Burnley Grammar School

Tim H: A quote from one of the newspaper articles from the man who ran the "Bognor Cane Company", when a group of clearly decent teachers complained about his questionable magazine:

"Mr Huntingdon, aged 53, who is growing crosser by the minute, told me: "I am taking legal advice. What they have said is utter unmitigated rubbish. They seem to want to get hold of any stick to beat me."

Well, I thought that was what he wanted....

Alan on 15th August 2022 at 05:49

Oh dear, here we go again attempting to focus some real memories as disingenuous while failing to call out, but why would he the posts he either made or sponsored:

Stephen Breech on 14th August 2022 at 16:50

Paul H on 12th August 2022 at 13:26

Alan on 11th August 2022 at 20:30

Paul H on 11th August 2022 at 15:06

Stephen Breech on 11th August 2022 at 00:59


If your post doesn't meet Alan's view of the world as clearly:

Ben on 13th August 2022 at 16:36

Pete on 14th August 2022 at 17:45

Did not because Alan's experience was apparently different then you must be some sort of fantasist posting for some sort of ulterior motive when indeed the prime villain of the peace on that score is Alan himself.

Look let’s be clear here, just as most schools were not and are not riven with bad people wishing to do any harm or abuse in any of its forms, the majority, certainly over recent times write on here with real memories and opinions. Yes there is a minority that do not and some of the fetish minded types try to angle things very subtly but they’ve mostly been called out lately I think and fool nobody but themselves.

We don’t need to overblow the school abuse issue or the daft fetishers who come here into a bigger ratio than they actually are. There have been some brilliant teachers, of PE as well, and there have been some very good posts on here recently too and I would agree a marked improvement in the overall quality and range of content which increases the turnover of memories.

As long as the memories are real I don’t think it matters they are not related to Burnley itself.

Mention is made of the 'Bognor Cane Company': https://www.corpun.com/uksc8104.htm

I agree with Nathan, too. Just recently, for example, we have had stories of boys sent by their fathers to buy canes, inevitably ending up with a "bare bottom" caning. Perhaps in Victorian times, or perhaps in rarified upper-class homes, but speaking s a working class lad, I never knew one boy punished by his dad in this way. Yes in moments of annoyance or temper you would get a wallop, but it was spontaneous, and done with the hand, it wasn't pre-planned and regimented as has been suggested here. Who's the daddy? - there do seem to be some discipline fetishists here.

I’m a millennial male and I’ve always been interested in the sociology of clothing and nudity and would like to, at some point, study the topic as a Ph.D. student in sociology. Anyway, in reading the myriad of comments and posts about these topics received, there's always amusement about the rationale behind a particular practice that’s near-universal among guys of my generation: the “towel dance”. Among commenters, who I assume skewed towards the Baby Boomer and Silent generations, the consensus was that millennials (and probably zoomers as well) do the towel dance “because they’re insecure about their penis size”. This never sat right with me because never once growing up did I hear anyone express insecurity about that. But that might just be because people don’t say out loud what they’re insecure about. That’s how insecurities work. There was, however, a lot of insecurity about sexual orientation. Accusations would provoke emphatic denials, the word “gay” became a pejorative, and yes, the f-slur was sometimes used. But even though millennials may be more insecure about penis size than previous generations, I believe that the norm change precipitates the insecurity, not the other way around. Here’s how that happens:

1. Default towards inoffensiveness
Generally speaking, when people don’t know what the norms are, people will default to doing that which is least likely to offend others. For example, many gyms have no policy on whether working out shirtless is acceptable. But because you’re guaranteed to not offend anyone if you do wear a shirt, but might offend someone if you go shirtless, the default choice is to wear a shirt.
2. Trend towards conformity
Rather than tolerating increasingly diverse behaviors as acceptable, people tend to settle upon only one or a few behaviors that are acceptable that everyone must conform to. If a default is established, behavior will increasingly conform to the default. Continuing on the gym example, people will default to wearing a shirt until everyone wears a shirt all the time and becomes the only acceptable way to dress.
3. Establishment of a new decency standard
This step, particular to clothing standards, happens after the norm is established. Deviations from the norm gain a sexual meaning and when the norm is broken it becomes an act of indecency. “Indecency” meaning thrusting one’s sexuality on non-consenting people. To further elaborate, the “indecent act” ends up saying something about both the person committing the act as well as those subject to it. To continue the gym analogy again, for men who are insecure about their sexual orientation, they’ll see a shirtless patron as gay and indecent. Gay because the person is in view of other male patrons and indecent because of the sexual meaning that style of dress acquired. For the insecure person, they become afraid that the mere sight of the shirtless patron “makes them gay”, so they become offended.

