Burnley Grammar School

I know some of you will think I am stupid or over-sensitive, (and in a way I would agree with you) but I just cannot watch those episodes of Grange Hill, especially series one episode 2, which I posted myself, because they are so real they take me back to the smell of chalk, sweat and soup etc, and I am eleven again.

In 1999, in a rare earlyish attempt at standing up myself, I had a terrific row with the leader of our band, when he announced he wanted to give up playing contemporary music and wanted to cash in on the nostalgia market (he hinted that a little commercial success would not come amiss, not that there was that much in Ruislip where we mostly worked) and wanted us to play Glenn Miller. Syd Lawrence was not long dead, and he was the Miller expert in the UK. Harsh words were spoken (by me) and I told him there was no way that my trumpet would be sullied by Little Brown Jug and other horrible things from the 30s and 40s. Expletives were not deleted. Five of my bandmates followed me out of that rehearsal. The six of us spent a couple of happy years in Maida Vale.

All that said, if it were a choice of going into the Grange Hill gym or playing String of Pearls or Pennsylvania 6-5000, then Major Miller would win.

It is strange how an old TV programme can take you back to places you wouldn't want to go. I suppose it is a sign of how well the scripts were written.

Stuart B, I'm not sure whether you meant what I thought about the basketball episode in Grange Hill, or real life PE lessons in my own school! But I'll try to answer both.
I wasn't one of those confident boys who tended to take their tops off at every opportunity, so watching the Grange Hill episode made me nervous that I'd also have to be bare chested in PE when I went to senior school. I remember my surprise when the boy you mentioned,  who'd been wearing a vest in the warm-up, suddenly appeared in the next scene in just shorts.
Sure enough, once we were lined up in the gym for our first PE class the teacher selected several boys, me included, and instructed us to take our vests off. I felt very self conscious and awkward but I didn't dare protest and none of the other bare chested lads did either, even though I'm sure many of them felt the same as me.
We did have some coloured bibs too, but those only came out when we were divided into smaller groups (four teams instead of two). And there were only two colours in the box so that meant one group still had to be skins. We never had to have numbers drawn on our chests or backs though!

A shame that the Yorkshire Dad poster who came here in late January who was the teacher who remarked on his head changing the kit rules hasn't yet decided to respond further, that was genuinely of interest to a few on here how a head suddenly wanted boys going shirtless this and last summer having never previously required it, and a teacher sounding baffled by it enough to say so.

I'd also urge that other teacher Graham to rethink his decision to abandon the discussion as well.

At Christmas and New Year I though that this thread had finally been killed off by stupidity but that was clearly not the case and it's obvious to me like was said that IP tagging is working well so far. There were a couple of posts within a few minutes of each other just before 6am the other day and although that was unusually early it was clear they came from different people and were not both from Alan, a simple check could see that. So at least we have finally put to bed any suggestion that Alan has been multi posting on here, which I never believed actually, and that any who broadly are sympathetic to his points are not simply shill posts under the different names from the same name.

The Flickr photos from Richard's own middle seventies gym were really quite well taken. I wonder like others asked, what reason they might have been taken for at the time. One thing is for sure, no permission was probably sought for those, whilst today I'm sure you absolutely would have to do so and account for the reason for taking them. Mind you it's not exactly on a par with that Good Health School TV film previously left on here filming straight into the showers in full view which was about the same period I think which generated much chat about whether they had consent.

Would any teachers on here have any idea why such photo's as Richard's from that PE class would have been taken like that and what for in those days?

Ben, what was your attitude to this yourself?

I was the spitting image of the slim boy in that clip playing basketball in the red shorts getting told to get up and raise his hand. I was at school a few years earlier than this though if that looks like late 1980's.

That was how I was told to be for many of the gymnasium PE lessons and I never felt that any PE teacher should have to justify himself to me why I was being told to do that like some suggest.

When we did team sport in gym before they bought bibs we were given a blue biro to write a number on our chest and get someone to write it on our back, can you believe that, plus our surname. Then later we did get bibs, a bit more sensible. As soon as the team game was over the bib was straight off and back into being bare chested we went.

In reply to David M: this is the Grange Hill episode I posted about recently, including a shirts v skins basketball game. Hopefully the link works! If not, it's episode 23 of series 9, the PE section starts from around 7:45.
Interesting that the teacher asks the boys if they've sorted out the teams, ie: chosen among themselves. Certainly wasn't the case at my school, where the PE teacher always decided which boys were shirts or skins! Was that the same for you?

https://youtu.be/bBGQ9annWrQ?feature=shared

I've done PE in my pants only - once.

I agree with the comment about no kit meaning you could still do PE, that happened to me once and I deliberately left it at home in an effort to sit a lesson out. I was not given the sent away treatment and you can't do PE like the black child in the children's TV programme on here.

That was in the first few weeks of being at school still finding my feet and being wet behind the ears. I remember deliberately leaving all my PE kit at home one day fully confident that in doing so I would be able to just sit out a lesson I knew was coming up that I didn't fancy much and thought I would either just watch or more likely be sent off to the library to read or something like that, which I'd heard, in error as it turned out.

I was a stick thin twelve and a half year old at the time, and all that happened was I stood there like an idiot while everyone else changed and went and was left alone with my PE teacher with some serious explaining to to as he strutted around the changing room demanding answers why I didn't know the school timetable and where my kit was. I offered the usual unoriginal excuses, embarrassing to think back to now really. I really expected to get sent to the library or sit along a bench and watch, or even just left to sit the hour out in the changing room even.

How wrong was I.

