whole class activities involving boys and girls together and when these genders were separated the tendancy was to the stereotypical boys and girls things. That was also the same at secondary level of course.

School inspectors will have held no view and there was no official or unofficial requirement on what type of PE clothing a school should use. These decisions were down to individual school or teacher preference for the most part. Some schools allowed more personal teacher autonomy than others, including the issues raised here. It sounds to me like your primary Jill was one of those who preferred a standardised approach and decided for example that boys in PE should not put a top on and therefore remain with a bare body above the waist, shirtless. This was common. Schools of all age groups 5 to 18 in that period would do this, although the perception is that secondary level schools were most keen and many children found themselves confronted with such requirements for the first time, many years into their schooling. It's quite possible to argue that had many boys been introduced to this style of PE at an earlier age many of the problems identified by new secondary boys on these pages may have been lessened somewhat or eliminated entirely.

A secondary school that enforced a fully shirtless policy on all it's boys for PE at all times would fare no better or worse than an equivalent school that always required more PE clothing and tops for the same PE. It would be largely irrelevant and go un-noticed in terms of quality of the teaching, although could be possibly remarked upon. A school with a strong shirtless PE requirement would not be disadvantaged, and if the pupils did perform best like that they could be advantaged if it raised the quality of the teaching and pupil outcomes.

Again, I must stress, whether boys liked taking their tops off or not would not be a consideration for inspections.

I have so many books and studies and files of papers that it would take years to read them all but there was I recall a feeling in education years ago that boys did perform better at physical work in school PE if they remained shirtless. Individual personal feelings on that were unlikely to be taken into account. There may be something about this on Google Scholar if anyone wishes to look. You sometimes see in films where men rip their shirt off ready to have a fight, as if that makes them more efficient at the task by doing so. I can't claim to know if it does or is largely symbolic or is simply what is I think known as peacocking behaviour.

Jill you expressed opinions that were mainstream for your time and even many more recent times too. Most would not wish to outwardly make known and consider the feelings of male children they were asking to remove a top for a PE lesson, in my opinion. This is because it might be to suggest a problem with this. This is also why no secondary school teachers will have ever openly spoken to pupils of showering in school as something open to discussion with them. But don't get me wrong, these teachers will have known that many of their pupils had a dislike of such things but would not have been encouraged to confront or speak of this directly to anyone, as a general rule.

I cannot obviously generalise Jill, everywhere is unique, but any teacher who made a big deal of something like a school requiring the boys to do PE without shirts on, or the shower requirement, would likely have been branded a troublemaker in that period. You have nothing to reconsider about your own approach in my view, although I think you might have been a little misunderstood.

School inspectors are allowed to interview selected children without notice within all subjects at their or the senior inpection team leaders request. I certainly remember one or two occasions in the late 1990's with early years Ofsted where I observed a PE lesson and spoke with male pupils briefly and took notes, some who were in shirtless PE classes and received no comments about this when discussing these type of school gym lessons and no inpsector would as a PE teacher why he or she was taking a class without tops on, that would be deemed under 'normal'. You would of course ask if they were sitting in Geography like it. The only reason I can think of where it might have been mentioned would be if we observed a class and maybe one pupil was standing out by himself without a top. I that case I would be inclined to question the reason and background for that, but I did not encounter such a thing. I would not for example expect a poor child whose parents cannot afford the school PE kit to be singled out against others and made to do PE without the clothing others have on. That could have a negative consequence.

I am fine with disagreement as long as it's not of a personal nature and is constructive argument, and I hope I've been useful this time.

Hi Alan,

It's not fair to just assume Danny C's PE teacher was in the c;loset. He could just as likely have been following his urge to assert his dominance over the other males in the room, which is what those thwarted macho types tend to do. And as we all know from our own schooldays, teaching tends to draw in oddballs.

I'd hardly describe myself as an admirer of Keir Starmer, the man who seems to spend his days looking for yet another fence to sit on and it's a fair point about Rachel Reeves. But I am relieved that this country has gained a reprieve from the last lot, who spent fifteen years hollowing it out in pursuit of their usual rabid, right-wing, anti-state idealogy.


Hi Danny C'

Why does that not surprise me? Your later comment that he deliberately singled out the sensitive kids and the introverts just confirms it.