For the towel dance, what happened, was all three of these steps. Step 1: Between “bearing it all” and the “towel dance”, you won’t offend anyone by doing the towel dance, so it becomes the inoffensive default. Step 2: After several years, it becomes THE way to change in a locker room. Step 3: Then, with everyone behaving this way in the locker room, “bearing it all” becomes sexualized and indecent. So when someone “bears it all” they’re seen as being sexual towards the other male patrons and is therefor “gay” and behaving indecently.

But what about penis size? I think we get a sense of what’s normal through experience. While not happening on a conscious level, I think there’s a part of our brains that builds a statistical model of what about a person’s body is normal. It’s the reason we can tell the difference between something that’s at the far ends of normal and an actual medical abnormality. So when the norm changes and deprives us of this information, we end up getting our sense of “normal” from other sources, like porn, which definitely are not normal. While it sounds reasonable that simply telling kids in a health/sex education class what normal is, that’s just not how our brains work. So despite telling teenagres that they’re normal, they don’t believe it because it’s not what they’re seeing “in their everyday life” (porn). All of this to say, the norm change is what led to the insecurity about penis size, and the norm change reflects insecurity about sexual orientation and decency. There’s a quote by Alejandro Jodorowsky that describes this phenomena perfectly: “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness."

I am in full agreement with Nathan Hind.

I am also in full agreement with Colchester "Codswallop" Colin.

And to answer Claire - it's that B&W gym photo effect.

Interesting how the other Burnley page has only had 11 comments, compared with the more than 4000 here!

Colin - "I'm still trying to find something about Burnley Grammar School in amongst all the codswallop!"

Recent 3 or 4 months have actually been a vast improvement with what felt actual real stuff added, even if not Burnley based.

Just look at the older stuff written by a narrow hardcore of total weirdos who were coming onto the site as nothing more than pervy fetishists with never ending talk about jockstraps, lack of underwear, punishment canings and fake fairytales. Who seriously believed the guy who came on here and announced the whole exam year were ordered off to have cold showers before their O levels for instance, or the alleged teacher who reckoned he was told at teacher training to shower with pupils to keep an eye on them, just pure fantasy based tripe to name two. Nobody can be fooled by them. They all know exactly who they are and so does anyone reading this with any semblance of a genuine interest when they read such nonsense. There have been some rather seedy types and downright offensive ones on here.

With apologies to all those who have come here for the right reasons and with the right attitude.

Good luck finding a Burnley Pupil though. Could not agree more with you Colin.

Tony on 12th August 2022 at 02:31

I stand by what I said, I speak only for myself but you seen to want to speak for unnamed others? I have no wish to be caught in crossfire but equally, I don't want anything I say to suddenly have someone else's spin put on it to justify a long standing position of theirs which is why I find one credible and the other not.

I'll leave the point there.

Ben on 13th August 2022 at 16:36

Oh, yes, I remember the hardware shop and the array of canes.

Perhaps worse than my father bringing a new one home was being sent to buy one that was going to be used on you. The temptation of course was to buy the lightest one you thought you could get away with and on one occasion I did that. One stroke in, I was ordered up and to pull up my underpants and trousers and return it and bring back something more suitable.

I was mortified returning to the shop but the owner just laughed at me. I asked his advice this time and returned home with something I knew would pack more punch and sting. Bent back over my father said the first stroke wouldn't count and that he would now add two extras for trying to lighten the caning. Boy, did it sting. I was fifteen at the time.

The comment made on 11th August 2022 at 18:11.

I'm deeply unimpressed by the immature contribution that was made at the above time relating to what I wrote.

<That's about it from me.>
I certainly hope so! ;)

I'm still trying to find something about Burnley Grammar School in amongst all the codswallop!

Who else remembers the high streets of the 1950s and 1960s where your mother went from the butchers to the fishmongers, the green grocers to the grocers all to find the things she needed to feed the family on a day by day basis before there was anything like a supermarket.

