Burnley Grammar School

Shirts would be my active choice as a kid and now.

On initial entry to my comprehensive school in 1983 when I was twelve years of age I was already not looking forward much to doing PE, mainly due to the rugby and football requirement boys had to take up outside as I hated most team sports.

I'd overlooked the school gymnasium though. Up till then I'd always worn T-shirts for PE or a simple vest at my previous schools up to age twelve, so doing any PE shirtless wasn't really part of my thinking process, and I spent no time at all at home going around with my chest bared and always wore T-shirts through summertime and didn't lounge about the house undressed very often at all, almost never infact.

When my first comprehensive school gym lesson came along the boys all changed and went into the gym in trainers, white shorts and a plain white vest, no logo or anything on it, just generic. That PE teacher beckoned us to gather around him in the centre of the gym and told everyone to quickly remove our vests as we wouldn't be needing them in the gym. With that he made us all screw our vests up into a ball and sybolically throw them as far as we could across the gym floor where they remained until we finished.

At the moment we did this and I took my vest off I remember physically shaking to myself and trying to tell myself not to be so silly about it but just couldn't help myself. I exaggerate not one bit when I say I must have been shaking through fear of it and possibly shock. I was absolutely mortified I had been told to do the PE lesson in my bare chest and knew it wasn't going to be a one off but the thing we did each time, and the sight of everyone else around me stripped shirtless, some of them boys I'd known a few years as junior school friends, was not any kind of reassurance to me and made me feel even more strange. I had this desire to keep using my arms to protectively cover my body up for a bit. It took a lot of getting used to and I would say it was six weeks before I finally found acceptance and settled down into that routine at school gym but I never found it automatic and easy to remove and keep my shirt off to do PE lessons. I was very envious of some of the boys I could see who it came easy to.

I do remember a couple of boys in my PE class who knew there were some of us who gave off unconfident body language while shirtless and found it cause for unhelpful comments.

So I guess the question is what was I fearful of exactly, and I just don't feel able to answer that question.

There was a PE cupboard along the corridor to the gym with a lot of gym bits kept in it. You had to pass a couple of English classrooms to reach it. Our PE teacher would often just grab a couple of us and take us along to this cupboard to get some bits to bring back into the gym, mats, balls, racquets, whatever, and this meant going past two English classrooms who could see you. If chosen it was just a pointed finger and, 'you and you, come with me now'.

So forgive me for saying I'd be a shirt by choice. I think comprehensive school gym put me right off shirtless for life, I just associate it with my days in school PE in the gym feeling pushed about and anxious.

I don't think it's so bad to admit being this way as a boy or man.

I remember having good days and bad days at school when I felt confident or unconfident about the way I looked or myself in general. So on the skins v shirts question if it's a free choice that would have depended how I felt when I got up on the day. It's very hard to put myself back into the little 12 year old boy at school facing another PE class ahead of me, but on balance I had many more good days than bad ones so on that basis I will be generous and say I'd elect to be - "skins". It would probably please the PE teacher!

I'm pleased you have apologised to Veronica there Alan.

How nice to see you back Craig with your own bareskin update. The video of the bareskin runner you posted showed him getting incredibly muddy and that took me back to cross country at school which could be a surprisingly muddy endeavour. How can modern boys run cross country's, get like that and not shower I ask you?

David P, skins or shirts answer.

Skins.

Secondary school gym classes were a mixture of kit types in the years I was there from '75 onwards. The gym being filled with boys in many colours of tops and shorts, and lots who went shirtless too because they just did so, not because they got told to. I was one of these who just went into PE like that, favouring the bare chest appearance because I saw that as easiest, felt right for me, meant less baggage to bring and didn't mind being seen with my shirt off stripped to the waist. The teachers seemed content to let us decide on all that. Some boys wore trainers for gym, others chose not to. Sometimes when we did team games then some shirts did have to come off to make the right teams up but that was all. We were all required to shower afterwards under the watchful gaze of the PE teacher who would sometimes jump in himself after all the boys in my class had come out when we had gym just before lunch hour.

Mike, simply reflecting the fact that the majority of posters on this article are strongly in favour of shirtless PE. Some to the extent of believing it should be compulsory.

They clearly didn't grow up with skinny ribs or a sticky out belly button.

Comment by David P - Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?

Me at age 13-14: shirts.

Me today: skins.

And that's at least partly because when I was at school in the late 80s to early 90s, I didn't get a choice. It was up to my PE teacher whether I did lessons as a shirt or a skin and that meant, like all the others in the class, I had to get used to the latter.