Just as I was feeling confident I'd offered up a good enough explanation and was going to get away with it he said, get your stuff off, to me and I said, but I've got no PE kit and he just said, you don't need it for today. I remember absolutely panicking inside and wondering how much he wanted me to take off and feeling instantly disorientated and confused until he made it clear by telling me to hurry up and remove everything I had on down to only my underpants, horrible parental bought Y-fronts. Then I was told to lead the way out in front of him and along to the sports hall where I was met with amusement and spent an hour looking like a real fish out of water and feeling an absolute wally and dreadfully self conscious.

It was a lesson well learned. I remember feeling cold and very vulnerable and at one point physically shaking briefly, not with cold but with nervousness as I did it.

They portrayed that young black child very confidently striding in just his pants into that gym wanting to be part of the lesson and being disappointed he couldn't like that. That was not my memory at all and it did happen to a couple of others even after they saw what happened to me.

The PE teacher shown on Grange Hill in 1978 was definitely a good representation of your typical authoritarian late 70's PE teacher.

Agree on the PE kits, that looked more like an advert for Persil Automatic or something and the whiteness they used to go on about in those days on ads for various powders.

Does anyone know if Grange Hill ever actually showed a skins versus shirts PE lesson at any point?

My primary was permanent PE bare chests and feet inside on PE days. My comprehensive was less so but with regular skins v shirts and other just random shirtless days. I think about half the class disliked being shirtless at a guess, often the half that was asked to be skins come to think of it. At one point aged fourteen I got a really blotchy upper chest and shoulders and got asked why I had been picking my skin so much. I hadn't. Teenage spots didn't just happen on your face. I hated being shirtless at that point because it meant I couldn't avoid looking down and seeing my spotty chest and used to get some big spots come up on my actual biceps too which looked angry at times. My upper back was the same but I couldn't see that, just feel it. I wasn't allowed to keep a top on to hide it and had to be a skin like everyone else when told. Although that had nothing to do with bad hygiene it always felt like it did.

There was a shower in the changing room at my primary school but it wasn't used until we got into our top year there, our pre-comprehensive year, so showers began for me at eleven and then at twelve I was off to comprehensive and it continued. I'm rather pleased to read that Nathan is at a school that continues the required shower tradition like I remember. There is nothing wrong with teaching and maintaining the disciplines of good hygiene and no boys should ever feel embarrassed sharing such a situation with each other, it's a shame when some do so. We all shared the same situation together with each other after all and many of us with our good friends. The only time I hated showering was through my skin breakout phase that lasted a few months at the worst but luckily we were not made to use any products they provided and we showered at that time using just water.

I believe in that kind of thing bonding people. I think that is why Craig has had such success with his bareskin running he has written of on here, because to do so bonds them and I believe it's true at any age. Craig what have you been up to lately, any more takers for it since you last checked in a while back, and do you agree with my sentiment here?

I looked at a couple of episodes of that from that first series tonight. The teachers seem to look permanently short tempered but the worst was that dreadful caretaker who got quite a look in, yet I can't even remember seeing a school caretaker anywhere around my comprehensive school, I suppose he existed somewhere but he must have kept a very low profile. He sure wasn't hounding the kids and teachers like in Grange Hill.

I'd like to answer your question Mark Maynard that was,

(Did anyone else have anything similar to this, or have any directly personal comments about their appearance or physical make up from a PE teacher that was designed to be deliberately negative? I think we all had the sarcasm didn't we, it goes with the job I think for quite a few of them.)


As I said a few days ago as a Jewish youngster I was the only boy to begin showers at school to look different to the rest, as you can guess. It must have taken a couple of weeks to stop getting the jokes about what I looked like having no foreskin like others did and why I was like that. Questions like why do you look like that, or what's that meant to be or even just calling my bits ugly. I don't think the religious aspect sank in at first with many of them. My teacher said it's religion one day. But they only had the one person at first to look at, me, until this other one came along later having had the same done. But I equally found looking at so many other so called normal looking boys quite interesting and remember my curiosity as I looked around at them. The first time I remember looking around and thinking there must be another one like me and there wasn't anyone else.

But on this whole religious thing I saw someone mention muslim boys causing issues nowadays about how schools do things. There were a couple of muslims boys at my school, and a hindu I think. It was quite interestingly diverse among the mainly christian boys. None of the other religions were given special treatment at school and we all went in the pot together without sensibilities. If we had to take our shirts off for PE, we all took them off, whatever faith. It didn't seem to matter. It was a diverse multi faith class at one point and a multi faith gym and multi faith everything, right down to everything including showering and PE kit expectations. No special privileges given.

Being Jewish I was taught about things like the holocaust from a quite young age, not especially at school but from within the family itself and read books and saw pictures. School showering reminded me of that at first when I did it, seeing so many others wearing nothing together being controlled into a location. Even though it was innocent I felt a connection and to this day feel a sense come over me when I have ever seen even innocent pictures of large groups of people wearing nothing. Even in the holocaust they didn't even spare the youngest children so I'd never wish to feel sorry for myself in school being asked to take my own clothes off and face a short lived taunt for how I looked in PE while having a shower. Compelling me to shower in school as a child was nothing compared to what others of my faith must have gone through at young ages long ago. I weep for them all.

I was never really that shy or self conscious and was at least really good at a number of things in PE like long distance running and also basketball became quite good when I was a six foot youngster by fifteen, and I played in goal for the school team a lot later on too.

My PE teachers were encouraging and firm, and always had high expectations of us all and made us all try and reach them.