Did your Drama teacher at least make the girls take off their shoes and socks as well? Did he ever discipline those girls that liked to tease the shyer boys? And why did he not make it a stipulation that they had to change into vests or bikini tops for the Drama lessons? After all, they must have found the drama lessons just as hot and girls have as much right as boys to be discover the benefits of being pushed out of their comfort zones, don't they?

You did say before that the later woman teacher was following his directive to keep you boys stripped off. But is is my guess that there was no stated rule in the school handbook that boys had to be stripped in Drama classes. The trouble with teachers in our time was that they had far too much leeway to introduce their own little regime, whatever that might have been. I think that is why John Major's government introduced the National Curriculum, to ensure that all UK pupils were at least receiving a standard, identical core education. No doubt if your teacher tried that today he would be micro-managed up his arse by Ofsted and rightly so.

In any case I think teachers of both sexes have always tended to be more callous towards boys. I think a lot of women teachers think either that boys don't feel things as deeply as girls or that even if they do it is much more appropriate to teach boys to learn to experience and disregard their bad feelings. In 2025 it is way, way past time that this practice, and these people, are challenged.

As regards none of you challenging it, that is sadly very common. Boys have always been more heavily conditioned to conform than girls and I think girls have always known they can get away with more because they will face less drastic consequences. When we had formal corporal punishment it was used against boys in 95% of all recorded cases. And just read Kathy from Maine's post below.

The physical reaction you describe just emphasises how wrong your teacher's methods were. As I stated in a recent comment the sheer, visceral dread of football+showers on Mondays actually drove me to truant for the only period in my school life. But as boys we were given no option but to put up and shut up.

Alan, Thank you for clarifying what "take any buck" means. I have often disagreed with you, so it gives me great pleasure to say that I thought your short analysis of the flaws in the government's economic policy was spot-on.

Comment by: Stephen on 29th January 2025 at 19:25



"In this world Alan nobody can live only by 'my own rules and my own standards' as you suggest you do. We all have to give and take at times in some corners of our lives whether we like it or not, at home with our families, at school with our teachers and in work with our colleagues......"


I am in the fortunate position of running my own business, Stephen, and don;t have to kow-tow to work colleagues, an my customers know my T &Cs so I get along very nicely thank you. I have just completed my tax return (a day early) , which is the only concession to authority I have to make. A lot of material I supply is specialist and niche, so I don;t have to compete like a supermarket. I have not had to obey employers rules for many years, and even when I did they were not the dregs, squalid dictators and jobsworths of school years. If I had found an employer as coarse and bombastic as my old schoolteachers I would have walked out. I knew my own value and wouldn't be treated like sh*t.

William 29th January at 20:44 January 29th .2025

"Alan, I do not doubt your honesty (1131 today) but it is revealing that you express indifference to the views of others and contempt for those who disagree with you.
Terry, I agree that it was sad to see Nathan Hind leave the discussion.
Any connection?........."

Not contempt, William - indifference As regards Nathan, as I recall he left the board because some small-minded idiot reported him to his school which I think was disgusting, and it certainly wasn't me - I say what I have to say, and leave it at that. I don''t believe in sneaking. It was appalling and I am sorry it happened. I can't imagine why he was reported, but then again "1984" has been arriving in the UK for several years now,. Under current management it is 1985. I wouldn't stop anybody else from doing what they wished to do (within reason). If somebody wants to sign up for the local nudist colony - fine - let them do it, and I hope the weather keeps fine for them.


A few other comments generally - like somebody else I wondered why presumably another "Sarah" just came on to say "absolutely" and nothing else, One word responses always seem a bit strange. Not so say puerile and pointless.

Regarding what Danny C has told us about his drama teacher, I strongly suspect said teacher was homosexual. I have said it before and say it again, but allowing homosexual teachers to be PE or drama teachers is akin to giving an alcoholic the keys to a brewery. Why should a drama teacher wish to see unclothed lads?. Our P.E. teacher, for example, certainly enjoyed our showers more than we did, especially when you got to about 14, and watched us like hawks. He didn't need to, it was just one of the perks of his job. Of course these days such men are heroes and extremely "brave", like somebody winning the VC in wartime.

