Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Barry on 21st February 2024 at 16:30
What freedom are you fighting for Dave?

Yes, come on Dave, I'd like to know what your rather interesting email address is all about.

Comment by: Ross on 21st February 2024 at 22:08
I may as well show my hand here. I took a screenshot of what Bill wrote on this forum and emailed a copy of his comment as it appeared here.

Cheeky but I love this and your cheek, you journos. I wasn't sure when I first read what you did. I am looking forward to Bill's reaction.

Comment by: Orson on 21st February 2024 at 18:47
But the more remarkable thing is he thought I was actually exaggerating to the point of lying when I told him they used to make men like me, when we were boys and teenagers at school, actually strip stark bo**ock naked without being given a choice in the matter and send us all off to shower like that with each other.
Incredible wouldn't you agree, a 19 year old thinks the things done at school in the recent past and probably in many back in the UK today are one big embellishment or exaggeration.

I agree with you. It's incredibly stupid to think you Orson are effectively imagining something most British men have done on here and is easily provable. Why so hard to imagine I wonder.

Comment by: Jonathan H on 21st February 2024 at 17:20
No lad should be worried about being seen in bare chest doing some gym, with his mates, among a few girls or a wider crowd like the video appears to show. I wasn't.
It's only through taking the kind of attitude I have that I think you build on real lasting confidence.

Quite right Jonathan. I'll allow anyone to be nervous in a crowd maybe, and even in front of a girl, but to get over it. With other boys should never pose a problem. I agree that confidence is the key.

Comment by: Russ on 21st February 2024 at 15:48
I don't think anybody engaged with my comment previously made about modern PE classes. If you are out in PE at half ten in the morning doing some rugby in this weather how do you stay clean, and how is it possible to do some of the things I remember me and my own sons doing and not clean up afterwards? Mud and dirt was a permanent part of PE for me at school over the winter months outdoors. Don't they allow them tio get like that anymore or something?

Let me do so. They either don't let them get actual dirt on them anymore, or they do and expect them to wipe it off with a packet of wet wipes or similar. If you've played rugger at school just get in the bloody showers afterwards. It can never be a clean game. Its always been sweat and muck. How can you not shower after rugby, or don't they play it much anymore?

Comment by: Michael on 21st February 2024 at 10:39
Referring to previous comments about early contributions to this section, I reckon there is a cathartic function; a psychological relief through the open expression of emotions, by being able to relate one's past experiences.

You could well be right about this. It's cheaper than paying for a psychologist anyway.

Comment by: Lance on 20th February 2024 at 23:18
I also liked the post by Mark Twyford as well. Despite my own personal feelings on the shirtless issue in PE and my own feelings how I felt when like that I would never have wanted to be the only one in PE wearing a top so it comes as no surprise to read that story how it ended up.

Pleased to hear you say this. I also agree, Mark Twyford was a bit of an outlier of a teacher there but it worked. He knew it would that's why and you admit it would for you. Common sense really isn't it.

Comment by: Will on 19th February 2024 at 23:23
Yorkshire Dad.
Take shirts off in PE in summer to avoid heat exhaustion. That would not be caused by shirt wearing. More likely dehydration and lack of fluids. Provide water instead. Going bare chested won't be that effective. I agree with you, it's an odd one that.

How come an actual head teacher can't know this common sense fact. You don't need to justify any PE attire, even going shirtless. Just do it and be damned.

Comment by: Gary on 19th February 2024 at 18:21
I'll add my own praise for what I saw written here by Mark Twyford last night which I think was so nicely said. We have heard too much about "Roberts" and not enough about the decency many of our teachers had, as Mark said, in some quite difficult circumstances on occasion.

Exactly this. I need say no more.

Sidney Chaplin Secondary Modern School Gym Display 1983, the film Dave placed here. Firstly it's not an hour long, just 28 minutes. It looks to have come off someone's VHS tape long ago. But a nice find, whoever placed it on YouTube must have had a son or maybe daughter at the school and been more than happy to share it more widely, or perhaps it was taken by a teacher and shared.

You'd probably be frowned upon for wanting to take a film of that type with the boys all wearing shirts nowadays, never mind shirts off the lot of them. I don't think I noticed a single boy wearing one, but some girls were hard to tell from boys as it was rather blurred and like others I didn't sit through the whole thing, just flicked through quickly.