Comment by: Mike on 4th May 2024 at 17:17


Sorry Mike, but I get the impression people like Veronica have not read all the material I have posted regarding Quinlan, and wishes to have us just recall happy schooldays that some of us did not experience. I suspect the indecencies that went on in Quinlan's school are beyond the imagination of Veronica (and many others)., and I would just ask them to read all the material to see just how the most egregious offences took place, seemingly with the facts being known to the authorities by this pervert, of the local council and the school authorities who even had warnings from parents, who were rewarded by the school and the council threatening them with legal action. They clearly hoped for a cover-up.

However if I was brusque in replying to Veronica, I apologise.

9-3 in favour of skins vs shirts so far, with one fence sitter from Mike (Lurker not original). That's 12 defimnite votes, and 75% in favour even in this small sample size which remarkably matches Nathan's class vote too!

I endorse the comments from Veronica backed up by Mickey and Mike.

Skins 100% any time I'd choose for PE lessons, with just boys or with girls, makes no difference to me.

Nice pic Nick, that's how PE should be done for boys, certainly in the gym but looks like schools in the seventies were ahead of their time taking lads like you cross country in bare chests with 'bareskin' running in PE. I never did any of that in school but very familiar with PE teachers telling us to remove our tops whenever they decided we ought to do it.

Alan, I agree with Mickey here. That was not a nice way to speak to the lady here even though I generally agree with the points you made within your comment about the failings to deal with people such as that, who could possibly argue with that to be frank.

I think Veronica is correct. It is time to give this subject a rest please. I've stood up for you in the past and you make some fair points but like Mickey I did not like your tone and character assassination of someone who wrote you a polite response, even if you didn't like it. Please reflect.


David P question - I would choose to be shirts.

Mickey, when answering this question the same as me you said sorry for your choice, why did you feel sorry about that choice of answer? It may say something about men in general that feel we have to be a certain way and show no sense of reticence or reservation.

Comment by: Nick on 1st May 2024 at 02:44

https://www.facebook.com/camberleymemories/photos/a.1546972158849342/2613441038869110/?type=3


I like your photo Nick, all good looking nice boys of the time. You must have been the keen ones at PE there and all look perfectly presentable like that. I was also at school in Kent back in 1972 at a similar age to you at the time, I'd just gone up from primary then, and I remember sharing many PE lessons with boys my age at my school who didn't seem to stick tops on for PE much. Your old photo brought back quite a few memories for me there actually, it took me back to doing games outside with boys looking just like you lot there. I don't know if you or any of your class there felt bashful about it but you should not have done. I think you all look fine and well. I don't think the PE teachers ever made any distinction between boys doing things by themselves or with the girls and I myself never looked at boys in school PE lessons and thought it was unfair of them to be with us in bare chests, actually we would have expected it I think and might have been more surprised if they were not like it perhaps.

I agree with the other welcome female contributor here today, Veronica. I think Craig's running group is a lovely idea and it seems to be going great guns.

Veronica was gentle and made some good points Alan.

Your constant mischaracterisation of people's frustrations with your complete demolition of discussion on this board, backed up with insults really does suggest you to be unwell.

Comment by: Veronica on 4th May 2024 at 00:26


"I'm rather concerned about you Alan and why you remain committed to posting these press articles on the history forum and the one in particular which often mentions a specific named person."

Thank you for your faux "concern" Veronica. The reason I have named Quinlan is because for reasons, known only to themselves, the police refused to co-operate with the press in supplying photographs of that appalling pervert, even after conviction. It was only thanks to a whistle-blower (not me, I hasten to add, though I would have done it, had I known his whereabouts), that we can now see what the creep looks like (and he looks like a child molester straight out of central, casting - bald, fat, bespectacled and ugly) that after his first conviction, he was allowed, after serving a too-short prison sentence, to return to teaching and practising his perversions on a new set of boys. Had the police published his photograph, as they would with a common housebreaker or shoplifter, he might not have had the chance to re-offend, at least in a state school. The police, in my opinion, acted appallingly. They should be made to explain themselves.

I am not repeating my history here, except to say we had a paedo PE teacher who got away with it, because at that time there was no internet, and nobody would believe what a bunch of common kids knew to be fact, and other teachers didn't have the guts to challenge him, even though they were aware of the problem (as indeed other Royal Liberty teachers were at the time - read all the reference quoted by the Romford Recorder), bet read that than your amateur psychology on me. What did you read to reach your prolix conclusions on me, Veronica, Teach Yourself Amateur Psychology, or the Ladybird Book of the Bonce?.

It is no more questionable for me to mention cases of genuine concern (and remember two other - unnamed - as yet - teachers from the same school are being investigated for the same loathsome sort of behaviour than it is for all these middle aged men pretending they are still at school and deciding if they would be a"shirt or skin".

Does it not bother you that Quinlan is only "Vaguely aware" of the impending legal case (of course, he knows in a civil case he will not be imprisoned, as he should be), that he seems to have no shame, hides behind his solicitor and claimed to be "in a great hurry"? - an old man in his seventies, in a great hurry? Pull the other one. He should be manifestly aware of the legal action regarding his scabrous past behaviour. He was lucky the offences he was convicted of - twice - were before he would have been required to sign the Sex Offenders Register. At least everyone can now see what the pervert looks like.

