Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Bernard on 2nd March 2024 at 00:09


Clearly both men I have referred to were paedophiles - and there was nothing "gay" about either. I always find that word a misnomer.

Hi Bev - thanks for your comments.

No - I wasn't a skinny youth from the early 70s! By that time, I'd had three (unhappy) years in an office and had moved on to College where I was learning a profession which stood me in good stead until nearly thirty years back when illness forced me into a premature 'retirement' although I still 'practice'. (In my college days I was involved in chasing the girls and getting involved in railway preservation: the two are not mutually exclusive - I still have friends made at time, even though its fifty years on).

I do wonder if some of the angst that is mentioned here comes from some sort of deep memory that only lasted a second or two and which we thought nothing of at the time, but which comes back to 'haunt' (or 'taunt') us.

I haven't looked fully at the latest posts but I think someone said something on the lines that the 'problem' with 'skins' wasn't so much being shirtless but the actual act of being told to go shirtless and taking your shirt off - an interesting comment.

Very nice to have some female perspectives I agree with you Tim and nice to see another comment from Bev here.

Taking being a very young child out of it, pre school, swimming lessons were the first time I ever got really stuck in with girls and went bare chested and I would have been around about 9 maybe, but those lessons were not at school and taken privately with a family friend who I went to at weekends for tuition with a selection of boys and girls. I do not remember feeling any issue about it.

When it comes to school PE, there was definitely some mixing but not much after primary ended, I shared a handful of PE lessons in my early teens with girls and became a bit more conscious of my own body when I was among them rather than with just the boys but not for long. I wasn't shy, just aware they might be paying more attention and especially when your upper body was on show.

Sensible schools still adopt PE in the traditional manner in my view.

Bev, you have said - 'Both women and men took me for PE in those days. I actually preferred some of the male led lessons and the one I hated the most was netball.'

A little known fact that might prove quite a surprise for some readers here. Roughly speaking between the ages of 12 and 14 girls in general are not just equal to, but are a bit stronger than boys the same age as them in class.

There is a lot of value to be had from sharing PE among the genders once in a while. Although men mostly take boys and women take girls there was always some crossover where boys classes could be taken by women on staff, somewhat less with men taking girls though, but mixed boy/girl lessons had their place. At the time I would not have considered that a young man in PE should have to cover up his body (bare chest) simply because girls were to be alongside during PE on any given day. In my case this sometimes applied not just inside the school gym but through spring/summer term outdoors for general athletics which was sometimes shared.

With girls not at any major disadvantage at the ages I mentioned it is quite possible for both genders to share PE on an almost equal footing with each other.

You said you disliked Netball Bev. One of the things I would change going back would be the over reliance on the boy/girl stereotype that sent boys into doing one set of things and girls into another purely on being either boy or girl.

I am sure that as many boys actually liked the chance to show off their growing physique to a girl as much as any that wished not to do so or hide it.

I know you're fond of a good quote Alan so I have one from Socrates for you.

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable"

Mickey Grant - I think part of the problem with the remarks you, and probably others including myself, find offensive is a confusion over terminology. When reference is made to a homosexual or gay teacher I think (hope) this should mean a paedophile teacher. A homosexual male teacher should be no more threat to young boys that a straight male teacher is to young girls. It is the paedophile tendencies which are abhorrent and a danger to children of whichever sex is involved.

Comment by TimH
Simply, My Thanks to Yvette, Bev & Lisa (& not forgetting Frances) for their recent postings.
Thank You!


Oh, thankyou back Tim! I didn't expect a complement for that. You must have been one of those skinny boys I mentioned then from the school gyms of the early 70's possibly?