I remember being coerced into something quite similar at my school back in early June 1977 as part of the Queen's Silver Jubilee would you believe, out on the school playground. We had a soft grassy field but they chose the tarmac covered with PE mats instead. Like the boys here, we were given either red, white or blue shorts. Most of our regular PE shorts were white at the time, I wore blue ones from home and somehow enough red were found to make up the numbers needed for others.

The boys were asked (translate into told) to be fully shirtless on that occasion, like the '83 film clip, the same as the gym was for normal PE at the time for boys in my school. I was sort of okay with it and got used to it being the thing we did. That summer I was a fourteen year old with the usual slim limbs and waist you saw on many boys of the time and a hint of rib. I remember having to stand with my feet together, shoulders back, stomach in (not hard at that age) chest puffed out and head up at the start as they played the national anthem before we began an athletic style gym routine, which involved a lot of running quite fast, jumping over things, cartwheels and even the use of hoops. There was no horse involved though or any heavy gym equipment as such. At an estimate there were 80 of us taking part, split evenly into boys and girls. We spent about two weeks beforehand rehearsing with a group of our PE teachers, both male and female, often under the gaze of the headmaster too. They took it so seriously, as if the Queen herself was going to be watching us, or some other VIP. But it was just a parental crowd. In all the rehearsals it was treated as PE and I was shirtless, in blue shorts and white footwear. I think we all had to have white feet, and no socks. I remember one teacher getting really short tempered at one stage with us and mouthing off and grabbing boys by the arms and pulling them about and into positions and all kinds like that.

Those of us that took part were 'the chosen ones', technically we volunteered but in reality we were chosen, and not expected to say no, because we were the better ones at this kind of PE. Let's put it this way, if it had been a case of placing my name on a piece of paper to do it I probably wouldn't have picked up the pen but getting the 'chosen one' request directly you just did not say no to it or feel you could do so. Damn it, I remember thinking when I was 'chosen' not by my regular male PE teacher but by one of the girls female teachers on recommendation of my own usual PE teacher for gym that year.

After all that I don't even have a record of the day. I have absolutely no pictures of this event but I'm sure somebody has somewhere, there were enough people watching. Someone must have taken at least a couple of polaroids somewhere or more. For all I know someone even took a film, possibly that would be cine, not VHS in that year though. Looking at the boys from 1983 takes me back to my own school six years earlier. It makes me realise there just has to be a record of my own somewhere out there squirreled away, or even on a website somewhere I've yet to discover.

I was definitely shy and remember being so nervous, mostly about making a mistake in front of a lot of people, there was ample possibility to land yourself with an nasty thump straight onto the hard tarmac if you missed the mats making a mistake and we had no protection. I think I probably tried to blot out my shirtlessness at the time and not think about it. At least I was one of about 40 others so could kind of melt into proceedings among all the action, as long as I did my bit and made no mistakes that is. The whole thing must have lasted barely 10 minutes I'm sure and was done to piano music played over an amplifier with dreadful screeching feedback at one point. All through rehearsals they couldn't get that bit right. It was all depending on good weather and there was no back up plan to go inside that I remember, and on the day it wasn't exactly the greatest June day I ever remember, a bit fresh and windy and no sun shone and we were kept waiting for ages hanging about once we changed ready for it.

About a week afterwards those of us who took part got given a certificate style letter thanking us from the principle PE teacher, signed also by the headmaster. I have no clue where that's gone either.

Comment by: Neil on 21st February 2024 at 23:11
and
Comment by: Ross on 21st February 2024 at 2208

Neil: I opened a can of worms by mentioning those early pages. The number of times the words "stripped to the waist", and "discipline" and "how grown up" such PE garb made them look was so great that if you had as pound for every time they were used, you could take a week off work, and have change for a box of matches. .

That filmed display (the poor picture quality of course being due to inadequate lighting in what was probably an evening event) took place not long after the Falklands war, but even that, in my view didn't justify that military look. But we have to remember it was over 40 years ago now, and if such events take place today, it would no doubt be under the aegis of an athletics club, not a local school. Times change, and attitudes and appearance change with them.

As regards trying to persuade Nathan to explain why some of his classes are still done sans shirts, I gave up on that long ago. I reached the conclusion there was no real reason for it.


Ross: Speaking for myself, I never doubted the voracity of what Bill said for a moment. He seemed quite open and genuine, and in mentioning the school,, he was quite unambiguous.

How differently some people see the same world, Nigel and Neil.

From Miss World to military recruit wannabe's looking at the same film.