I have to say I agree 100% with what "Yours Truly" says - but he clearly has me down as a Conservative and he is right - on the rare occasions I buy a newspaper it is the Daily Telegraph. I suspect YT is an admirer of the current government. To him I would say two words - "Rachel Reeves". That woman is doing untold damage to the economy, especially if you run a business - small or large. The large increase in employers NICs, for example, is making them shed employees - especially lower paid employees, as three of our major supermarkets announced last week. W. H. Smith are trying to offload their 500 high street stores, because they are finding it difficult to balance the books and the word is it might be taken over by an investment company, who will, indeed, asset strip and reduce employee headcount. I had no great admiration for Tony Blair, but at least he had goals and plans, and stuck to them, misguided though many were, the current PM , by contrast, wobbles like a half set jelly from one pose to another. The only businessmen who can afford to support "net zero" for example, are multi-millionaires like Dale Vance.

It will be interesting to see if and how things change if 16 year old school students get the vote, but since a poll this week suggested that a majority of under 27s support the idea of a dictator or military junta running the country, perhaps they will be conformist little lickspittles:


https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gen-z-democracy-dictator-leader-politics-britain-b2686960.html


If I had my time again I would emigrate from this rotten, wet miserable country. God knows where we will be in 20 years time, when we will be the pensioners who have been treated so disgustingly this year by Rachel From Accounts.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 29th January 2025 at 23:03
"Danny C's Drama teacher actually sounds like a PE teacher, doesn't he? "


Yours Truly, the reason he sounds like one is because he was one. He was a stand-in at PE for some reason and most often took rugby and did the cross country....guess what, yes, barechested a lot of times! I have one very strong clear memory of him on one of his stand-in lessons with us and checking me out while I was stood naked and thinking "oh no, my drama teacher is now looking at my c**k too" and wondering what he might be thinking looking at me. He was very similar looking to the actor Damian Lewis, ginger haired and with a slight ginger beard, he looked the part of both a drama teacher and a PE teacher actually. As a person he was actually okay, but it was just his decisions that left me less than okay. You can sort of like someone but not like what they do can't you.

So you asked what was the logic in asking the boys to strip down a lot for drama, roughly almost half the lessons I'd say. Well this was because a lot of it was quite physically involved and highly active, sometimes with music and movement. No shoes or socks were allowed in drama, unless dressed up with something from the drama studio wardrobe for roles we did. We never got an actual explanation for why he made us all take our shirts and ties off and be barechested for drama but this happened when we did high activity lessons the most, although not always. Sometimes we immediatlely arrived and all got told to take our shirts off and hang them up, other times we might be half way through the class and it was "boys, take your shirts off and throw them over there". The drama studio was also a quite warm place with hot coloured spotlighting often used. These are my own explanations for why we went barechested in half those classes, and I guess because he stood in as a relief PE teacher and saw the boys shirtless so much he probably just applied it at drama class because he thought we were used to it.

But the big difference was - girls. That raised the awkwardness factor considerably, although not just because of girls as such but as far as I was concerned because of certain girls who liked seeing boys embarrassed by them when we couldn't hide. Most girls were fine and no trouble, but we had a small group of three or four who were keen to zone in on those they knew were the sensitive shy boys and drama was a double period afternoon covering a lengthy 2 hours so that could be a long time to endure. At one point aged 13 the sport was trying to make certain boys blush red. Quite a lot of the time boys would be in drama in bare feet, with long dark grey uniform trousers on and a bare chest. That's a very weird, un-natural and uncomfortable look. I used to think if I'm going to be like that I'd rather just put some shorts on instead. Sometimes we did. Many of these lessons could be touchy feely stuff improvising with hands on others therefore bringing on even more unwanted close attention.

I can tie this story in with the women points made over the past day or two. Because I had a change of drama teacher after 2 years and gained a middle aged woman instead, so thought things would change, but they didn't. My final year under this woman who looked like she would be more at home teaching maths or english was just the same, quite surprisingly and she made all the boys in my drama class aged 14 and 15 do it without our shirts on too very many times about as much. What seems remarkable to me now is that nobody at all questioned it. We all just did exactly as we were told as awkward as some of us felt, and out of about 16 boys in my regular drama group I can safely say there would have been at least half who felt like me, and I don't think I was worst.

The killer bit for me was getting pushed onto the school stage in parts that required no shirt. This drama teacher of mine knew who the introverts and sensitive ones were and deliberately did this to us. He more or less admitted it when I met him last November! He even said he wished he'd had the option to get the drama class showered sometimes. I will admit that many times we were sweatier after a double period drama class barechested than we were after actual gym PE. But there were no lessons after drama each Thursday so if our shirts or bodies got sweated through it wouldn't have mattered we were going home anyway.