We used to share our thoughts in breaks about one or two boys we liked but I don't really recall anything bad being said about anyone. Like one of the other women on here said, she and girls were the shy ones confronted with a boy in school in PE wearing very little for gym. That sounds accurate to me. But I do also remember bashful boys myself from school PE and I found them to be rather nice. I would never have dared say anything about their actual bodies to them though at that age but they were just like the recent clips on here and were a good healthy looking lot, with some quite long hairstyles at the time. Blond and slim was just my type then and I went out with a boy from one of those PE classes later on when I was older.

It's a long while ago now, but the thinking that any one of the boys in the school gym with us might not want to be dressed down like that would never have crossed my mind then, or the fact that they should have to put a sports top on just because they shared PE with us sometimes to cover their modesty.

I think we had a fairly healthy lifestyle back then. Both women and men took me for PE in those days. I actually preferred some of the male led lessons and the one I hated the most was netball. Every girl was supposed to love netball. Many of us hated it.

I will admit that no girl was very fond of showers in school though. It was always done through gritted teeth and as quickly as possible.

Comment by: TimH on 1st March 2024 at 19:20
Simply, My Thanks to Yvette, Bev & Lisa (& not forgetting Frances) for their recent postings.
Thank You!


Just for being women, or for what they actually said, or both?

I have to say I could not quite believe it when I saw the same thing put up here again from overnight. I think some people feel safe dwelling on their bad memories rather than trying to free themselves from them.

The points from Yorkshire Dad were welcome addition. As far as I know child protection does not prohibit the mandatory use of showering in this day and age, or shirtless PE being asked of sometimes. A school is considered to be a safe environment after all, although I know that might sound like a sick joke for anyone who was bullied badly either by other pupils or a teachers obviously.

Chris 69:

What was the reaction of your classmates and you having to be shirtless for PE back then? Was it ever a topic of conversation among you? How did you play team sports being shirtless all the time? Did you have any mixed PE lessons with girls present?

Reading Chris G's comment (February 29 2024 at 22:43), I'm guessing you don't know why they introduced bare-chested PE after a couple of years? How long did you discuss ditching the vest completely before actually doing it?

By that age vests were ancient history for me. Come to think of thinking back to those primary school days I don't remember whether those of us who were still in vests took them off when changing or whether we just put PE t-shirts on over them? Which would seem silly but then if we'd had to take them off I think I (and probably the others) wouldn't have bothered putting them back on afterwards. I'm overthinking now.

I have vague memories of a couple of lessons in infant school where we took our tops (including vests) off - couldn't tell you what we actually did. This would be early 1990s. It would never have occurred to me at that age not to put it back on afterwards even though quite a few already didn't wear them.

Comment by: Chris G on 1st March 2024 at 16:59

I'm also baffled as to who actually has the time and energy to repeatedly write 500 to 1000-word essays on nested comments dating back days or more. An AI ChatBot perhaps!

A revolutionary thought for the site owner - maybe it's time to upload a fresh set of photographs, to stimulate some less-introspective discussion.



I don't think AI chatbots are that clever yet, or even if they were, that they are bothered about PE lessons. What does a shirtless chatbot even look like anyway?

I quite like the picture. It's a good illustration of a regular, bog standard PE class of the time, no need to move it. I very much doubt that alone is responsible for the nature of the chat on here.

I do agree with both John and yourself on the quote that was picked out. But the reason Alan gets responses is he seems quite unusual to me. If you look back a few days even the serving PE teacher of the moment, Nathan, called him interesting, although that isn't necessarily as complimentary as it might sound at first, in the same way that if I saw a nasty accident I might stop and take an interested look.

I was always confident, maybe overconfident at school. PE was a doddle, whatever I might have taken off or kept on to do it was neither here nor there to me really, shirts off, shirts on, so what in my own mind. Was often keen to shower and first to get everything right off and didn't care who saw me and what they were looking at. But then I'm the other end of the spectrum to the really unconfident ones who write on here.

I was reading back through older pages and saw one or two of Craig's comments on his bareskin runs and he told the forum how many of the men are not what he thought of as confident but gave that a go. Maybe it's time for our unconfident forum member to join something like that.