The PE teachers at that school looked to be doing a good job.

The bare chests, par for the course wasn't it. For me I just look on it as part of the school uniform.

Comment by: Ross on 21st February 2024 at 22:08

Quite extraordinary. But it just proves that those who give out detail with their claims are likeliest to be taken seriously and truthful. This explains why Bill avoided the pile on that came the way of someone else who made a similar claim.

Am I missing something here? Dave's YT film, this part from about eight and a half minutes in for a minute or two looked less like a gym lesson and more like a Miss World parade from those days, except for boys. All they were doing was lining up and then trotting around in circles for the pleasure of those watching and getting applauded at the end, for what exactly?

I'd have been horrified if my school had made me do that!

It actually brought back some of those old days feelings I used to have just watching it.

https://youtu.be/yvk1Moxdva0?feature=shared&t=503

Comment by: Dave on 21st February 2024 at 15:36
Sorry I haven't sent the link in my last comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvk1Moxdva0



I'm not so sure that was just the regular PE classes doing that, much more like the brightest and best at gym from the whole school came together in that display, but I didn't watch the whole hour just a few small parts along the way. Very impressive. The boys looked good and well presented to me. Fine figures of young men. A shame about the picture quality, must have been a very early video camera.

There are many moves on there that most in my PE class would not have managed, such as holding yourself upside down by your outstretched arms, even less so on an actual horse, never mind the ground on a mat.

The part I caught showed them looking very well drilled, all lined up and filing away in line at one point in that shirtless state. I'm sure Alan will call it militaristic and in some ways it was and a bit unusual for an actual 80's school but it was a display so quite different and part of the routine.

I'm sure they all took part willingly.

I'm fully in favour of PE being done like that for boys. It's a mature way to do it, the grown up way. It always makes boys seem disciplined to me. None of them had bodies that needed hiding away. Perhaps one of the most interesting comments on here this month has been the one from Mark Twyford who tells of the boy who was allowed to remain with a PE top on in a school that required skins teams and entire class shirtless fitness testing. A child so shy his mother wrote a note yet who ended up in quick order after a matter of weeks realising that it was no longer worth it. How great was that. Think about it, this remarkably shy and unconfident boy in school actually volunteered to remove his shirt for PE in the end. That school and you Mark handled that insanely well. I don't think it would be typical though, I think you would be the small minority to go that route. Most schools would be less subtle. No wonder you received such commendations on here, you get it from me too and I'm a guy who agrees that mature grown up common sense schools should go with the bare chest PE if they want it and the class should not whine about it, showering included in that too. Like I remember it.

There was nothing wrong with compulsory shirtless PE or showers. These things should be the cornerstone of the physical educational requirement and not shied away from and are about a sense of discipline in part.


The piece from Paula, one of few women who use this thread, was treated as if she was talking about the whole country over there in America, I think by Alan (again) but actually she wasn't even talking about the state of Florida was she, but just her own actual 'county' within that state. I hope female teachers over there are not overly nannying boys in PE classes nowadays if they take any with them, to feel they have to hide their bodies away like girls. It's never been like that for boys and shouldn't be. Boys and men are different.

Yorkshire Dad wrote about his head teacher these past couple of years putting out a bare chest requirement in summertime for boys. Fine to me, I see no problem with it but I must say the actual justification for it on heat exhaustion was like others say, odd, like a kind of defence of something he didn't really believe in. But Alan has spent a lot of time trying to get Nathan to justify his inclusion of bare chests in to some PE that I suppose we should at least applaud the head in Yorkshire Dad's case for making a justification.

I hope Craig is going to return to tell us the latest on his bare chested 'bareskin' running and if he's continuing to increase the numbers joining his bareskin whatsapp running group. It's just such a great idea.

Dave quoting you - 'I don't know when shirtless PE stopped but your post and many other posters prove that it continued into the 80's in many schools. Maybe in the 90's too.'


It continues to this day, just to a lesser degree. Nathan has confirmed this at his named school openly on here. Bill has also confirmed this naming the exact school he saw this at.

I may as well show my hand here. I took a screenshot of what Bill wrote on this forum and emailed a copy of his comment as it appeared here direct to the school he mentioned after what was said in December, just to try and authenticate it. I'm a local journalist in the area around Luton myself and found it to be both very surprising. I simply told them I was doing some research for an article on the subject and was interested to know if the school really did have this policy. Journalists do tell white lies sometimes to gain the confidence of organisations and get information.