There would also be a newsagent, sometimes a toy shop and maybe a gift shop the latter containing all sorts of things that might turn up as birthday presents.

There was also the hard ware shop but that was where your dad went to buy nails, screws, paint or whatever else was needed for home maintenance if he did DIY. They also sold things like bins and gardening equipment and tools.

I used to love the hardware shop, all those things that you could use to make things. The hardware shop though had a downside. Either hanging on a rail or maybe standing in a bin there would be an array of canes, all waiting patiently for a father to call and buy them to keep their sons in order. I remember for a time there were boxes on the shelf behind the counter marked the 'Bognor Cane Company' and they had the length and thickness of the cane printed on them. My memory is there were about five choices. The boxes were not there for long and the next time I went to the shop they were all hanging on the rail as usual.

Your dad arriving home with a 'nice new cane' was not something to look forward to, if he bought a new one, he was going to use it! Well, mine did anyway.

Let me make it clear that I was not particularly concerned about the specific experience I wrote about yesterday.

How from what I wrote has somebody else come on here and interpreted it as me having "concerns about fathers seeing bare bottoms 40 years ago". I couldn't have cared less back then in that school environment. It does not bother me. At home we acted differently. It's an interesting observation in itself I think.

Quite why someone is wilfully choosing to mis-represent what others say on here I don't know but it seems like I'm just the latest victim of it.

That's about it from me.

I played team sports as a boy and I wouldn't have thought it at all strange if my father came to the changing room and equally, PE staff were there because they had a duty of supervision.

After university I played rugby to a fairly high level for almost ten years and it was quite common that the trainers and managers were in the changing room when we were getting changed, I never thought it in the least bit unusual and it happens today just as it did then. It's all part of the camaraderie and support of the players that's important in team sport. Any other thinking is a bit abnormal.

Pete, that's all well and good but Andy does seem to have called out rather a long list of others apart from Alan and therein lies the problem for some of us here. We have a spat here between these two and others seem to get caught in the crossfire.

A message to Alan, whose comments do not cause me any great concern at all and seem fairly genuine and heartfelt, but for goodness sake Alan you can be your own worst enemy at times, stop biting back each time, have the confidence to air your own opinion, argue it by all means but don't always allow yourself to be put on the defensive.

To me, Andy is the credible poster calling out someone who isn't.

How predictable that Andy should yet again come in and demonstrate his bad mannered antipathy towards me.

I invite the cowardly "Andy" if that is his name to, yet again, email me directly and perhaps we can sort matters out to save him boring the rest of the forum yet again. So far, like most abusive keyboard warriors he hasn;t plucked up the courage to do so.

Wow, once again after a few sensible and well thought through accounts we get within 24 hours two almost identical posts of men who as boys 40+ years ago are now concerned that a few fathers saw their bare bottoms in a changing room when they were there legitimately because their own lads were part of the team and the absolute horror, school PE masters were also present - as they should have been.

And to crown the credibility of it all, in the middle of the two we have Alan. I really don't know and can't imagine why I'm not surprised by that, whipping up abuse where there was none.

Very similar memories to Stephen’s of doing out of school hours team games like football in the late seventies. Competitive parents like mine against others. Been there done everything Stephen said. All our parents milling about while boys changed and washed together with total communal group nudity comings and goings. It was not seen as inappropriate yet back at home my dad would not barge in the bathroom on me at 11 or 12 and after but after school sport was different if he was at it. Work that out! A few years later I couldn’t even take an innocent picture at a nativity!

I totally agree with Stephen Breech. It was as though kids, till about 1520 years ago were second class citizens with no rights - not even to privacy - at all, treated as if they were cattle. I too am glad kids don't go through that today.

In answer to Hugh. I am sure you will agree with me, even if there was "only" a small amount of people with questionable motives, even one is too many. It's a bit like murder, of hit and runs - there are only a "small" number (well perhaps not in London today), but when you consider the psychological damage it can cause, it doesn't mean we shouldn't come down hard in it ,because it "only" forms a small number of miscreants. The damage these criminals inflict can cause lifelong problems.

I remember being on the school football team for a couple of years around about 1980/82 when I was a 13/15 year old and we played a lot of weekend games and one or two after school in the evenings when a lot of the parents would come along and support us sometimes, mostly the dads it has to be said.