John, what you said at the end was important. Everyone has their story to tell and should be respected for that even if others don't like it or relate to it, and I am a complete opposite to you Alan but if everyone on here held the same viewpoint and attitude to everything it would be an extremely dull read.

Simply, My Thanks to Yvette, Bev & Lisa (& not forgetting Frances) for their recent postings.
Thank You!

TH
(Not an AI ChatBot)

Comment by: John on 1st March 2024 at 14:38

"Continuing to post on this specific subject here is not helpful and is a well worn path now. If you read back a couple of months I thought there was finally an acceptance that this was no longer a line that you need to pursue on here.

This line really bothers me - "my schoolmates were made a misery by a homosexual PE teacher".

Do you not think straight teachers made pupils lives a misery also? I'm sure many of us were at the hands of such, including in PE as well as other subjects."

John, just a few comments: I was responding directly to Mickey's post this morning. He himself, must have gone back to see the remarks I made on my view of employing homosexual PE teachers many months ago. I haven't mentioned the subject in a long time. He seemed to have something of a "politically correct" axe to grind. He also seem somewhat put out that I made a flippant comment about the current fad of kids being allowed to get away with identifying with animals. I make no apology for treating that notion with derision.

I would not have mentioned the case of my school, (or the much more recent one) had Mickey not bought the subject of such teachers as mine up. It was of his choosing to do so. Quite why he chose to dredge it up months after the event, only he can tell you.

Yes of course other teachers, heterosexual ones, gave us trouble - I have already mentioned one, - our old discipline fetishist, may he rest in pieces, Others were a pain but in a different way. I remember, for example, old Mr Lindsay, the geography master. Everyone loathed him, but I felt sorry for him: he had given up, he was going through the motions. He would copy passages from an old book - his favourite topics were the coal fields of Kent , and the Cambridge fens, on the board (and he had beautiful handwriting), then just tell us to copy it into our notebooks. End of lesson;. It was quite therapeutic on a Tuesday afternoon, he never shouted at least . Miserable old Mr Burke (yes that was his name) was an impatient irritable old devil, he came after Mr Lindsay. and was the maths master. Crossings out led to verbal explosions, and often swear words, but we had all heard worse than his.. Other teachers were sarcastic, dismissive, condescending and all displayed complete indifference, and many, flashes of temper, involving slippers, blackboard rubbers, rulers etc flying across the rooms, but they were all old and we were among their last batch on the conveyor belt.

None of these people, though. could ogle the pupils with no clothes on, leer and make pejorative comments. That was the difference. I could say a lot about Roberts, and his dubious methods - and one particular repeated case of impropriety which didn't happen to me, but to an old mate, and as Roberts is now in all probability dead, I could do so in detail, but I chose not to.

I have never suggested all PE teachers have Robert's inclinations, but it is uncomfortably true, that there seems to be a disproportionate number of scout leaders, youth club leaders - and teachers, who have this tendency to involve themselves in male teenagers lives, in a sort of quasi-official capacity.

I would finally just make the point to yourself, and everybody else, that my email. address is available in every post I make, and if anyone wishes to take issue with me or challenge me, they are welcome to contact me privately . I don't bite and I am polite - I never ignore emails.

I don't wish to make any further comments on this post. I only did so this morning because of Mickey's comments. They say that history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce - there was nothing farcical about the events I have described, and not really tragic, just humiliating, despicable and in one teacher's case, sordid ..

Comment by: Lloyd on 1st March 2024 at 02:04
British schools once had the highest uptake of bare chested PE in the entire world.
The reasons for this are unclear.



Is this really so?

The recent film clips that have been shown on here do reflect my own teachers decisions on how I had to do PE back in the eighties, and I was one of those very self conscious kids that really found PE like that a pain to deal with. 4 out of 5 gym was taken without the top back then and there was no doubting that all my PE teachers throughout secondary school were very much in favour and keen to get boys like me at that age out of shirts of any kind while doing their lessons.