All I asked was if they could confirm or deny the statement that Bill had made, that first one. I notice he has made two more since then in follow up.

I heard nothing for what must have been 7 weeks and then on 2nd February when I had forgotten all about it I received a short message to my inbox from what looked like someone in school administration more or less confirming what I had given them.

Now if you just message a school email and ask if the school still does shirtless PE or want details of the kit then they might think you are a complete weirdo and ignore it, and that was not what I did. I simply asked for confirmation of what was being said and if the boys seen were connected to that specific school.

From my inbox I will share a cut and paste reply I had below;



-Hello Ross,
Thankyou for your recent query and attachment. The statement you provided by that gentleman has been seen and the details confirmed to me by the physical education team here at Queensbury Academy and I hope this answer meets with your satisfaction. Good luck with your future research.-


That was the reply and authenticated the comment made here that interested me as a 37 year old bare chest averse schoolboy myself from not too many miles away.

This relates to the very first comment that Bill put up here about it,

Comment by: Bill on 1st December 2023 at 00:00
About half the boys I saw cross country running out of Queensbury Academy in Dunstable on Monday afternoon this week were running along shirtless with entirely bare chests. They looked to be about 15 to me. There must have been at least 20 doing that. It looked very old school and like they might have even been divided up like that deliberately but it was impossible to tell.


I do hope you don't mind Bill. Doing a bit of my own private journalism there. Like any journalist when interested in something but in doubt go and chase the story and find out a bit more and find the truth or not. I am happy to confirm it as you saw it.

I have never placed a remark on the site but am an avid reader and my inclinations are to the men here who were never fond of being put into the shirtless groups at school.

Ross.

Jonathan H: "I'm sure it was their basic PE kit, and there's nothing wrong with it or being told to do gym or even a gym display like that is there? You leave the clip because you approve or disapprove of it Dave?"

Answering your question I'm approve with that PE kit. The video proves it that it was a common think even in the 80's.There were some boys who didn't like it as some posters wrote it here but I think it is the same as in swimming lessons where all of the boys are shirtless even in mixed classes. I can't see what is the difference.
I think boys take care more of their bodies and try to remain fit if having to do PE with no top.
I don't know when shirtless PE stopped but your post and many other posters prove that it continued into the 80's in many schools. Maybe in the 90's too.

There is nothing especially exceptional there in the school video. It's just another video, like the poster who placed his own gym photos here, that proves the memories of the time in case anyone doubted it.

And let me tell you that people do doubt it. Not those of us in the above 35 age bracket, but my field of work means I have my fair share of younger people with me. I currently have a 19 year old who got in conversation about his schooling and I picked this site up and pointed him to the comment I made about a month ago here. This very intelligent young man with a level head on his shoulders expressed complete "wow" and disbelief that boys in school once had to do PE in bare chests, I did also. But the more remarkable thing is he thought I was actually exaggerating to the point of lying when I told him they used to make men like me, when we were boys and teenagers at school, actually strip stark bo**ock naked without being given a choice in the matter and send us all off to shower like that with each other. Mind you, the young man, although actually a British citizen was brought up in Hong Kong where I now work. I told him to ask his parents if he didn't believe me, or failing that, his grandparents.

Incredible wouldn't you agree, a 19 year old thinks the things done at school in the recent past and probably in many back in the UK today are one big embellishment or exaggeration.

Comment by: Dave on 21st February 2024 at 13:08
The video contains a gym display from the 80's in a schoolgala. All of the boys are barechested. Well that is a gym dysplay but I don't think they get them their shirts off only for the event. I think it is their bacic PE kit. It is interesting to see how talented they are doing complex exercises.



I didn't watch much of the poor quality video from 1983 and just saw the early seconds with the girls, it gave the general idea, I didn't get to any boys doing anything but my point is, so what?

Wasn't it the woman from Florida, Paula who ran a gym school, who said the meaning of the word "gymnastics" is literally to exercise naked. Well I wouldn't go that far of course, although back in her own country they did seem to do naked PE of a kind when boys had to swim many years ago according to reports, but that's in water so not quite comparable to what we regard as PE.

I'm sure it was their basic PE kit, and there's nothing wrong with it or being told to do gym or even a gym display like that is there? You leave the clip because you approve or disapprove of it Dave?