In short, Veronica, I am sorry I cannot write in the manner of "Hello" or "The People's Friend" - nice cosy articles about a past viewed through rose-tinted glasses, where it is always a summer afternoon. MY life wasn't like that, even if yours was.

History dictates that we recall the very bad as well as the good - and Quinlan is part of very recent history. I also strongly suspect there are many other Quinlans, whom the law has not yet caught up with. But thern we were only boys - had it been girls or women he would have been inside for much longer - both times.

I'm rather concerned about you Alan and why you remain committed to posting these press articles on the history forum and the one in particular which often mentions a specific named person. I did believe I read something early in the year where you accepted it would not be appropriate or sensible to continue doing so. I can't help but wonder if you are holding back on the truth about yourself and in that old trick when asking for a friend you are infact asking for yourself, but in this instance maybe you are more directly involved in some of the articles than you feel willing and able to let on. Otherwise I cannot understand why you have taken some of these articles so deeply personal upon yourself. If you are simply an interested third party and no more than that I really think you should reconsider future postings of this nature. Yes, they are interesting and nobody should ignore such stories which can be all too frequent unfortunately, but they are still uncommon all the same. I just do not think a gentle history site such as this is the place for such intense and deep discussion on the criminality of former teachers. I'd much rather read about your own actual experiences and what you got up to than simply the need to use this forum as a soapbox for an actual agenda. I don't think I'm being too unfair stating this. The adults on this history site were not born yesterday, they all know that life is not perfect and that not everyone is a good person with good intentions and don't really need to be reminded of this.

Just to lighten the mood somewhat if I can also be allowed to answer David P's question, I feel quite certain my choice would be to remain a shirt, and I must say I liked reading your comment Craig, that's a lot of very brave men there in your group and one of the things that is supposed to aid mindfulness is an ability to get back to the nature all around us, get outside and feel it and the sensations it gives rather than be stuck inside or in cars or over protected from the environment we live in. When you are running without your shirts on you are clearly getting back to nature in some profound way. How interesting that so many men have wished to take the opportunity to do this up. I think it's rather magnificient.

I like this pinning our colours to the mast on the skins and shirts here. The 11 year old me faced with this choice in my grammar school in 1962 would have opted for;

Skins.

Choice was not available in 1962 however. We were skins anyway. Every time in gym. I'm sure it did the boys I was at school with more good than bad.

David P - Skins for me most definitely.

Comment by David P - Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?


Skins.

Why? It feels great. I had a stick thin white body but that didn't bother me at all.

We never actually volunteered to go skins at school though. It was always imposed from the teacher and was a regular instruction in all kinds of PE going. If you didn't like your body being on display in PE that would obviously feel unwelcome but few of us have the perfect shape or size or muscles we wished for.

It will come as little surprise to anyone on here that my choice between skins and shirts would have defiitely been.....SKINS.

I hope someone is keeping a tally on the skins v shirts score so far. It seems to be matching the ratio of 3 to 1 that the PE teacher discovered with his own pupils.

So to the real reason I checked back in this evening, to talk about bareskin running again. We've now got 36 members on our Whatsapp bareskin running group.

I'm a bit behind with my update, and you might recall me mentioning we had planned our biggest bareskin run for Easter Monday afternoon on April 1st. This did indeed take place with our biggest group ever, we finally got 24 of us to turn up and do something like 8 miles bareskin running through a local beauty spot off the regular track for the masses, using designated public rights of way. While running we did get caught in an unexpected brief shower, rain is cold on skin, but it was generally bright otherwise and fairly mild that day, about 16 degrees, perfect for a comfortable bareskin run and low humidity helped nicely too.

We try not to separate too much as we go and keep within a structured group. It's not about timing the distance or anything like that, just about the enjoyment of running and being shirtless while we do it, socialising and obviously the fitness aspect. We had three female partners come and run along with us on this occasion, dressed appropriately for their gender and not bareskin I should add, I don't think I needed to say so though.

We did bump into a late middle aged couple who thought our group were something to do with the army reserves out on a training exercise which was probably down to the numbers of us involved. Two dozen shirtless males running past you is noticeable. Their reaction was broad smiles. The core age range is 30s to 50s but we had some twenties and a couple of sixties this time. There is no bar to this bareskin whatsapp group based on age, any age is welcome, no upper limit other than the ability to actually run. There is no lower limit either, anyone over 16 can join us and I suppose if someone under that age and still at school wanted to come and join us too then as long as they had permission from parents then that would be accepted. We have a gent running with us who did try to persuade his 13 year old son, a keen runner at school, to join alongside him on one of our previous afternoon weekend runs when we went out with a group of six but he chose not to but not because it was bareskin.