When we had a kit this was annoying, unlike Jonny who has said that his own PE kit was stated very clearly as 'boys go barechested'. I'm not aware that any such thing was openly stated at my school at a very similar time.

Re: Comment by: John on 1st March 2024 at 14:38
Re, re:Comment by: Alan on 1st March 2024 at 04:10

"Continuing to post on this specific subject here is not helpful and is a well worn path now. If you read back a couple of months I thought there was finally an acceptance that this was no longer a line that you need to pursue on here."

Well said, John. Like you, I thought we had got over the bad patch at the end of last year, but over the past couple of months or so, this particular thread has once again degenerated into an analytical re-run of a certain individual's experiences. And actually following the plot has become extremely difficult owing to the tendency of commentators to provide responses to multiple earlier postings in one single post, padded out with extensive quotes and re-quotes from the originals, to the extent that it is still difficult to work out who is replying to whom. I'm also baffled as to who actually has the time and energy to repeatedly write 500 to 1000-word essays on nested comments dating back days or more. An AI ChatBot perhaps!

A revolutionary thought for the site owner - maybe it's time to upload a fresh set of photographs, to stimulate some less-introspective discussion.

I have just read though recent posts and the subject of allowing the boys some say on their PE kit has come up several times so I thought I would give you my opinion.

Implementing this policy could have much greater repercussions than I think you are considering. What you are doing is to put the decision making and responsibility onto the teacher, rather than the school where it belongs. This is very important should something go wrong. If it is school policy then any complaint is directed at the school rather than the teacher and if heaven forbid there should be an accident were the PE kit is implicated then the school insurance (yes schools need personnel protection insurance too), must not have a reason to avoid paying out. As the teacher involved I would not be happy to be making the kit decisions and would choose to leave things as they are. I am therefore very glad that the summer PE kit choice is official school policy. Its a complex issue so i hope I have explained it well enough but no ballots here.

I can see some benefit to the the boys going topless in summer indoors, I do think it can lead to more active classes, with the boys more comfortable in the warm weather. The hall is not air-conditioned so the boys and girls must rely on the flow of air though the hall to keep them comfortably cool and bare skin will be helping in this regard. Having said that I have spent all my teaching career during a period when child protection has been paramount so I am uneasy with having 24 bare chested active young boys jumping around in front of me during PE. We will all have to get use to that again. But it worked ok last year.

Finally some people like to see old videos of PE so here are a few I have come across.

https://www.huntleyarchives.com/preview.asp?image=1016864

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-secondary-school-gymnastics-leyton-county-high-school-for-boys-1936-online

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eXXV0lCUI

Comment by: Alan on 1st March 2024 at 04:10


Continuing to post on this specific subject here is not helpful and is a well worn path now. If you read back a couple of months I thought there was finally an acceptance that this was no longer a line that you need to pursue on here.

This line really bothers me - "my schoolmates were made a misery by a homosexual PE teacher".

Do you not think straight teachers made pupils lives a misery also? I'm sure many of us were at the hands of such, including in PE as well as other subjects.

Why is sexuality so important to you on this subject? I don't actually think you are homophobic as such, although you give that impression quite strongly at times, but I think you are actually a self loathing gay man yourself, possibly lifelong closeted, and I have been reading what you have said with that thought in mind and I definitely think you have given many clues to suggest I am correct.

Is your opinion that a disproportionate amount of PE teachers are, or were gay then, either male or female, and that PE in school attracts such people to the job more than the national average would expect?

I don't believe it at all.

I have no doubt about the authenticity of your own school story and do wonder if you have yourself been subjected to some of the incidents that you like to draw attention to in press articles.

