Burnley Grammar School

Roy on 14th December 2023 at 02:34
Peter on 13th December 2023 at 20:13
Jon on 13th December 2023 at 17:42
Ian on 13th December 2023 at 15:43
Roy on 13th December 2023 at 02:40

I have said I'm retired and a school governor. Do you really think I'm going to name the school so that you and the other unsavoury characters who loiter here can turn up to watch the lads at exercise? That sort of voyeristic behaviour is both sick and offensive to many and I would hold you all guilty of wanting to participate in it. Roy in particular, like Alan posting in the middle of the night. Up surfing for porn and the like? Most people are in bed.

Shame on the lot of you or is it as simple as shame on Alan. I suspect so.

Barney on 12th December 2023 at 12:24

Interesting post, it’s true that the tables have turned on generation snowflake and now we are seeing boys aspire to be men as men of my age did once. It seems like the school has the recipe right and the masters are fully on board with it.

As you will have seen, you will be hated here for what you have posted. It doesn’t fit with the school was awful, PE was worse, everyone hated it agenda promulgated by Alan Dando and his handles. It’s amazing how they pop up with one liners claiming you can’t be telling the truth and demanding your CV, bank details, inside leg measurement and any other personal information they can think of while disclosing nothing of themselves.

Of course the purpose of a troll is to disrupt and run away back to the sewer they came from. Best to do as you have and call them out then ignore them. Apparently it’s ‘being dismissive’ a phrase often used by all of them particularly Alan Dando. I’ve lost count of the number of people I’m supposed to be now and quite frankly, they can accuse me of what they like, I’ll continue to be ‘dismissive’ if I bother to respond.

James on 12th December 2023 at 17:38

Interesting about Denmark and a case in point of why the school leaving age needs to be raised. Life long learning is the key to happiness and success. You only have to look at social comparators between those who left school as under achievers at sixteen and those who are better, often much better educated.


Mr Chips on 12th December 2023 at 20:58

Thank you for another interesting post sir, I see like Barney, you are also under attack. I’m sure you recognise the signs and similarity of the attacks just like all the others here and they come from one source.


Paul on 13th December 2023 at 12:07

Thanks for the post, you had the career I thought I wanted! All very interesting. I guess when you say conflict in the South Atlantic, you mean the Falklands? If so, you are a very brave man. I was at university when that happened and I stopped quite a few times to reflect on what might have been had I joined the navy.


Gareth on 13th December 2023 at 19:37

Exactly! It’s amazing how when the troll posts start they keep popping up. No disclosure, just demands for personal information then they crawl back in their sewer and don’t appear again until Alan Dando blows his whistle the next time. I’m probably you as well you realise, anyone who doesn’t fit with his agenda has to be the same person!

Gareth.

Many genuine people are quite happy to identify something about themselves. I think recently someone (Rob 30th Nov) a few pages back was confronted and then gave full details of their job and work location although it did not involve anything to do with education in that case. But there is the teacher on here (Nathan) who has openly told us where he works and given his full name too, So people are comfortable doing it. If you look at Bill who wrote a quite similar observation to Barney a couple of weeks ago he actually named the school (Queensbury Academy) and local roads where he saw what he was talking about and told us about his job too while he was at it. So it happens.

As far as that Barney comment is concerned I stand by what I wrote last night, I do not believe a word of it, or the questioning of the teacher either and others aren't fooled either, as I can see in the latest comments placed here.

Some people in life convince themselves of their own tall tales and one or two of them frequent these history pages from time to time and think we are falling for what they say.

Comment by: Barney on 12th December 2023 at 12:24


Just like the others, I don't believe a word of the above timed comment that was trying to be passed off as a real observation and then encounter either.

Ian on 13th December 2023 at 15:43

It never ceases to amaze me how many people post here, demanding personal information that would identify another without disclosing anything of themselves. I would have thought it was only good manners to do that if demanding information of others. Not of course that anyone is under any obligation to respond.

My grandson's primary school apparently does physical education without requiring any top to be worn in the lesson taken in the assembly hall there according to the family and that's fine but if he was going out like that, unless it was high summer and lovely outdoors, I think the family would definitely have something to say about that.

FIFTY lads at school PE going out bare chested along with a couple of shirtless teachers with them, this very week, outside in December. Yeah right.

Nice try Barney. Don't take readers on here for complete fools please.

Ian on 13th December 2023 at 15:43

Oh dear, another one wired to another planet, probably Uranus and throwing his toys out of his cot.

Those obsessed with this idea are probably as others have said all the names of, isn't it Alan Dando?

Of course you're not Barney are you, because it only happened in your imagination.

A theme has developed here recently with this kind of outlandish stuff being written and then flat refusals to add a bit of perfectly reasonable information when asked by other forum members. It leads me to think this is all penned under the same hand because the replies always end up so similarly belligerent.

Roy on 13th December 2023 at 02:40

It's a free country and you can consider it fiction if you like, it makes not one jot of difference to me what you think. I'm not going to name a school where I'm a governor in this context no matter how many toys you or anyone else posting here throws out of their cot. Now, get over yourself.

Original Andy on 12th December 2023 at 08:34

In the midst of so much else, I was interested that you wanted to join the navy - I joined at 18 and was my career until retirement - at 55.

It's true, as a sixteen year old and in line with the law, you needed parental consent to join and you still do because as has been pointed out and confirmed, the age of majority is eighteen.

These days joining at sixteen is classified as an apprenticeship and the jobs that are there are things like chefs and bandsmen which teachs some job skills but there's also a requirement to keep up general study and an expectation of some A levels at the end of it.