In my first few months at secondary school (1981 - 1982) when I was getting thrown into all this with PE lessons and drama classes I remember the physical reaction it caused in my stomach and even my throat, the intense butterflies sensation and sinking feeling that descended, not just in these lessons or when hearing the instructions but just the prior anticipation and also afterwards back at home playing through such lessons in my mind over and over.

When I was just 10 at primary school I actually declined to take the lead role of Joseph in Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat offered by my music teacher in our school Christmas play for parents we did over three separate evenings because it involved being the centre of attention and at one point having no top on a shirtless body, even though I was happily swimming in that school at that age without much concern at that. I therefore ended up with a minor insignificant role. I'd have taken that role if it hadn't been for that part of it. Does anyone actually think I was silly to do that as a ten year old? I was offered it because I had a niced singing voice and striking wavy thick longish blond hair unlike any others.

I would have made a good Jesus Christ Superstar at one point actually but no such performance came along, that would have been another barechested role no doubt but I already felt like I'd been crucified a few times!

I haven’t left a comment here for some time, but I’ve been checking in to catch up on posts so I refer to a few from earlier this month if this is still okay.

Danny C I found your earlier post interesting with the comparison with swimming coming up again when reflecting on feelings associated with having to be shirtless during school. I always hated swimming, and during our last year at junior school, it wasn’t the fact that I obviously had to be bare chested, but it was having to wear those skimpy swimming trunks in front of my staring girl classmates that bothered me, even at that young age. How ridiculous does this sound, but I certainly remember that feeling, including trying my best to be less revealing, and probably not helping. We’re all different in how we felt about situations we found ourselves in, especially as children.

I don’t remember ever having to do gym without a shirt, our secondary school gym kit was all white, which had to be strictly adhered to: white t-shirt, shorts and socks, including plimsols or predominantly white trainers. During my first gym lesson I certainly remember that strange, daring feeling, mentioned by Davidson on 17th January, when not being allowed to wear underwear for the first time, beneath those little white shorts we all wore as we jumped around in the gym. That was certainly a new and odd experience.

Danny C, I can’t understand the point in making boys do Drama lessons without a top for goodness sake, which is something else I never had to do. I just can’t find a reason for it despite the explanation given years later by your old teacher. Both he and your follow up female drama teacher seemed to have no understanding or respect for individuals’ feelings but to resort to the usual impulse of routine subjugation of boys at any opportunity available by the adult in charge, whether male or female.

Wasn’t it the character, Dando, who gave present day gym reacher, Nathan Hind no option but to leave this forum? Dando, the person who spent time trawling school websites to copy and pastes details to here if it was detected that the school required shirtless gym, showers, or even swam without a full body suit? If I remember correctly, didn’t Nathan mention that Dando had actually posted a letter to his school office to say that their gym teacher was leaving (interesting) comments on here? It seemed Nathan made the decision to leave this forum following that episode.

Hi Terry,

Thank you for your comment.

I'm definitely not Alan although who knows, maybe I'll turn into him at midnight.

Danny C's Drama teacher actually sounds like a PE teacher, doesn't he? With his bare chests and his bunker mentality. Having to perform topless in front of the girls from my class would have been my worst nightmare and as for going on stage in front of an audience that way, well, that's just beyond the pale. What was the logic in making the boys strip off? At my school too we were still having Drama classes alongside our O level subjects. until the final year. Why?

Happily, at my secondary school the drama productions were lavishly crafted and rehearsed affairs that took months to prepare for and so they used to look for volunteers, people who actually wanted to act, which meant my days of being conscripted to play Flopsie the donkey's arse in the Christmas nativity play were gone forever.

Alan, I do not doubt your honesty (1131 today) but it is revealing that you express indifference to the views of others and contempt for those who disagree with you.
Terry, I agree that it was sad to see Nathan Hind leave the discussion.
Any connection?

In this world Alan nobody can live only by 'my own rules and my own standards' as you suggest you do. We all have to give and take at times in some corners of our lives whether we like it or not, at home with our families, at school with our teachers and in work with our colleagues.

The chilly gym filled with bare chest boys is still a fixed memory from fifty years ago for me, like you, from age eleven upwards we could not wear a t-shirt or vest at school gym, only the bare chest was allowed, and fifty years later I was really surprised to see on my old school updated website only this week that they use the actual words 'bare chest' as part of school PE kit for boys just like it was for me fifty years ago, and 'towel for showering' too. This is on their new updated website that became active just after the Christmas break. I wonder if anyone makes a big deal of this nowadays or they all just get on with it like we did once. When I was there I had a headmaster, it's now got a female head teacher. They don't like calling them headmistress or master anymore do they.