You keep repeating the same name and the same school and I don't know why, as you have already mentioned them. This reminds me of my own late father who, when we would have some row over something at home, or even long after I left well into adulthood, would sometimes throw back at me something from the dim and distant past to clobber me with in arguing and would never let some things just go without feeling the need to rehash and reheat them in completely irrelevant conversation or arguments we had years later.

Anyway, I will treat you with due respect on the matter and hope that there is no more personal abuse at you and anyone who wishes to judge or disagree with you does so fairly and constructively. I condemn all personal abuse wherever it takes place, whether at school in the past or on this forum in the present day.

Comment by: Mickey Grant on 29th February 2024 at 21:16

Mikey I am sorry if my views offend you. However I will not apologise for expressing them, given the personal experience I have of my own schooldays.

I apologise to other readers for repeating this, but my schooldays, and that of my schoolmates were made a misery by a homosexual PE teacher, and in more recent times - may I suggest you Google the words "Royal Liberty School" and "Michael Quinlan" and see if you, too, are not appalled. The testimony of Quinlan at his SECOND trial condemns him out of his own mouth. The worst thing is in both cases, other teachers were well aware of the men's proclivities (in the R.Liberty case two other men from the same department shared them), but a blind eye was turned. How progressive is that!

I have no objection to homosexual English or Geography teachers or any other subject, but for the two men I have mentioned, putting them in a changing and shower room was akin to giving an alcoholic the keys to a brewery.

It is very easy, Mickey, to be "progressive" if you have never been affected by these issues.

British schools once had the highest uptake of bare chested PE in the entire world.

The reasons for this are unclear.

The comment by Mike (Lurker) regarding being the only one in the changing room still wearing a vest reflected the inverse of my experience.

When I started at secondary school, the UK was emerging from Post-WW2 austerity, and in many households, mine included, there was little spare money for non-essentials. So when the PE kit list demanded a white PE top, Mum was not alone in deciding that white underwear vests, which boys generally wore back in those days, would be perfectly adequate. And so it was, no one in authority questioned this, and everybody in my class changed for PE by simply removing our trousers and our underpants, pulling on our white cotton shorts and taking off our jumpers and shirts to reveal ouir vests. Changing after the lesson was just the reverse process, as showering was neither required nor possible, in the absence of any showers..

When bare-chested PE was introduced a couple of years later, this same routine was adequate, except that we took off our vests as well. But, before long , realisation dawned that if we weren't wearing vests for PE, there wasn't much point in wearing them to school on PE days, and by extension, not much point in wearing them to school, or anywhere else, at all. Although a number of us discussed this, I think I was the first of my class to actually implement it, enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame as the only one in the changing room not wearing a vest. This did not go unnoticed, and several of my mates ostentatiously refrained from putting their vests back on after the lesson. Within a week or so, there wasn't a vest to be seen as we changed.

I've dug out my old comprehensive school handbook, dated 10th October 1980.

It's an A5 sized 20 page pamphlet. Just a couple of pages into it there are a couple of pages on PE, including the kit. What's interesting is how it describes what we had to wear in the school gym at that time as fresh faced eleven and twelve year olds, although I think the handbook applied to other years as well.

GYM.

Girls should bring a black LEOTARD.
Boys go BARECHESTED.

Showering is MANDATORY for all pupils immediately on completion of PE. A towel is required, not provided.


What I noticed was the emphasis and capital letters on the final words on kit, and also that for the boys there is no actual mention of any actual wearable kit in itself, just the striking emphasis on the bare chest that was required then. We tended to wear mainly white shorts I seem to remember but other colours were acceptable like black or navy and they were not strict on that, and we were all barefoot for gym, notice no mention of trainers or socks there. Very basic kit indeed. I also noticed they emphasised the mandated nature of showers by using capitals too on that word.

There is also a mention about football and cross country running at school, saying it takes place at the teachers own discretion. I remember we used to run cross country in our football kit.