Times change and indeed they have, not just since the 50s and 60s but spectacularly even since the 80s. When I played school team football privacy was completely non-existent, something that has only come to dawn on me long after the event, it never really registered at the time. Before and after games our dads and sometimes older brothers were actually allowed total access to our changing rooms and most of them piled in with us and just hung around chatting and often getting in the way as it could get a bit crowded. School made us shower just like regular PE classes and that meant even with all these other people hanging around after our games which was the time when most of the dads actually came into our changing room. My recollection is that none of them thought it wasn't the place to be just because we were all getting showered and were quite obviously walking about naked and infact could be seen clearly whilst in our showers from the outside of them anyway. My own dad would hang about like this on a number of the weekend games and saw me and all my friends naked, and I was seen the same by all my friends dads, which at the age of 13/14 isn't quite the ticket and I do recollect wishing they'd keep out but of course nobody felt they could say anything and our PE teachers were all there too anyway and allowing it all to happen. The whole concept of any privacy seemed completely alien, as if well you are our sons and we are your fathers so whats to be concerned about.

Even more remarkable was that some of the dads had some quite posh and expensive cameras with them and I can remember photos not only being taken outside around the games we did but some being taken inside our changing room and on one occasion one of them seemed to have what I think was either a cine camera or a very early camcorder style handheld camera which he filmed with one day and even did so inside our changing room with many of the school team around and about naked as the day we were born. For all I know he pointed it direct at us showering as the view would have been a clear one of the lot of us. Kind of like the actual TV programme that generated so much discussion for much the same thing recently on here. I have no idea whose dad this might have been from this distant passage of time but would love to know as there could well be similar types of pictures or cine/video out there of me doing school football on Saturday mornings including the after match situation.

A completely unimagineable situation now, rightly so I think.

My father often used to say that the past was another country. He had been in the army during WW2 and was part of the brigade that liberated Belsen. He never talked about it and when things like that came up was when he used his phrase, the past is another country.

I guess over the years since WW2 there has been more social change than in any other time in the history of the UK or for that matter across Europe. The world of growing up in the 1950s and 1960s is indeed now another country and as someone who was a boy during those years, my early years compared to those who are growing up now, well there is no common ground and I doubt I would recognise the experience compared to my own.

I am one of six boys and my mother died as my youngest brother was born when I was four so to all intents and purposes I was brought up by my father who was very abley assisted by his own parents who lived nearby.

We lived in a three bedroom semi built between the wars and it was a happy home. My father was there as much as he could be but for instance he wasn't home from work when we returned from school so every day, year in and out, my grandparents were there and my grandmother made our evening meal with a kindness and devotion and dedication which I only appreciated long after she died by which time I was 30.

My father ran the house a bit like an army camp and he was pretty strict but we also had a lot of fun. There was one large bedroom which had been my parents room, a second reasonably sized room and a box room.

After my mother died, my father had the large bedroom turned into a bunk room for my brothers and I, he moved into the box room and the second bedroom became his study. Downstairs were a kitchen, dining room and sitting room. There was one bathroom and a separate toilet.

In the mornings, we were not allowed to lock the bathroom door or indeed at any other time. We had to wash and shower quickly before school, my father set great (military) store by us being clean and well presented. The bathroom was a shared space but we thought nothing of it, we shared a bedroom so we were used to seeing each other naked. My father used the bathroom too in the same time frame so we were also quite used to seeing him naked. In all probablility in other households at the time lads didn't see their father's naked at all but for us it was quite normal and we thought nothing of it.

My father always warned but failing to take note of a warning did result in a bare bottom caning, it didn't happen often, we each maybe got three or four a year but at the time, the range of punishments that was meted out to my friends ranged from a telling off, through a grounding, stopping pocket money to degrees of corporal punishment. Most got corporal punishment and the cane on bare bottom was normal. Needless to say my grandfather heartily approved of this and thought it wasn't used often enough!

The past is another country.

Hugh on 8th August 2022 at 19:16

Thank you, one a gain a post full of common sense and information.

From what has been posted it is clear that in some schools punishments were severe, especially those administered to a bare bottom, but I did not realise that it has been stated that parents used the same punishment on a bare bottom. I must have been treated leniently. My dad never used a cane or anything like it. However, because I was in shorts until about the age of 13 or 14 , punishment was a sharp slap round the bare legs and that stung. I am glad that my dad did not make me stand and take down my trousers and pants because I think that would be as demeaning as receiving the punishment.