In my reply to Anthony in the final line I said "Justin Collins" - don't know where Collins came from. I am starting to become Joe Biden (who will take on Richard Nixon in the winter and beat him)

Comment by: Gary on 11th February 2024 at 05:44


A piece I read about the making of Carry On Constable might explain the tops on Grange Hill. Apparently there was a scene in Constable where Charlie Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams Kenneth Connor and Leslie Phillips have to get into a shower naked to be seen by Joan Sims, as a very straightlaced WPC. Apparently all the bare flesh caused the cameras to blare, so all the men had to have their backsides made-up. The story in the book was that the makeup bloke apparently said in disgust "I've done em 'all - all the beauties like Margaret Lockwood, now I'm making up men's bums."

It might be with the strong lighting they used for colour TV that they would have had to make the lads up with body makeup if they hadn't have got tops on, and I daresay the budget was tight, as well as the filming time, for Childrens TV - on non-drama productions where they could use documentary type cameras which needed lower lighting levels they would have got away with it.

All that said, I still see nothing wrong with tops - particularly in February, when the programme was shown, or, if they were depicting the time of year terms starts, September. I should imagine it was recorded fairly close to transmission. I felt sorry for the little black lad whose mum couldn't afford to buy him his full kit, and the lad whose top was a bit grubby. Insensitive of the teacher to point it out.

Anthony you add a great point about your dowdy changing room just the same as I mentioned my own rather dull designed school gym a few days ago on here.

I thought the boys in gym in the Grange Hill episode that was highlighted looked somewhat overdressed by my own historical standards. The boy who forgot his kit looked more representative of how I turned up in the place. But that whole scene seemed to turn upside down all that I remember from PE. If you forgot your kit in most schools they would have made you do PE like Green came along as, possibly against your wishes, hardly sent you packing to get off PE because you didn't have a shirt and trainers to put on. That seemed genuinely unlikely to me. You didn't get out of PE that easily, I'm surprised hardened Grange Hill played that like that otherwise all the PE haters at school would just forget kit and get an instant way out of doing it. I agree the whites they were all wearing, from the tops, the shorts and trainers all identical looked too contrived. The teacher was dressed just like I remember many of them though.

Even the showers scene looked a bit quiet, but the way that teacher made sure they all went in was very true to life and all the hustling about getting on with it and the reluctance of some boys to shower cannot be underestimated, more were reluctant than we probably either remember or think and this from '78 points out that factual truth. Maybe the boys of the 50s and 60s were more pliable on that but as we went towards the 80s attitudes were beginning to change slowly to those kind of expectations. No point denying that more boys are shy than let on. Why were they trying to avoid the school showers there otherwise, not because they were scared of water or getting wet bodies or hair as the teacher insisted they get wet.

You've all got the same, so get on with it as one of my teachers once said.

Comment by: Anthony on 10th February 2024 at 22:18


I have to admit , Anthony I never watched Grange Hill, so I have no idea who "Justin Bennett" is. That episode I put up here yesterday is the only time I have seen an episode of it all the way through. I didn't wan't to see it before I experienced the real thing (a bit like Wpody Allen - "I'm not afraid of death, I just don't wan't to be there when it happens"), and the only serial I watched was "Crossroads" (there was a character in that, "Mrs. Brownlow", who was very much like our Mrs Fennemore who I mentioned the other day - a friendly character who had a smile and a kind word for everyone, and called everyone "luv", and saw the best in everyone.).

I have to say, seeing that one episode, I am glad I didn't watch it - the bullying, the rubbing into the poorer kids they WERE poor (luckily that was not a stage of the cross I was at), by the teacher., just making them feel even more worthless. It happened, and I can promise you, Anthony, there was a lot of slaps and canings and slipperings, at my school, because the staff probably guessed it would be on it's way out, and they were making hay while the sun shone.

I was always a square peg in a round hole, a fish out of water, and I don't know if it would have made any difference whatever school I went to. The best schools I ever heard of were the Technical Colleges that sprung up in the 1950s where less academic lads were trained in more practical ways, and I worked with a bloke who went to one when I first started work, and he used to tell me how good it was.

That said, how well was that programme written, directed and acted, and the production values and VT editing puts many modern productions to shame.. I believe there is a modern equivalent called "Waterloo Road" but I have never seen that either.

What happened to "Justin Collins"?

I have to say, I am enjoying this site much more now we have the IP safeguard, there are some really interesting conversations.

Grange Hill, what a classic series! I was slightly younger than you, Anthony, so I don't remember the earliest episodes but I distinctly recall the 'Just Say No' drugs storyline. That was pretty shocking at the time, as was an episode where a boy called Jeremy (I think?) drowned in the swimming pool.
You're mostly right about the depiction of PE kit at Grange Hill, but I do remember watching an episode around 1987 when a boys' PE class played shirts versus skins basketball. It wasn't something I'd ever seen before and it made quite an impression on me because I was about to start senior school. All of a sudden I started to worry that I'd also find myself doing PE with no top on.
And as it turned out, the TV series proved true to life in this case! Within about 10 minutes of my first PE class at the new school, the teacher announced we would be split into vests and skins. One boy - who clearly hadn't watched that Grange Hill episode - asked what 'skins' meant, so the teacher explained 'Very simple. Vests off'. There were quite a few horrified looks at that point, but before long half the boys in the class, including me, were bare chested. I found it a very weird and awkward feeling at first - I remember folding my arms across my chest and being told not to. With that said, at least it hadn't come as a complete surprise!

I don't think I have seen those very earliest Grange Hill's since the days they were first out. I had no idea they even showed the showers going in that, I'd have said no if asked if they ever did that.

I was ten in that year, I loved watching it from the time it began but I do know it gained a bad reputation at first and my parents tried to put me off watching it because it all began to worry me about what I might be in store for when I started secondary school in September 1979.

The PE gym kit wasn't realistic. All identical all white. Where were all these bare chests that everyone talks about from the time? The gym reminded me more of middle school than secondary for me. Secondary was boys wearing various random types of shorts amongst a lot of bare chests, mostly not by choice but by summary teacher decision.