I remember those days very well. I always became nervous when I had to take my school shirt off on gym days and leave my body bare above the waist. I was never quite sure exactly why I was nervous about it though, I just was and almost every time I did it I felt the same nervous feeling that I struggled to grow out of even after quite a long time doing it.

I don't ever remember any of us having to be told by a teacher to actually be bare chested because it was written down and we knew instinctively to do so without being instructed. It was much the same when showering, I don't remember having to be told to do it, when the water began running that was the sign to get a move on and get in. Only if you were caught trying to opt out would you be called out and told directly to do so.

It's okay to be nervous in such situations. Our teachers never even made reference to being bare chested in PE. If I had been allowed to vote my choice I'd have chosen a tee-shirt but always accepted that you couldn't have PE at school without the need to shower, especially after coming in from the outside where sometimes we came in dripping wet through all our kit including through to our underwear.

Alan, it's up to you whether you believe gay people shouldn't be teachers, or what you think about young people's self identification. But might I respectfully suggest that you avoid expressing such offensive views on a public forum given you often state you do not wish to offend?

Nicholas, Sean, Alan and Stuart, thank you for kindly commenting and sharing your reactions and recollections.

My teacher's momentary insensitivity over the boy in the PE lesson was uncharacteristic: she was bright, friendly. I listened to her enthralled when she told us about Columbus and his crew setting off in 1492 on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, or, during another term, explaining to us the functions of the different organs of the body using a plastic detachable model. Though a sensible boy, I have reason to believe she tended to generosity at parents' evenings and school reports.

Incidentally, that same school year, another class of the same age studying the same topic also put on an Aztec sacrifice in school assembly.

Comment by: Stuart B on 29th February 2024 at 16:04

They were only 9 at the time, Stuart. Tissue paper or no, you wouldn't get away with that on TV these days. They seem to have to issue warnings for everything now I agree. But the Aztecs seems a bit strong.

I am still looking forward to how schools will cope when more kids start to self identify as an animal. If only that had been an opt-out clause back in the day. I would have gone in every day with a bowl of milk in one paw and a cat basket in the other.

I don't consider red tissue paper to be that grisly.

This just shows how the same thing can be perceived so differently by two people. Sean would loved to have played the main part, whipped his top off and got plastered in fake blood, while Alan finds it dreadful and should not have taken place, although if it's anything like how I remember such things in school we got to choose parts and I'm sure the 'sacrifice' wanted to do that part. Nobody would ever suggest boys in school would be made to do that if they were too shy to do so.

I think it's just an entertaining way to educate, no more than that. Quite strong as a thing to do I will admit though but it's a real part of world history. Much of the history I was taught was so dull and uninspiring and the eras just didn't appeal to me at all.


Nicholas J - Good to hear your own positive story surrounding your own introduction to secondary school PE requirements and that by being made to shower with no clothes with others it appears to have cured your own anxieties you thought you had about yourself.


Yvette - That is so typically French. I found an item about that right here;

https://www.indy100.com/viral/class-celebrates-end-of-year-with-naked-photo-including-their-teacher-7490026

Comment by: Bernard on 28th February 2024 at 22:37


Bernard. When I was kid they played an old film on TV one Sunday afternoon called The Guinea Pig. It was so old that Richard Attenborough was wearing short trousers (he was in his late twenties at the time, though!) and Kathleen Harrison played his mum. The story was how a common little Londoner, like me, got a scholarship to a grammar school. So we started out with the typical "Gawd blimey, love-a-duck guvnor" average schoolboy, the sort that Pinewood turned out, and he became this plum-in-the-mouth, "Ooh, how simply top hole, sir" lad, making sycophantic attempts to ingratiate himself with his form master, Robert Flemying. It sickened me then, and it still does. I don't envy you your "minimal kit" and regimented regime, and the "head boy" inflicting summary justice with his belt any more today than I would have then. I think I would have been more unhappy at one of those monuments to snobbery and authority than I was at my old dump, which at least had no pretensions. Like "Emmerdale" it was bad and it knew it.