I was at a private boarding school at the same time as that video. We did things just like that too, and we wore no tops and did so barechested as well. To me it felt the most natural thing in the world and made me confident. I don't know what it is about the state sector in the past that has given so many men such a terrible complex about themselves.

I know we were all quite fit and active and seemed very able and were made to be. Worrying about taking your shirt off and showing off your body to others in PE, even in our friends and family PE displays was not a big deal to me, and if it was to anyone else I never noticed, and we were made to do so, it was a compulsory element of what we were expected to get on with.

No lad should be worried about being seen in bare chest doing some gym, with his mates, among a few girls or a wider crowd like the video appears to show. I wasn't.

It's only through taking the kind of attitude I have that I think you build on real lasting confidence.

Comment by: Dave on 21st February 2024 at 15:36

What freedom are you fighting for Dave?

I forgot to add that not one of my sons has yet provided me with any grandsons which until recently I had thought was a great shame but now I'm not so sure, it might be a blessing in the current climate.

Well made points Michael. It looks to me like a lot of people would have enjoyed school far better if PE had simply been off the agenda completely. But I think it should be there and keeping fit and active should be a priority.

Us youngsters in the 1960's, 1970's, 1980's and even when my own children were around in the 1990's were a lot more active in general even outside of school, and certainly in the 70's and 80's they were, staying out a lot and doing things that took energy, bike riding, climbing trees, walking everywhere, and at the same time we also went to school and had more than one PE lesson each week as well and put a lot of effort into them, or were expected to.

Now we have a less physically active era of youngsters who often get driven everywhere, barely walk much, sit at home on screens, and are incredibly sedentary compared to those of us from the decades I mentioned at the start. Even my own sons who went to school in the 90's are noticing it.

Yet this less active young lot nowadays are getting far less PE in school nowadays, most only get the one lesson a week now and are not getting much out of school either. Yet at the same time many of these same youngsters today are far more obsessed with their appearances in a superficial way than ever before. It's all so upside down and about face.

If they are not getting the exercise out of school and activity that we once did as a matter of routine then you might think that the schools would feel they should be increasing their PE, not reducing it to the bare minimum they can get away with.

During the 90's my own three boys PE seemed in line with how I did things in the early 70's, the only difference being as I previously stated that I got a stricter middle school PE time at the very start of the 70's than they did which even included less common primary showers. I always did at the least two PE lessons each week plus other activity that required moving such as country dancing as well and music based movement activity, set aside from any PE.

I don't think anybody engaged with my comment previously made about modern PE classes. If you are out in PE at half ten in the morning doing some rugby in this weather how do you stay clean, and how is it possible to do some of the things I remember me and my own sons doing and not clean up afterwards? Mud and dirt was a permanent part of PE for me at school over the winter months outdoors. Don't they allow them tio get like that anymore or something?

Sorry I haven't sent the link in my last comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvk1Moxdva0

What video? Nobody has mentioned any such thing on here. Your comment is confusing and I've read back a few pages and found nothing relating to what you just said.

I'm broadly in agreement with both the comments of Alan and Michael earlier today on here.

With you Alan I took a look at some of the pages you mentioned that I've not seen before and picked up clearly what you mean, without a shadow of a doubt about it.

With you Michael, another good point and I do think some people have been saying things pent up for years about their schooldays so long after the event and as you say this could act as a cathartic process.

My own IP should come along as ending in 67.199 if I am correct, as I've posted from the same device each time in the same place, so if it doesn't I will be wondering why! Although like many others nowadays I could pass comment via about 4 different sources, an iPad, am old laptop, a full desktop or my phone, each would provide a different IP I think, or of course if on the move say sitting on a train like I've been reading the comments in another location but on the same device that could offer up a new number too. But broadly speaking it looks sensible and the numbers are matching up with a brief cross reference, which I did with mine just to check it out.

The video contains a gym display from the 80's in a schoolgala. All of the boys are barechested. Well that is a gym dysplay but I don't think they get them their shirts off only for the event. I think it is their bacic PE kit. It is interesting to see how talented they are doing complex exercises.

Referring to previous comments about early contributions to this section, I reckon there is a cathartic function; a psychological relief through the open expression of emotions, by being able to relate one's past experiences.

I've been able to 'work through' various long-pent-up memories of perceived unfairnesses and even injustices, by simply sharing them here and occasionally eliciting some reaction. For this reason alone, I've found this section to be an emotional outlet.

So, may I thank the site creator/moderator for making available this opportunity, and any readers who have been patient enough to read my offerings.