Of course there are many strongly accurate portrayals there too but my school only hinted at some of the worst excesses shown on Grange Hill. The changing room was quite accurate, at my school it was a dreadfully grey, white and beige basic set up and very uninspiring. The shower at school was long and completely white tiled with just one narrow entrance to file everyone in, leaving the teacher at the end looking down the line of us all as we stood and waited for a sudden spray of fairly hot water and packed in like sardines trying not to even accidentally touch anybody else and often failing. I remember a teacher who liked throwing soap down the line at us to catch and wash with if he thought we were planning to just stand there and get a little bit wet without doing anything else. Horrible soap too, nothing like the stuff we had at home.

Never saw anything directly physical against anyone in school though such as the ear or hair pulling. There might have been the rare clout I dare say. I certainly wasn't ever in fear of my PE teachers and seeing that great actor Roger Sloman here portraying one I am not quite sure how to read the type of teacher he genuinely was meant to be. I don't think he was meant to be a bad man as such, just one of those overly strict, unnecessarily so disciplinarians maybe. The far too casual pulling and smacking about doesn't sit well nowadays does it and it has aged badly in that respect. It didn't take long for the much more popular Baxter PE character to show up, still strict but fair minded and basically a decent okay kind of chap, like my teachers mostly. Although at that time even he was seen clouting the unruly.

I saw Justin Bennett in that clip. I remember him as well as the other major characters in the school. He seemed like he was in the wrong school amongst the wrong people. Were you Justin Bennett at school Alan?

46 years, wow, that's so scary. Even a lot of the actual children in that are now dead. Benny the black kid and also recently big Alan are two I know of. I think Bullet Baxter the PE teacher might still be alive and kicking though, as is actor Roger Sloman too. They outlived some of the kids here.

Didn't Grange Hill seem to mellow a lot as the 80's wore on or could I be wrong, I have not seen any in the years since.

This discussion must mean little to anyone under 50 or over about 62.

Comment by Paul G on 10th February 2024 15.10

I remember reading, Paul, that Jackson's father was a tyrant and he must have been to make such a young boy sing such an adult lyric. It does sound ridiculous doesn't it?, I am glad I was not a singer, because though I loved the Great American Songbook, imagine a 17 year old singing: "Maybe, I should have saved those left-over dreams, Funny but here's that rainy day. Here's that rainy day they told me about, and I laughed at the thought things might turn out this way" I would have sounded risible, like most of those old ballads they were to do with unrequited love or love that had ended.

They were easy to play though because knowing the lyrics you knew the emotion they were supposed to evoke. I cited Billie Holiday and much of my early knowledge I got from her penultimate record, made in New York in 1958 with the Ray Ellis Orchestra and called "Lady In Satin". It is a textbook example of balladry because, despite the over orchestrations, lush strings, even a Hollywood choir, God help us, in places , where most singers act a song or interpret them, Ms Holiday had actually lived them and so she sang the lyric straight ("Youv'e Changed", "I'll Get Around","End of A Love Affair", "Easy To Remember" etc). Even today that Columbia (CBS) record is available on a Sony CD.

I agree with so much of Mark's post, I was lucky that my PE teacher Roberts contented himself with one word reports: "Poor" was what I got every year. It was wrong of Mark's teacher to make comments about his physical development (and if I may say so, not a good thing for parents to do either), it could well have had a very detrimental effect on him.

Given that I have a truce with Nathan, Mr Coulson, Mr Butterfield (and any other teachers I might have offended), I am loathe to post the following video. There is an internet company run by Jonny Trunk who specialises in off-the-beaten track sound recordings and ephemera, and he sends a weekly newsletter, and always include a YT video. This week he reminded us that was 46 years to the day this week when the BBC started showing Grange Hill - I could never imagine why anybody who had spent a day at school would want to go home and watch the imaginary pupils at an imaginary school, but we are in time for the anniversary of the second programme this coming week (tx on 15/2/1978), and - for people like Mark Maynard, myself and I am sure , many others,. does this bring back memories of being eleven?: The only difference is that in this episode only one boy is dressed as all of my school was.

Grange Hill - Series 1, Episode 2 - 15 February 1978

I only make one observation - a question really - why did teachers have to be so intimidating to clearly terrified 11 year olds - because most of us were?

There's a good example of what you say in classical music in popular modern music that has always made me cringe every time I hear it Alan.

It's the song I'll Be There by Jackson 5, the lead vocals by Michael Jackson, it came out in 1970 when he was not even a teenage boy yet, just 12 years old. Lovely song but the sentiments being sung by a 12 year old just don't work for me at all. It was actually recorded two months before his 12th birthday infact, coming out a few months later.

The big cringe line in the song for me near the end suggestively goes - 'Just look over your shoulders honey, ooh'.

First comment underneath the song underlines my point in a small way by saying - 'The boy who made our childhood is the same boy who had no childhood'


I'll Be There - https://youtu.be/W-apaIOOoAo?feature=shared

Lyrics - https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jackson5/illbethere.html



Mark Maynard has made some very good points here. I thought you might agree with him. At least with these new IP addresses we can see clearly that there really are others who hold quite similar views to yourself, I was reminded of you in parts when I read the Mark post actually.

You certainly need some degree of aptitude to be really good at something that's for sure. A teacher making out you don't need any actual talent but just putting in the heard sweat instead seems an extraordinary thing to say. It must have been a misguided attempt at some kind of encouragement of sorts but just comes across as dum actually. Sweat and toil can only get you so far. Effort as we used to call it, and PE teachers always liked those who put the effort in. I did agree that I think the comment you made Mark did sound like an appearance remark, but you didn't state if he would have had reason to do so either because you were rather thin or rather chubby. If you were just normal maybe it meant something else. Obviously something gave rise to make you and your family think the way you did.