Every single person who has done this has remarked how positive it makes them feel and everyone has come back for at least another go so far, and as I previously remarked we have men running bareskin who have admitted to lack of confidence and still done it and surprised themselves.

Here is another guy explaining and doing bareskin running on You Tube.

https://youtu.be/Qn8YjrTxk9w?feature=shared

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54

Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?

I'd pick skins.

At our school indoor PE was white shorts or blue shorts, so we didn't need to be in skins. But always were!

At long last (and no thanks to the Metropolitan Police who have always refused to issue this man's mugshot to the press, even after he was jailed), you can see this vile example of a PE teacher. You will note he shows no shame, no guilt, no remorse. And to think this is the sort of creature we are supposed to look up to:

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/24292024.romford-paedophile-teacher-michael-quinlan-confronted/


I know some of you don't like mention made of this sort of story, but the fact that this sort of person exists this late in the day constitutes a warning not to be ignored.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54

Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?


Given a free choice, in all honesty I'd probably want to pick skins but chicken out at the last minute and go for shirts.

Shirts. Sorry.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?

I would choose the skins team.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?



Like Sean and Chris I would choose, then and even now - skins.

Seems like 3-0 to the skins so far!

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?


Although I never had a problem bring told to remove a shirt in a PE lesson back when I was at school, if I was being truthful to myself I would only ever choose to keep my shirt on and not to remove it, so shirts from me.

But I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with a PE teacher telling boys to remove their tops and go shirtless within the confines of an actual PE lesson or anything associated with PE that involves parental observation. It goes with the territory.

Comment by: Stephen on 2nd May 2024 at 11:11

"What does the latest press article pasted here prove? A silly drunken teacher to me at and after a party."


It proves, pace Marcus, that many teachers are not to be "looked up to". Some of them seem barely house- trained, put on a pedestal, when they are just very mediocre stupid individuals, and far from being looked up to, they should be treated with the derision they deserve.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to bem

Skins.

What does the latest press article pasted here prove? A silly drunken teacher to me at and after a party.

These stories can always be found in the media. They don't make the case for anything in my opinion. Every day I could pick out the latest story on someone using a knife lately but it does not mean every time I leave the house I'm going to bump into someone wanting to flash a blade at me does it and that every path I walk down is fraught with peril.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?



I'd volunteer to be a skin quite easily without hesitation.

Further to my message of 5.21 the link did not link, so to speak, and renders the comment otiose. Here is the story as it appears in the Evening Standard:

"A deputy housemaster at a top London private school who grabbed his colleagues’ bottoms while making unwanted sexual advances has not been struck off.

Liam Oakes, who was a PE teacher at the £43,000-a-year Mill Hill School, made repeated advances towards two female colleagues at an end-of-term staff party on July 1, 2021 - even grabbing one in a headlock, a panel heard.

In a ruling on Friday, a teaching misconduct panel found his behaviour “unacceptable”.

But the panel did not bar him from the profession.

The hearing was told how Oakes, who previously taught GCSE and A-Level students at the boarding school, repeatedly asked one colleague “do you want to come home with me” at the pub gathering, grabbing her bottom despite her persistent rejections.

When the staff party returned to school grounds, he then attempted to follow her into a toilet, knocking on the cubicle door “over a number of minutes” before being told to leave by other members of staff.

At the same event, he grilled another colleague about her sex life, asking: “You must be really horny” and “When was the last time you had sex?”

As she stood up to walk away from him, Oakes followed her, attempting to grab her, “including at some point putting her in a headlock,” the panel heard.

This left her “in tears” and she then decided to leave the pub.

The panel also heard of an earlier incident in December 2019, where the second colleague shared a taxi back to her home with Oakes as she had agreed to let him stay in the spare room.

During the taxi ride, he repeatedly attempted to hold her hand, despite her saying “that's not happening”, and at the property, grabbed her bottom. This forced her to lock “herself in her own room”.

In mitigation, Oakes, who studied Sport and Exercise Science at Hertfordshire University, said he accepted his behaviour was “out of order”."


.....and uncivilized as well.

Comment by: Marcus on 1st May 2024 at 16:18


"When you're at school you generally look up to your teachers as if they can do no wrong....."

Really?. How wrong parents and pupils were to do that in the past - and they certainly shouldn't now.

Even at a young age, at my school, we were quite aware that some of them drank far too much, smoked too much, was too fond of using their fists, were time-worn old misanthropes - and two had definite perversions.

There were warning signs 40 and more years ago. These days we have charmers like this - censored, but still "cleared" to carry on elsewhere:

MSN


A bit like politicians, police officers and other authority figures they have been allowed to get away with too much, and regard themselves as "special cases". Look up to them? - I think looking down on them might be more appropriate. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They should be far more accountable - and sackable.