Perhaps a researcher of the distant future will regard the comments on this site as a valuable insight into contributors' thoughts and feelings; aspects which are not left on record as often as they might be.

Comment by: Lance on 20th February 2024 at 23:18


"It's been a while since I checked the place out. There are some really good comments coming through at the moment. Love the new IP system."

I totally agree with you Lance, and I wish it had been done long ago. On Sunday evening we had a power cut here, and since my Chromebook was fully charged, and the power cut lasted 2 hours or so, I had a look back on here to look at early pages . I got from page 1 to 150, and what strikes you immediately is the quality has improved considerably. In those early days there were several women contributors, and a few of the men seemed inordinately interested in the "type of knickers" those women had worn for PE. For their part some of these women laboured the point of how much they had enjoyed seeing boys with no tops on in their co-ed PE classes, especially if they were sweating. . One bisexual man echoed that appreciation. There were oft-repeated stories given in great detail about school medicals, some of them undergoing procedures that usually only middle aged men would undergo, - (at 15!) and of older teenage boys wearing short trousers and being "forced to strip" by their fathers when they got home from school. Another subject that occurred again and again was the wearing of jockstraps and how young they were when they started using them. A distinct feeling of fetishism and homoeroticism pervaded those early posts. If only the IPs were available in retrospect. I think the new system has weeded out all of that now. Whether you agree with the poster or not, you do get a sense now of real and genuine discourse.

It's been a while since I checked the place out. There are some really good comments coming through at the moment. Love the new IP system.

Mickey Grant - '1. We'd have been in our 20s, and most of us had chosen to go shirtless in the sun - but the shirtless ones include me (skinny, pale, pectus), my friend who was chubby and very hairy. The two who were arguably best looking and had the better physiques stayed shirted.'


Isn't it so, Mickey. It was the same with me, the body was averagely okay but I just liked to keep a shirt on it, that was how I felt best. PE prevented me from doing that too many times though and I was always self conscious being made to. But I remember at least two chubby boys in my PE group and one who was definitely far too big for his age and very chubby but he didn't give a toss about it. That's the irony I suppose. If he didn't care how he looked that's why he might have ended up overweight so young.

I also liked the post by Mark Twyford as well. Despite my own personal feelings on the shirtless issue in PE and my own feelings how I felt when like that I would never have wanted to be the only one in PE wearing a top so it comes as no surprise to read that story how it ended up.

The head teacher that 'A Yorkshire Dad' works under is going in completely the opposite direction to modern thinking isn't he. It's not so much that he wants some PE to be done with the chest bare in summer but that he thinks it the answer to his problem as he sees it - heat exhaustion, if what our friend here is correct in saying.

The more common consensus nowadays is to cover up in summer, mostly down to protecting the skin in too much sunlight if outside. Does the recent rule change apply to either a summer class in or out regards the heat, or both?

I agree with the person who told you to speak more about this with your head who made the decision. His reason is slightly misguided. don't others actually realise this and have have you spoken like you have on this forum to anyone you work with at all? By all means give the instruction but do it for the right reason.

There were no religious differences in our treatment at school which was quite diverse at one stage with multi faith inclusion, yet everyone when it came to PE was expected to take part in the same way as each other, when asked not to wear a top we all did that and when told to shower we all did that too, as I explained just a few days ago. Whilst I mentioned the holocaust a few days ago due to my own Jewish heritage, on a more upbeat note, and the naturist comment prompted me into saying this, despite all our diversities at school and where we came from and our own faiths, when you strip down, either semi-naked in the lesson without the tops and especially when you go naked with others, all the differences evaporate and you are made to understand that we are really all just the same underneath (foreskin excluded in my case) even if we do have various skin shades and body sizes. I can truthfully say that apart from facing some childish taunting over why my penis looked different to the others I never faced any other kind of physical comments, noticed many or even had any religious hatred towards me or saw anyone else receive it either. Apart from my clear difference to the others and their ignorance at that age, nobody cared about all the other differences. It seems to be when we grow up into adults that we do.

Combining the two points of Mickey and Narada, on the body shape and also religious angle, the noticeable thing about what I saw on my flower delivering in Dunstable the other day when I came across the running boys from the school I named in that area was that it was only the white ones running bare chested and there were about, I think three or four non white runners in the smaller shirted group. I don't know what that proves or means, if anything and it might just have been a coincidence and I'm reading something into nothing.