I don't like uniforms on children, whether it is school, the scouts, or anything else. We should be individuals and treated like it from day one. As regards those PE lads in London wearing slightly different clothing - though most wear the same blue top, they are comfortable and that is all that matters to me. I am sure, had they felt unduly hot, they would have removed their top, but the fact they didn't speaks for itself that this is a school, that doesn't inflict petty rules just for the sake of them. They had to be good to progress to GCSE standard. Believe me, it costs more to dress down these days than it does to dress up (go in any branch of SuperDry and check it out for yourself). I know I had two suits when I was on public view in my music days, and a couple of the other lads spent a fortune on looking as though they had just come back from a construction site, but that didn't matter, because we were all expressing ourselves sartorially as well as musically, and we were comfortable in so doing. Uniforms always seems to me to suggest that people prefer the box to the chocolates.


Comment by: Matthew S on 28th February 2024 at 23:02



I wonder if your teacher was as nice as she made herself out to be, Matthew?. After all, I dare say George Joseph Smith, the Brides In The Bath killer must have made a good impression on at least four poor women who ended up being drowned on their honeymoons, or the late Dr. Shipman and his bedside manner with old ladies.

Again here - as we see so often on the site - we see a (woman, in this case - usually men), on an ego trip. They crave power, just like politicians. They like to tell you what to do, however unpleasant it might be (just like the other Matthew and his shirt). Due to their overweening sense of entitlement they would be horrified if they had to do the things they tell others to do.

I am astonished the headmaster or mistress allowed the grisly entertainment to go ahead. I suppose it shows who wore the trousers at your school. So often at schools in the past (perhaps today as well? I don't know) it seems to have been a case of the tail wagging the dog. Had I been the head, I wouldn't have allowed it.


Comment by: Orson on 28th February 2024 at 23:30
Matthew K on 25th Feb.

"I have no time for anyone who sets out to deliberately humiliate a child on purpose. I said as much when I posted back on 26th Jan for the first time. I had my shorts and pants pulled down climbing a school gym rope and was exposed briefly and the teacher laughed."

Believe me Orson that happened at our school all the time - with the same reaction from the teacher (he probably enjoyed it more than the boys who did it). It certainly happened to me once, but we didn't have the underpants. It is supposed not to happen now because teachers are supposed to "respect" the pupils. I wonder?

Comment by: Yvette on 28th February 2024 at 18:53


"I come from Avignon. Some years ago our school, Lycée Frederic Mistral here in France were at the end of the school academic year, all the boys and girls in one of the science classes posed naked or almost naked for a photograph with their teacher. They were all over age sixteen may I add. There were fifty participants on this. There was no reason, just originality and something a little different that would make others think"

Yvette, what can I say, except that it only makes me think I am glad we left the EU!.

Comment by: Matthew S on 28th February 2024 at 23:02
Matthew K had a hard time of it.


Indeed he did. I was a pretty fearless character at school and took on anything that came my way without thinking too much about it but that was just plain rotten wasn't it and I would not have liked to be treated like that. I would have thrown some drink back at the other kid and made sure he had to take his clothing off too if that was the teachers insistence.

A really great post Matthew S and I liked reading your Aztec story. I would have jumped at the chance to be the one in the lead role having myself sacrificed with tissue paper and a bare chest. I'd have been disappointed they were only using tissue paper for blood and not something that actually looked like the real thing and would trickle over me properly.

In my earlier schools I used to love getting myself covered in paint or any other messy things. The more mess created the better.

My old dad used to tell me that worrying was for idiots. You're right about too much thinking and anticipating, or ruminating. There was a boy I was at school with who was always going on about his fear of dying, at just 13 years old! He actually did die when he was 29 of alcohol abuse sadly. A sweet guy too. But at least it stopped him thinking about dying for another 60 or 70 years.

Don't worry, be happy!