Sarcasm is not the sole preserve of a PE teacher though!

Comment by Mark Maynard on 9th February 2024 at 22.52:
and
Mickey Grant on 8th February 2024 at 21.39

Mark, I agree entirely with you - you can plug away at something for years and never get as good as you want to be. I was lucky in that I had a natural talent for playing a musical instrument - I took to it like the proverbial duck to water, but you cannot expect that of everybody. The trouble is some teachers seem to think because bandsman A can do it, bandsman B should be able to do it as well, I was lucky in that I could take out all my frustrations on up-tempos and blues, but I was the one called upon to play ballads. Why? - not because I was more technically proficient than my bandmates, it is just that I learned the lyrics to the ballads I played. What is the point of playing a tune, if you don't know what the writer was saying?. I remember one tune called Here's That Rainy Day (by Jimmy Van Heusen and Johnny Burke). It is essentially a song about the regret of passing time, and opportunities lost. How could I play it at 17? - by observing what life had done to people I knew who were older, like family members and thinking of them when I played. It was not rocket science, but for some reason I was regarded as some sort of ballad guru. Learn the words and you have won more than half the battle (there is a great line in Rogers and Harts' It Never Entered My Mind ("uneasy in my easy chair"). If you want to play ballads get yourself a Billie Holiday record. That is all I did. You are probably far better at snooker than your friends because you have committed yourself to it, even if you are not as "good" as you'd like to be., you are probably much better than you think.

Like Mickey said on the 8th, he was always willing to try and though he described himself as "just rubbish", I suspect he wasn't giving himself the credit he should have for making the effort. Nobody sets out to deliberately scupper things, and I was glad that Mickey's teachers recognised that he did try hard , and gave him encouragement. Mickey - you were not rubbish. Remember at school you are called upon to take part in a variety of subjects that you will never use again - for example, when did your employer last ask you to do some long division at 9.30 on Monday morning, and then ask you to describe the life cycle of the Dragonfly on Friday afternoon?. My school (and some of your teachers sounded the same, Mark), used some personal antipathy towards their pupils to try to put them down. The only report I felt aggrieved about was that technical Drawing one - I was better than the few dismissive words I was given (earlier ones were worse than the one I quoted) - I would have settled for "satis" which is all the geography, history and maths teacher could be bothered to say. But then you have to remember that Boreham took us for both science and TD, and he disliked me, and I disliked him, but he was totally fair and right about my science, for example, and I hold my hand up. I was too frightened of a wallop if I did something wrong - accidentally of course. . I would say in all other respects my reports were fair, and the headmaster was right - there were subjects I just couldn't interest myself in, and unlike Mickey I didn't make the effort I might have done, but that, I think was due to the lack of any encouragement, or interest on the part of the teaching staff. A word of (sincere) encouragement goes a long way to motivate people. In my early 20s I bought a flugelhorn and played my ballad features on that. The leader told me once that I had bought tears to his eyes on Rainy Day - but that might not have been for the right reason - or he might just have been taking the p*ss!. The flugel has a deeper sound.

I don't think anyone is rubbish - we are all good at something, however insignificant it might seem to others. Oh, and Mark, I don't think I would want to be Ronnie , despite all the plaudits, he seems a deeply unhappy and unsatisfied man, he seems mean-spirited towards fellow players, and when not at the table picks his nose and his teeth. I would say Mark Selby or Judd Trump would be a better role model. Just my opinion of course.

'Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?'

Tennessee Williams.

One PE teacher actually sat down with pen in hand and wrote this following comment on my school report dated March 1980 when I was aged 14.

"All it takes to be good at sport is hard work, not natural talent."

What an idiot. Tell that to any champion in sport. I could have spent 12 hours a day at my snooker table since the age of 8 and still not become Ronnie O'Sullivan or even one of the lesser journeymen who show up but never win much. I could have played tennis since the age of 3 in the same way and never reached the top thousand seedings.

But nowadays mediocrity in sport seems to also earn you big money, it never used to. Big bucks went to big winners only.

The follow up line to the one above on that same report then goes full sarcasm mode with the following added on for good measure,

"But Mark does have a natural talent for how quickly he can dress himself and leave at the end of the lesson".

Wouldn't it have been fun if we could have had a right of reply to some of these teachers in a space at the bottom of the reports for ourselves or our own parents to say something back in pen.

I had the same teacher write this the year after, in March 1981, now I'm 15 when he says,

"Looking at Mark he clearly still has a lot of development to do".

I'm convinced to this day that he was making a personal comment about my appearance or build in a deliberately ambiguous way, and so were my parents because I remember them saying so to me. Otherwise it was an almost completely meaningless sentence.

Did anyone else have anything similar to this, or have any directly personal comments about their appearance or physical make up from a PE teacher that was designed to be deliberately negative? I think we all had the sarcasm didn't we, it goes with the job I think for quite a few of them.

How about this that I heard about a month ago on a BBC radio programme.

"Children were the only people in society that you could once legally beat and strip and get away with it."

When I heard that it hit me and made me think, gosh, yes, you're right and I've never even noticed until now. I can't recall the context of why that was said and what it related to but the comment stuck right out at me when I heard it for some reason. The obvious place for this is school as an institution, or the home I suppose with your parents in those days. My parents did neither, but my teachers did in the 70s.