I've sometimes been broadly sympathetic to much of what Alan says in general terms, although not everything. I do think Sarah has made an interesting point regards women however, and also how we might expect women to treat us better than men. Although I also agree there are striking similarities between Yours Truly and Alan, I just think it's a similarity of thinking and nothing more than that. When Alan was previously accused of other aliases I didn't believe that at all. I enjoy your input Yours Truly. Someone clearly tried to mimic you Sarah with an immediate follow up last night which I strongly doubt came from you, whatever the word 'absolutely' was meant to be an answer to?

One thing I really don't like is the way those who come from the teaching profession or associated jobs are readily pounced over by some on here in a bit of an over the top manner for doing their jobs. Nothing disappointed me more on this than the treatment dished out to someone called Nathan who was on here early last year as a serving teacher of PE who was by all accounts driven off and away from the discussion because of the direction it took with him, and he took many others off with him in sympathy for a long period of time. Some have come back, but most have not. Yet this modern day teacher could not have been more thoughtful if he tried but still got it in the neck. For those who don't know or are new to these pages, he went out of his way to find out what boys thought about shirtless PE lessons at his own school and found out that the vast majority didn't mind them at all, it was 3 in favour to 1 against. Tell me how many teachers would ever have even tried to find such information out in the past but this guy did and still got criticised even when he told us the boys where he was had all agreed to accept the result even if they were in the minority view.

Now Jill has been getting the same treatment but she seems rather reasonable to me. Nothing that Jill said she was doing at her primary school was any different to what many like her were doing at other primary schools, including my own one.

Two other people I was pleased to see return have been Danny C and Matthew S who both write exceptionally well written pieces and are am credit to the discussion. I've been very interested reading your comments regarding your drama teacher Danny and all credit to you for being bold enough to ask questions that mattered to you rather than just sit there with the niceties of such reunions. That drama teacher pushed his luck in my opinion and was full of self justification. I don't think any drama teacher in your school, or anyone's school had the right to force you onto the school stage shirtless unless you volunteered to do it. He sound slike one of those tough love approach types who thinks throwing people into what they fear cures them overnight. I think there's an element of cruelty in making shy schoolboys go shirtless on a school stage if a teacher like that knows the personality types of his pupils. These drama teachers must know that most of us aren't into the subject at all and don't have the personality to pull it off. That's why I don't understand why it was and remains on the curriculum as a must do subject until 14 or 15, it should be an optional extra subject to take on for those with the special aptitude for it.

Matthew S you wrote a really touching piece too about your lady teacher and your desire to keep your top on and not go shirtless with the other boys. Your description of leaving it for your teacher to pull your top up over your head and off your body was an interesting dynamic between teacher and young boy. I could sense your discomfort through your words, I take it you rather hoped the teacher would decide not to lift that top off you and leave it. It seemed like a quite tender moment. Do you think that teacher had any idea how shy and uncomfortable you were feeling in those moments?

Comment by: William on 29th January 2025 at 09:32


William, I was just giving an honest answer to an honest question. What you think of that answer, or me, is a matter of total indifference to me. I live by my rules and my standards, and I don't take any buck from people who disagree with me.

If our cultural inheritance were the straitjacket Alan suggests at the end of his 28th January comment, many of us would not have made the transition from inhibited to confident. Where we are on that spectrum is a complex combination of culture and an individual's personality. But perhaps it's just easier to blame gym teachers.

Comment by Sarah 28th January 2025 at 2150 hrs

Oh please Sarah don't trot out the old "misogynist" trope. I had no women teachers, the only woman in our school was the lovely Mrs Fenemore. our school secretary, who I have spoken warmly about in the past, and was just about the only civilized adult in our school.

I dislike teachers who were or are unpleasant and dictatorial (and worse) and it is sad to see that the "I vas just obeying orders" and sticking to the rulebook operates even today, amongst men and women, who still have no conception of the damage they did. In my case it was all male teachers, two of whom had serious "problems" of a certain sort, and a couple more who had problems with the bottle..