Responding to - Matthew S on 28th February 2024.

"I would feel a small twinge of discomfort as I pulled my white cotton T-shirt up and over my head, leaving me bare-chested, but I would be fine in the lesson after that. Odd, isn't it, how sometimes the anticipation of something like that can be worse than the actuality?"



It's often the way Matthew isn't it. All of us back in the day used to have a bit of anxiety about "going up" as it was called, to our secondary schools or perhaps in some cases grammars. I went up to mine in autumn of '78.

When we got the pre-secondary school visit pep talk with someone from the school there was a threesome of teachers, one was a PE teacher, the other two were I think the deputy head and a maths teacher or something like that. We got heaps of information to fill our heads with and when one of the teachers began talking PE he mentioned showering was expected of us. I remember someone shouting "do we have to be naked" and "of course" coming back the answer. Oh my God I thought, so it's true what they say, certain rumours about such things had been doing the rounds for ages I seem to remember that spring and summer.

I spent the next couple of months and a lot of time during the summer holidays thinking about this quietly to myself and worrying myself senseless over it. Like others have already said of themselves, I too was not the kind of youngster to remove my shirt voluntarily, or take it off when needed with ease and confidence. So the prospect of everything having to come off and show my most intimate body parts, showing and getting my willy out for all to see was a bit stomach churning at the time and I really didn't want to be doing that at all. I kept imagining in my head the scene at school doing such a thing and hoping desperately that I'd get a teacher that didn't ask us to.

When the day finally came I had long resigned myself to doing so and had many weeks to deal with my thoughts about it, such as, will I be made fun of, or what will it be like, or will I cope. Well I did cope, and one school shower washed away many of my fears as well as any sweat I had on me. It was a bit awkward, it would be as a new thing first time like anything, but it was OK and nobody laughed at me or anyone else. It was a shower, and I was in and out in under 5 minutes. When I'd got dressed and was walking back across the school I had this feeling of achievement. I know that sounds quite weird but it's true. I'd done it and I was OK, all was fine and I had got through it smoothly. My anxieties evaporated almost instantly and I suddenly came to realise that I wasn't quite as body shy as I must have thought I was for so long and was simply nothing more than a bit of a worrier. The doing was nothing, the thinking was everything.

I realise that not everybody will have felt the same way and other people will have held the same worries and not had the same outcome as me.

Comment by: Bev on 25th February 2024 at 22:32
Big muscly bodies aren't everything. I used to like looking at the skinny boys the most. In first and second year at my Kent upper school we sometimes shared PE and boys had no shirts on. This will be right back to 1972. My advice, don't worry about it, you looked lovely, and the boys in Steven's clip remind me of the boys I used to share PE with at that age and none should be bashful about it.




That's all very well for you to say Bev!

I was actually 15 years old in 1972 and although my body was average to okay looking, neither too thin or too chunky I loathed PE because we shared it with girls like you in half the gym lessons and the boys were simply not allowed to get away with wearing anything on top and were always instructed to into go to gym classes sporting a bare chest, even in mixed company from the age of 11 until I was 15.

Like others say here, I think I would have always been more comfortable and enjoyed the lessons more wearing a top of some kind, even just a basic vest.

In an all boys school I'd have felt less concerned I think.

Matthew K on 25th Feb.

I have no time for anyone who sets out to deliberately humiliate a child on purpose. I said as much when I posted back on 26th Jan for the first time. I had my shorts and pants pulled down climbing a school gym rope and was exposed briefly and the teacher laughed.

In your case I don't know quite what to think. The teacher sounded ignorant. I've been to the place you mentioned, it was in Kensington I think. Perhaps she had sons of her own who liked being shirtless in the warm and thought everyone else did. I can't fathom someone thinking that was the correct decision to make in that place.

Give the shirtless ballot a go I say to Nathan, any information is useful. I think it would end up a 50/50 split actually.