Richard's old school 1970s gym photo's on 6th February,

https://www.flickr.com/people/134490316@N07

https://www.flickr.com/photos/134490316@N07/



Yes, that really takes me back to how it was done for me too. That bare chest look was de rigueur in school for me too, not so much at the lower schools but definitely at upper school. I went to two separate secondaries about 30 miles apart from each other when we moved and both turned out to be much the same as each other when it came to being told to do this style of PE within a gym. At my first secondary it was completely compulsory and at the other one it was like that half the time, but by then I was a bit older which might have played a part. The younger years seemed to get the harder time in PE for some reason in my own experience.

Not all boys like baring their chests like this, that's hardly a revelation, but you would never find anyone dare say it out loud for fear of ridicule so of course there was this spirit of silence. Mickey says it well, not one for going about shirtless but did it at school without fuss. I guess it was much the same on the showers issue with internal discomfort, probably even more so although I think some used to find it easier to rebel against doing that by trying to sneak away without one and being hauled back to do it under protest. Saw that quite a bit actually.

I have never understood the problem that light skinned ginger haired boys, or girls face, especially in school. I always thought the couple of ginger ones I shared school PE with looked great. One looked really distinctive with his freckly shoulders and upper chest I remember and amazing shiny ginger hair. The only time I heard anything said to him about his colouring was from a PE teacher, not us lot in class.

There must be a peer reviewed thesis out there somewhere on the psychology of bare chested PE that answers many questions raised here. There are answers to be found for anything nowadays.

On the subject of school reports, I always got recognised as being willing to try, have a go. I was just rubbish. I was grateful that my effort was appreciated even if my skills (use the word lightly) were not!

I've never really been one for lounging around shirtless - I am not sure I was uncomfortable about it, but certainly I was conscious of it. A lot of other lads, it seemed to me, were beyond nonchalant. That said, I never refused to be skins - didn’t even occur to me I might.

I think for me, the fact I have pectus excavatum (noticeable but not critical), ginger hair, and a noticeably protuberant navel just added to my self consciousness! At 14 you don't like to stand out.

Comment by: James on 8th February 2024 at 15:39


I ran across that old report the other day, when I was checking an insurance policy (I have a file for stuff I don't use often). I just threw the earlier ones, away as they were worse, and the last one was more or less a rehash of the one I kept. I had to empty my mums house on my own and fairly quickly, so a lot of stuff just had to be burnt. The only reason I kept that one was because I remembered Mrs. Fennemore, who, coincidentally died ten days before my mum in 1996, - I only found this out a month or so after mum's funeral, and at times like that you feel a bit nostalgic.

By the way, I think I am right in saying virtually every boy who was not escorted back to school in a police car after lunch (some of the lads used to go shoplifting in Woolworths, we were close to a High Street), were described as "polite" in the headmasters comments, so it wasn't a great compliment or endorsement.

I wouldn't normally get as political as I did in my ;previous post,, I just wanted to show there were other things that anger me as much as the poor treatment of young workers. I was so lucky when I left school that I had good employers who let me experience the working world, I am just sorry so many are denied this now, and sadly those great days are very unlikely to return..

I left two items off my report: Science "Has no scientific curiosity or aptitude" (true, I am afraid) and Technical Drawing: "Often untidy presentation". I think that second one is just a little unfair - we had to draw a quarter inch border all the way round a sheet of A4 with the aid of a 6 inch ruler, and in my case an eraser was often needed - with a 2B pencil - it was a bit tricky, but I got my side and front elevations as good as any other pupil. Both those lessons were taught by our Mr. Boreham, and he was not my greatest fan. I always felt I would have thrived on that subject under a more understanding and reasonable teacher, and I loved it - I was just very nervous of him. I guess they would use CAD now, not nearly so much fun. Anyway he was right on the first subject, and in my opinion wrong on the second. Anyway, it would be a subject now with as much practical use as a gas light lamp-lighter, I suppose!

I was lucky enough to go to a middle primary school in 1969/70 that gave us showers and we used to have quite a bit of fun in them I seem to remember, I'd have been disappointed if they'd taken it away from us once we'd been doing it for a while after I started doing it. That was the age of eight onwards. Boys that age love getting a soaking and naked in my opinion and that's how it was when I was going to middle school until moving up four years later. By about 1973 and going into the nearby comprehensive school which was held in high regard locally that kind of thing began to feel completely different, not so lightweight and fun and more serious, elements of reluctance built in and all that. Middle school showering was much nicer than comprehensive school for me and easier to do. They never gave anyone free choice on showers at school, not even in my middle school and there was none of this walking in with your pants or shorts on to do so, it all came off, so nobody ever had any secrets from one another about exactly what we all looked like. This only really started to hit me in when I must have been thirteen or so when I began questioning how I was looking not just to myself but wondering what others might be thinking of me. Not a lot probably is the answer. I remember my sister saying that every single girl hated having to shower at the same school as me. I'm not sure you would ever say the same of boys though.

It made a huge difference which PE teacher took you at comprehensive and there was one I was always wanting to avoid who got stuck as my main outside teacher on the timetable for a year at one point who was a team sports obsessive and was quite fond of bare tops and shirts all weather hockey for some reason and if you were a shirtless boy doing that you really didn't want to be falling over onto the horribly gritty surface even slightly or it would graze quite easily and did so a few times to a completely indifferent teacher who then just sent you off to the medical office for a patch or clean up of the graze and expected you back out within ten minutes at most. When I changed main outdoors teacher again the hockey almost completely stopped and I was thankful for that. The comprehensive gym was technically vests only, with shorts, nothing on the feet, but those vests seemed to come off very frequently indeed whoever you had at the time. Including both schools I'm covering the period 1969 to 1977 here. I'm soon to be 63 and those days don't seem that long ago to me.