Perhaps in your hurry to cast me as a dreadful woman hater, you missed what I wrote last week, so let me repeat what I said. I am NOT "Yours Truly" and "Yours Truly" is not me. All messages carry the reference number unique to our internet accounts -mine end with 252 - they are like National Insurance numbers - unique to the individual. You will see that "YT" has a different one.

This was done because of all the nonsense a few MEN tried to create a couple of years ago, when it was suggested I was at least five other posters. Showing the numbers was one way of proving their falsehoods to be untrue.

Hi Sarah,

I'm still not Alan. He's a tory by the sounds of things.

It wasn't my intention to be patronising. If you remember, in her initial post Jill appealed to posters to explain this issue to her. Which is what I was doing. If it came across as an overly simplistic explanation this was because she misses certain basic points that should need no explanation. I also partially defended her if you notice.

I have now seen this accusation several times from female respondents on this thread, that a women can post here and be as insensitive and blase as they please but if a male respondent takes them to task for it he is being 'attacking'. I don't think Alan is 'attacking' anyone. It's my impression he is angry about certain experiences from his schooldays and feels triggered when posters come across as dismissive of those experiences. It seems to me, from various posts by women here, that if a man dares to argue with a female poster, that the very act of arguing back makes him a villain, makes him 'attacking, 'patronising' or whatever. I gave some personal information from what was one of the worst years of my life. But your takeaway from my post was, I'm being patronising.

Also, as I remember her post, Julia was on the attack herself.

And Jill's initial post certainly came across as dismissive. But that didn't trigger you at all, did it?


Hi Anthony B,

Oh, boom boom, to paraphrase Basil Brush. Someone's been on the Lewis Carroll, I see.


Hi Alan,

So it's all Starmer's fault, is it? That was quick work. He's only been in the job seven months.

Before that, if you remember, we had fifteen years of successive tory administrations dismantling the public infrastructure, plundering the public purse, aiding and abetting corrupt businesses and individuals and running the UK into the ground like the bunch of asset strippers they are. If you don't like this country any more you really should remember who the real villains are.


Hi William,

You make a very good point. But I can't see the day that Brits decide it's okay to get naked with each other in any casual setting. In our culture we're too used to the shadow of inappropriate sexualisation cast into every area of our lives. It just makes it seem even more weird that in a nation where we perceive misdeeds here, there and everywhere we still expect kids of eleven to shower naked in front of each other.

Thank you, Jill, for your response and for kindly answering my questions.

Absolutely.

Yours Truly that was a highly patronising reply to Jill you gave her and you are really starting to sound uncannily similar to the way Alan takes people to task on these pages from time to time, something Julia has already noticed.

Infact Alan I've noticed you are prone to attacking women who come on here, you've done it with both Jill and Julia and mixed the two of them up in the process, and also had a go at Christine the Ofsted inspector as well. I think you take a dimmer view of the women than the men if they think similar to the men.

My favourite P.E teacher was a man called Mr Turtle. He tortoise very well.

Comment by: Mark on 28th January 2025 at 09:04



Not before 11, Mark, but all the bloody time after that. Scale of modesty I would say 8 or 9.


Comment by: Jill Paige on 28th January 2025 at 07:37



I apologise for ascribing those remarks to you wrongly, Jill. I apologise when I get things wrong, but the gravamen of my argument remains, whomever wrote the original

Comment by: William on 28th January 2025 at 09:26


We might be different if we were Finns, but we are not - for myself I wish that I was Australian and lived in a nice hot country and not this rainswept, miserable , Starmeresque dump of a country, but, sadly, we are stuck with what we have

Hi Jill,

The reason you have got the reaction you have is because you came across as very dismissive about something that some people had very real issues with. Is it not yet clear to you that some boys really did hate doing PE topless, whether you can understand it or not? They're the men posting on here about it forty years later when they could be doing something more worthwhile.

Of course nothing came to your attention from the boys unhappy about it. Your final remark in that paragraph that if any boy had resisted "who knows where it would have gone" says it all. The school would have got heavy with any boy refusing to take his top off and if you knew that as a teacher then the young boys you were teaching certainly did.

As regards not understanding a total unwillingness to remove tops well, what if the girls had been required to wear bikinis for PE? Do you think some of them might have been less than keen?

Just because children don't complain doesn't mean they accept what they are being made to do. At secondary I hated the Monday Games lessons with the grim football game and the inevitable communal shower afterwards. I never complained. I didn't complain because it would have drawn contempt from the other boys, at eleven I had already learned very thoroughly that school made you do things you found unpleasant and our PE teacher was anything but approachable.