Rich C, thank you for your posts about your time growing up. I went to a boys state grammar school but the lad who lived next door went to another school in town that was an Irish Christian Brothers grammar school.

I remember he gave a very similar account of events to you of daily strapping of hands at the front of the class for something as minor as a spelling mistake or failing at a mental maths question and then the much more serious 'bare arse leathering' for anything a bit more serious.

I experienced nothing llike that though the cane was in use at my grammar school and I would say most of us got it at one time or another, I certainly did.

In those days of course it wasn't uncommon for you to be 'dealt with' by your mates parents if you misbehaved at their house or on their watch and my mates father who was Irish had a hefty leather belt that on occasion was applied with force to our bare bottoms and equally, when at my house, my father was not averse to delivering a bare bottom caning when he thought it was required. We both thought the cane was a lot worse but it was used less often.

I've said before, I'm retired but was a GP for many years. I almost hesitate to make this comment because of some of the sheer antagonism that has gone on here both in recent days but also in the past.

In very many years of practice in a reasonbly big GP practice - 10 partners and as many again as juniors, only on two occasions in the last ten years did we have a case of abuse, in neither case was it my patient but these things are discussed at clinical meetings. In both cases, social services were involved and all protocols were followed. On a small number of occasions we suspected abuse we always followed protocols but on those occasions we were proven wrong.

I must therefore conclude that actual instances of abuse are so few and far between they cannot in any context be considered common and I doubt they ever were. No doubt things happened but also, memories change with time. Personally, I would not wish to trust a memory of many years ago to make a serious allegation about anyone, others of course feel differently.

With that, I will let the matter rest.

Sorry for such a rapid reappearance, but this has just come up on the BBC news website, in connection with the Nicky Campbell story I mentioned last week:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-62442766

I am not, and have never, for one minute, suggested that every school had pests like this "man", but I was just making the point that far too many teachers in the past got away with behaviour which would have been highly questionable and/or illegal even back in the days when it occurred, except that the lads who complained were either not believed or made to shut up about it,

Andy: "Oh dear, here he goes again and posting in the middle of the night, a true keyboard warrior who posts all night and skives all day."

What a truly rancorous little man you are. FYI I am self-employed and I happen to work better early in the day, but today I "clocked off".so to speak, at 1830 this evening, having started at 0500 this morning. I was awake early this morning as it was a very warm night and I needed to shower. Is that alright with you?. haven't broken any "Andy" rules have I?. .As for "skiving", well you were scribbling away with your latest little insult at 1530 this afternoon.....

I have no idea why you have this personal vendetta against me, and I can only suggest that if you have some axe to grind you take up my offer and email me directly, instead of boring the whole board with your neurotic tantrums on this forum. It is not what it was designed for, and i am sure many others are as bored by your antics as I am. But I will not just "go away" if and when I have something I want to say. If it upsets your sensibilities that much, I suggest you just don't read what I write.

The post placed at 3.26pm this afternoon seems to illustrate that its author does not have a clear head for obvious reasons for anyone who reads it.

Alan on 5th August 2022 at 04:14

Oh dear, here he goes again and posting in the middle of the night, a true keyboard warrior who posts all night and skives all day.

Several weeks ago, Andy said he was withdrawing from this board and for a few weeks he did and it was a peaceful place with adult discussion taking place and some excellent posts but then he couldn't stay away, up he pops with his usual drivel about abuse everywhere.

The number of lads, as has been pointed out among the millions who went through schools is statistically insignificant but Andy and his handles have to find abuse everywhere, something most lads have no concept of and continuing to insist it took place everywhere actually belittles the experience of those who did experience it. I maintain this is the behaviour of someone who carries guilt.

The poster in question continually throws out the allegation that I am an amateur psychologist. I know in what I say next I will have the Andy handles calling me a liar and challenging me to prove what I say, don't bother, I'm not going to any more than anyone else here is asked to prove what they do. I'm not and 'amateur' psychologist but I do recognise someone who is utterly sick and posting the same nonsense repeatedly and has for years.

I do wish he would cease, desist and seek treatment or alternatively hand himself to the proper authorities to investigate his earlier behaviour.