My three sons all went to school in the 1990's and at that time showers remained the rule for them and it seemed fairly similar generally to my own days, except they didn't do what I did in middle school, just secondary.

Now it looks to me like schools actively discourage things like showering in some places but do they actually forbid it does anyone know, so that even if you wanted to shower they would not let you? What a turn around if that's the case, if it is some places. I just don't understand how you can possibly play messy sports like rugby out on the school field at this time of year in these conditions on water logged ground, get thrown about on the ground and not at least be able to shower or expected to do so. How does that work out then? I remember the state of what I used to bring home from school and even what my sons brought home and stuck in the machine.

I think it is time to follow Nathan's example and offer Alan the full clean slate that he mentioned. Okay I'll start by taking back my man with the beret observation, the Frank one.

Possibly keep the big politics out of it though. Many of us are fully behind many of those sentiments you raised but I'm unsure this is quite the place for such diversions, even though you'll get no disagreement out of me on much of it. I think almost everyone on here probably knows the wretched state of the country in all our institutions, including schools.

I'm pleased you finally said something positive about your school, however small that was, the school secretary is at least something. You have never given us anything before and I'm sure I remember Mike asking for something a few months ago without success. I'm pleased you mentioned that. It's small but clearly a big deal to you. I can't believe you would chuck out your old reports though. Most if us keep them don't we?

Polite doesn't surprise me in the least. It's obvious what you were at school and up against. I'd be more shocked if you'd told us the report said the opposite.

I think a corner might have been turned here.

I went to secondary school in the 80s and indoor pe was always shirtless. It was a mixed comp but no mixed pe. Half of us had white shorts and half blue which was for differentiation in team games such as basketball.

In the sixth form there was no mandatory PE but if you had a free period that coincided with a Year 11 PE class you could join that if you wished. A lot of us did and it was the same kit requirement of shorts and no top.

Do I think there should be shirtless PE now? Yes but only for those who want it. Given that most people that age go shirtless quite a lot when the weather is hot enough, I think a lot would choose to.

That further response from Nathan says quite a lot about the man to me, to follow up later in the day. Most people wouldn't bother. A breath of fresh air and as the modern term says, he's completely owned you and kicked your backside into touch and all your arguments about PE teachers that you have tried to pull not just on the old ones who we know could sometimes be dreadful but the newer modern ones who you tried to mix in with the old ways too. He's done a good job showing you up in the nicest possible way of course, with a touch of class, no pun intended. I'll add myself to the positive comments about his input. Possibly the wrong person has decided to take the sabbatical though. It might be worth giving it a rest for a while on your line of thought and see where else this forum goes into other directions, although I don't want to see the old jockstrap and underwear obsessives reappear anytime soon either.

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 7th February 2024 at 23:23
(and Robert and James).

Mea culpa.

I genuinely did not mean to be offensive to Nathan yesterday morning, and as I clearly was, unwittingly, all I can do is apologise again. While I am at it I also owe Nathan a belated apology for an earlier post a couple of weeks ago when I was ungenerous to him, and too brusque. No excuse, but it was a bad day. Sorry.

Nathan has now set my mind at rest and I will not raise the matter again. I believe what he says.

My reason for raising the matter here is because the way younger workers (I was one myself once) are treated, to the point where they are forced to stay on at school to massage the unemployment figures, disgusts me. I had chances and experiences and money ( and kind considerate employers) before I was 18, that is being denied to so many. This forum seemed the best place to raise that. I will persue it no longer. The sword has been sheathed.

There are others issues we anger me just as much as well - for example, the way people who were born and worked in this country - many of them served this country in the services and paid their taxes, are forced to sleep on the streets in February,, and beg, when you compare that to the way usually young men - sneak into this country in rubber boats, tear up their papers and are then given four star hotel treatment, free medical treatment, assisted in all sorts of material ways by silly women from "Care4Calais" and they STILL complain they are not given enough. That angers me just as much as the plight of young workers but again, I realise my remarks will upset some people so I will stop there. Also, don't get me started on all the trans crap which seems to have engulfed this country in the past couple of years!, it received it's reductio ad absurdam last week with this silly woman MP - bearing in mind in the same week we were being warned that World War 3 (with Russia) was just five years away and that terrible "conscription" word was being used, which - rightly - upset one of our posters here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13042735/Dead-people-change-gender-Labour-MP-Charlotte-Nichols.html


A few explanations - why I post so early in the day, Nathan: I have experienced insomnia virtually all my adult life - I will not say suffered - , as I agree with an early hero of mine F.J. Camm, who was the author of countless radio ("wireless" in those days) instructional books and founded several magazines, one of which "Practical Wireless" has been in constant publication since 1932, and which, when I was growing up, and beyond, was part of my education. He always used to say "The best way of all to lengthen your days, is to steal a few hours from the night". I agree 100%. You will sometimes find me on American electronics chat rooms, as it is late in the evening over there. As Tony Hancock put it in one of his most famous comedy shows, "The Radio Ham" ::- 'I have friends all over the world - all over the world. ......None in this country, but all over the world"

Robert: Our school reports, beautifully typed up up by our lovely school secretary, Mrs Fennemore, on her Royal Imperial , were very brief and to the point:

For example: "Maths: Satis (several teachers used that abbreviation for "satisfactory" (I hope!), and was their only comment (they signed beside the typed comment) There was the good: English" "V Good, reading and writing skills" Art: "Shows aptitude, especially with penmanship" to the not so good: PE "lacks coordination, no improvement" Woodwork: Lacks both interest and ability". Ouch!

There would then follow a short summing up by the Headmaster. "Alan's attendance is good as is his timekeeping. He is a quiet but polite boy, who needs to give more attention to the subjects that do not interest him"

I bet me being described as "polite" is a shock to most of you, eh?. I think he included that routinely for any lad who didn't spit in the playground, or scrawl obscenities on the lavatory walls with ink markers.