But I was not fine with it. I was not fine with it to the extent that I went through a protracted period of either pulling sickies on Mondays or just truanting. But I never complained.

The vast majority of people just accept the conventional norms of the time. But conventional norms change over time because some aspect which was previously assumed to be acceptable and beneficial is found to be inappropriate and so they evolve. Naturally you thought nothing of it at the time. But this thread is showing you a different perspective on the issue now.

Alan, Your choice of language makes my point for me: "flaunt", "parade", "preserving modesty". The Finns just don't think like that, neither does the rest of northern Europe, Russia and large parts of the Far East.
Of course we are entitled to be different; but on 21st January you said that "For most people PE is a very small and insignificant part of their lives"; and yet these pages have been dominated recently by men who many years ago found even the exposure involved in bare-chested gym difficult. I am not being critical; I sympathise with them. But if they'd had a bit more of the Finnish attitude and agonised less about their modesty they might have found gym at school a less stressful experience.

Comment by: Alan on 27th January 2025.
'There is nothing wrong in wishing to preserve modesty'


Just refresh things will you Alan. Were you actually at a school with mandatory shirtless PE, and if so how much actual gym did you do this way and what things did you do shirtless, either in or out. Was it everything in the gym or just some things, and what about any times outside? Did you do any shirtless PE before you reached secondary school or was that where you began doing it? How modest would you say you are, on a count to ten if ten is extreme and zero is not at all? Thanks.

Well I didn't expect that kind of reaction from some quarters.

Matthew, I'm not aware of any particular set training I had in order to carry out a primary school PE lesson other than casual word of mouth discussion among others in school. So absolutely no formal training at all or certification. There was also no meaningful health and safety style formal training on accident reduction either, other than using common sense. The primary ages were 8 to 12 years, many of my class ages were 9's and 10's. I was only ever connected and employed by the one primary school.

As I said last time I was here, I knew boys rarely liked to speak about their problems and used to think I was quite accomplished in noticing anyone who might be bottling up any type of problem. Many times I would have to probe quite hard to get answers from some children until they finally gave me an answer, especially boys.

When I said that I it never crossed my mind that boys would be unhappy without a top on for the PE hour I can only say that nothing came to my attention that any ever were in a major way. I can certainly understand anyone being shy but a total unwillingness when asked to remove tops for PE was not apparent that I have any memory of. Had any of the boys I took for their PE hour ever spoken to me about such an unwillingness to do so then I imagine I would have talked it out and possibly engaged another more senior staff member and who knows where that might have ended up.

As others have already said, and in my defence, nobody can just start a new job anywhere and start rewriting the rules because they don't approve of certain aspects. The primary I taught at for a few years expected their boys to turn out for PE hour with a bare chest and feet and who was I to begin arguing about that. Besides, if I'm being fully honest I did not see that as anything other than within conventional norms for the time. I'll go further and say I probably did not even hold an opinion on it. I've rifled through my old document cases yesterday and found the primary school information from my time there and it reminded me that school then said boys do not wear tops in PE, phrased as 'Boys are only expected to wear shorts, no tops are required, and bare feet when indoors for PE'. This is in my formal teacher notes from those days around 1977. Infact the primary school did have showers installed in both the boys and girls changing room at that time but these were never ever used by anyone and no mention was ever made of doing so, which was probably reasonable and at least didn't add to the workload and time.

I changed career later on Matthew to something related but not involving day to day contact with schoolchildren.


I did not make any comment on mammograms or doctors and have been incorrectly attributed to those comments. That was Julia. Teachers are used to attention to detail.

Comment by: William on 27th January 2025 at 11:13


"Simon Godley, I have also encountered in Scandinavia the hope that the British might shed some of their inhibitions about nudity. Certainly the attitude there is strikingly different. In Britain the association between nudity and sex is ingrained"


Not necessarily - it is just that some people like to flaunt themselves and others don't. If you want to be a naturist - that's fine, do it. They have clubs for it and there are nude beaches (I wouldn't recommend them in January though).

There is nothing wrong in wishing to preserve modesty, any more than there is nothing wrong in adults who wish to parade around in the buff, but I think that is a decision to be made in adulthood, just as smoking and drinking are. I just make the point that there are not as many nudists in this country as there are non-nudists.