About this time last week I wrote the following in brackets on here.

(But someone has already said it, and I'd like to add, that we must do our best to avoid making this thread an obsessed discussion focusing too much on abusive practices as we now see them, and these things no longer happen as policy, that's a good thing everyone will agree I hope.

Just a quick clarification though Alan on this shirtless/showering thing, do you consider that to be a form of abuse if asked to do in school nowadays? Because I most certainly do not, but you give the impression to me that you do think so.)



I think you answered my questions fairly clearly, but I would suggest that you retire your abusive teacher Mr Roberts from now on and think about what I said in my first part, and even more so that teacher called Quinlan who you have mentioned a few times now from media articles.

I think every single person on this forum understands that such undesirables exist among us, whatever our opinions are held regarding how school PE operated then, or operates now.

On Mickey's point with his mates, it's a bit like naturists, some of the more unappealing specimens often like getting stripped off and showing it all while the rest of us with something worth looking at keep under wraps!

On Will's comment, absolutely at one on that. The primary factor in heat exhaustion won't be caused by anyone wearing his thin short sleeved t-shirt in PE in the warm and either wearing it or being a skin won't make much impact either way, it's fluids and obviously how hard they are being pushed for the conditions and if it's appropriate for those conditions. You would not expect a PE teacher to send class out on a hot boiling summer day of say 30 degrees on a five mile run, and with nobody taking water before the off. It would not be wearing a t-shirt that causes any issues.

On you Alan, I wonder how well you are able to read the room sometimes.

Slightly side-stepping.

Recently going through some digital photos from the early 00s of myself and friends playing frisbee in the park, and remembering that lads weekend, I am struck by the following which didn't cross my mind at the time.

1. We'd have been in our 20s, and most of us had chosen to go shirtless in the sun - but the shirtless ones include me (skinny, pale, pectus), my friend who was chubby and very hairy. The two who were arguably best looking and had the better physiques stayed shirted.

2. Most of us bedded down in sleeping bags in one large living room. Yet I know I would have worn my t shirt and boxers to sleep in, yet remember the non-shirtless frisbee players going shirtless. Most were, I think.

It isn't exactly scientific but I suppose it shows reasons for not wanting to go shirtless can be context dependant, and not consistent.

The man who says muslim boys are forbidden from removing clothing is incorrect. Like everyone else my ethnicity was not considered at school. I was treated the same as everyone else, I played a lot of basketball without my shirt on, and was expected to take a shower when finished mixed in with the rest. I did not complain about this, my family did not. The argument the man made about some schools in the north of England I think is false and misleading. Special favours were not given to us.

Comment by Gary on 19th February at 18.21

Gary, Clearly Mr Twyford was a very different teacher to our Mr Roberts, and a certain Mr Quinlan. The difference between those two is that Quinlan got caught and Roberts didn't:

https://www.google.com/search?q=michael+quinlan+royal+liberty+school+court+appearance&rlz=1CAFORO_enGB1085GB1085&oq=michael+quinlan+royal+liberty+school+court+appearance&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigAdIBCTIwMzk5ajBqNKgCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#ip=1

What made the Quinlan case more horrific is that two more of his colleagues were found to be at fault for the same offences, in the same school - an all boys school, which was the reason I was questioning the need or desirability of single sex schools the other day.. I will not elaborate, except to say here is the Google page, if you want to read it. The evidence from his own mouth in the second Quinlan trial is quite appalling. Let's just say I wouldn't have liked to have been a blonde lad in his class.

I have never suggested that ALL teachers are cut from the same cloth, just that while we applaud Mr Twyford and Mr Hind we should never forget that there were - and are - unfortunately, some very bad ones. In the same way that while most policemen are a credit to their profession, however, far too many men entered that profession for the wrong reasons. They should, in a modern society, have been weeded out at the selection process.

Yorkshire Dad.

Take shirts off in PE in summer to avoid heat exhaustion. That would not be caused by shirt wearing. More likely dehydration and lack of fluids. Provide water instead. Going bare chested won't be that effective. I agree with you, it's an odd one that.

I went to a school that did all PE without shirts (inside) in the mid eighties.

I'm pleased you came back to say more there. Would you ever consider asking the pupils about their thoughts about it? If you're concerned, and you clearly are, then you should, don't take silence for indifference from the pupils.

Nothing wrong with shirtless PE of course. Just allow them a choice if they feel too hot, and make sure they drink water. Tell that to the head.