It was the one time a year he remembered our forenames. Or did he?. Perhaps Mrs Fennemore added them - Mrs F. was by far the nicest person in our school - always had a smile and a friendly word, and genuinely DID know our forenames - even the "bad boys" liked her.

I was amazed, when clearing out the house after my mum died, nearly 30 years ago now, that she had kept all of those very short concise reports , all faultlessly typed up by Mrs F. I threw all of them out except that one from when I was 15, more to remember that lady who had typed it up, as she died abut the same time as my mum had (I am a sentimental old fool), than my less-than-glittering school career. All of them were more or less the same. Geography got slightly better as the years went on.


James: That was the unkindest one of the lot - Frank Spencer? I have never worn a beret in my life, not even when I was playing music, where, for a time, headgear seemed de rigueur (no - I never did - hays make my head sweat) . Couldn't we settle on Frank Pike - that "stupid boy"?

Again I apologise for any unintended upset, which was not my intention yesterday, and can I thank you for not resorting to the abuse and accusations I was receiving towards the end of 2023?. It's all been polite. Nathan - if your colleague wants to have a go - let him. My shoulders are broader these days, and if I could withstand Boreham and Roberts I can withstand anybody.

Comment by: TimH on 7th February 2024 at 17:09
Nathan - I hope you won't leave us - you always spoke a lot of sense.


This comment and the other one from Robert one of my elders of the profession has made me reconsider my initial comment earlier. I made that comment with a very annoyed fellow colleague beside me at the time who might have influenced my reaction a touch as we were still in school.

Count yourself lucky Alan I didn't let him grab the ipad out of my hand and say what he said to me, to you, on here.

You fully understand my answer clearly and concisely. Good. Matter is now closed. Slate cleaned. We will clearly never agree that I am able to decide the dress code for a class and choose the shirtless option without needing an explanation, or the need for a shower arrangement at school for PE, which I agree with.

I always said I would never force anyone into anything if they were set very much against it to the detriment of their actual mental health. But you must also remember that nobody in almost ten years has ever done so apart from a couple of inquisitive parents who then accepted the answers given.

I no longer wish to have to defend these points again with you Alan. I've been clear. Finally accept them from me please. Don't pigeonhole all teachers of the same subject.

Once again thankyou Tim, a period of silence on my end is needed I feel. I'm not sure how my head would feel if known what I was writing here in my name and my colleague did make that point to me this afternoon, although there are no social media restrictions of any kind on any of us but it's always worth being mindful of what is being said and careful. I'm sure he'd be fine though as I've defended myself well and where I work and actually said very little about what I actually do much of the time.

I'll take a sabbatical for a bit instead. It's a busier job than people think you know!

Now get a good night's sleep Alan, the timings of your posts are extraordinary and very unhealthy to both mind and body. I'm normally in bed and out like a light by 11.30pm latest and up bright at 6.55am on the dot. Call it my own bit of PE teacher discipline.

I was taken with your complement the other day to me but at the same time found it such a damned shame that you have no other nice words from teachers that you can remember from your days in school. There must have been some, your school reports must have said some nice things for example.

I did feel that Nathan would not wish to contribute much longer with that line of questioning however. Compared to me in the early years of my career in physical education and teaching in general he sounded like an absolute angel. We are all the product of our times to such a large extent but we can all make our own little differences all the same along the way.

I will also add my agreement with TimH about Nathan Hind who also seems an exemplary poster and so polite. Both of you are infact, and Alan has his better moments too, let's not be too harsh. I'll give you a B for effort but a D for attainment on that last one Alan.

Oh well done Alan. :-(

I know you didn't mean much harm in what you said but you just have what I can best describe as this Frank Spencer style knack of going about innocently saying things and getting people wound up.

I bet you wish you had this ability to get rid of PE teachers when you were actually in school. That's two now on here. At least one we know of is left for now. You might yet score a hatrick.

I don't blame the teacher for his annoyance. I think that was quite passively aggressive actually and quite close to a smear. You did not need to bring these unsavoury press stories into your discussion with him, or a teacher of yours who you have previously accused of all kinds of things. They should have remained quite separate.

I agree with Tim entirely. He sounded well rounded for a quite young man to me. I remember having a PE teacher who seemed almost illiterate and mostly grunted half the time, and the other half he was simply blowing his bleeding whistle which made more sense than what came out his mouth.

I was quite a shy kid at school, PE was just something else to put up with much of the time, some days I liked it, others I didn't. I got asked to do many things I didn't like, all the things that get a mention here lots. I don't think Nathan had anything to answer in my opinion about how he conducts himself and was perfectly happy to accept his explanations without needing detailed reasons for every decision he made - even that shirts off one. Happened to me, dealt with it. We all do.

Replying to Nathan Hind:



"First, nobody is making anyone aged over 16 even do PE at school, never mind ordering them to do all kinds like run around stripped shirts off. Most after 16 are not even doing PE anyway, and those that choose to do something are not told to remove anything on top after that age or shower"

Thanks Nathan, that is all I wanted to know. I am really glad that these lads (and girls come to that) are not being made to suffer for being made to stay on at school.

I was not offensive to you, however if I did upset you then I am sorry, but I made it clear that I was not accusing you of anything - I was seeking clarification, which you have now given me, and I will let the matter rest.

I hope you do not leave. Believe me in the past, some posters have been far more offensive to me, than I was in my morning post today to you - it wasn't even intended to cause offence, that kit plainly dkid, I am truly sorry..

I am genuinely sorry that the question so offended you