When I joined it was about the same with the exception of the junior officer cadets who were close to Dartmouth where I was. The junior cadets were basically in what was a pretty strict boarding school with high expectations for exams and any job related skills as well as fitness. The PTs we had also were the PTs for the school and it showed, the lads who joined my intake were a lot more fit than the rest of us. To join as an officer now you need at least A levels.

No boy would ever be sent to a combat zone no matter what the circumstances and to that end they were rarely aboard ship unless it was docked in Devenport. Soon after commission, I was in conflict in the South Atlantic and it was brutal but unlike a few, I came back and unhurt.

I had a great career and no regrets - well some when you'd been at sea in high seas for days but it all passes and the sun rises tomorrow.

Mr Chips. - my point was that when I try to observe the courtesy of doing my best to speak in their own language, they tend to reply in English.

Mr Chippy 12 December @ 2058

¨Remember the Victorians replaced the birch with the cane and one of the reasons why was that Victorians were very socially conservative, the birch did not work through trousers but the cane was very effective so the birch lost favour and the cane replaced it. You could make the cane sting sufficiently so the whole thing about bare was just to add a threat and a different dimension to the punishment.

Very occasionally I would do it to a younger boy who had done the same thing persistently like not do homework, I would issue the threat and if a further occasion occurred then I would carry it out and deliver two quite light but absolutely stinging strokes which would fade in about half an hour. He would forget that but not having to drop his trousers and underpants which would act as an equal deterrent to the cane.¨

Were I not certain that our Mr Boreham had been six feet under these many years, I would think he had retired to France.

Forgive me, but you seem to have an obsession with discipline, especially caning. Those lovingly detailed descriptions, including some very arcane pieces of knowledge,

I know I will upset your admirers on this forum, but as so many of your posts include descriptions of caning, one could be forgiven for thinking this interest is an obsession, and not a very healthy one.

It is bad enough that such punishments were allowed in the past, to salivate about it in retirement seems especially seedy. I wonder if you ever consider the psychological damage you might have done. I doubt it bothers you anyway. You enjoyed yourself at the time and you enjoy it now in retrospect.

'Usually a couple of classes are out doing PE and this morning was no exception. Two classes of lads running circuits of the field and over about fifty lads and two PE masters running with them, there wasn't a shirt between them.'




Name the school or I'll consider this fiction.

Chris G on 11th December 2023 at 21:03

You were very lucky if French people spoke to you in English, most people will say the opposite is true and there is an absolute refusal to speak English. When we first moved here it never occurred to me to speak English and of course my French is, shall we say, very good. It was probably about a year in that a small number of people working in services started to speak to me in English and when I asked why, they said they knew my French was fluent but could they practice their English with me. I was pleased to help - once a teacher and all that. I lead an English conversation group here which is just part of putting something back into the community I live in, it's not something I particularly enjoy but it's worthwhile because it helps others with their fluency.

It still happens but I also see Brits and strangely it doesn't happen to other English speakers, being looked at blankly when they speak English in French establishments and they are replied to in French, palms raised and shoulders around their ears. I just stop and laugh. With other English speakers, the French make an effort.


Original Andy on 12th December 2023 at 08:34

Those navy gaberdine coats were the norm right through until the mid 1970s and were part of the uniform. Other coats did then begin to slip in and it was never stopped and gradually the gaberdines disappeared. A good thing too, I had one too back in the day and I hated it.


Barney on 12th December 2023 at 12:24

That all sounds very positive and healthy. Well done on being a school governor, I bet that is a challenging role these days. Oh, and I'm glad your dad's strap did the job it was intended for, I'm sure it always worked!


James on 12th December 2023 at 17:38

That's a very interesting point you make about education in Denmark, I knew the education system was generous but that is world leading and I doubt matched anywhere else in the world. I'm a bit past a further degree sadly but certainly for anyone with an EU passport and access to Erasmus, it's something to seriously consider.

In answer to your question to me, four was normal but as I've said previously, the power of my arm may have varied. As a star pupil, you would certainly have felt my wrath translated into sting. The ultimate sanction, 'next time it will be on your bare bottom'. It was much more of a threat than something ever carried out indeed the only time I did it consistently was if a sixth former had been caught bullying a younger boy and that might have happened once a year if that.

Remember the Victorians replaced the birch with the cane and one of the reasons why was that Victorians were very socially conservative, the birch did not work through trousers but the cane was very effective so the birch lost favour and the cane replaced it. You could make the cane sting sufficiently so the whole thing about bare was just to add a threat and a different dimension to the punishment.

Very occasionally I would do it to a younger boy who had done the same thing persistently like not do homework, I would issue the threat and if a further occasion occurred then I would carry it out and deliver two quite light but absolutely stinging strokes which would fade in about half an hour. He would forget that but not having to drop his trousers and underpants which would act as an equal deterrent to the cane.

Well done on your bare skin running.

Robbie.

- I'd like to ask Nathan if he's still reading this site if he takes PE classes out on cross country runs in the way us older guys will remember them and if so would he allow boys under his command to run shirtless if they asked to or simply discarded their top along the way? -



Yes we do run in PE as a group class. We do not run without tops though. It's mainly sweatshirts. If someone decided to remove that and run without it I would probably allow that if they wished but that has not happened. I save anything involving bare chests for the gym where it is most appropriate occasionally.

I was not completely surprised by the comment over the school in Dunstable although that is uncommon in my opinion.

Original Andy on 11th December 2023 at 07:59

Your point about Denmark is valid. I have a nephew there who went to live there at the age of about 20, he had been a bit of an educational drop out before that (I would blame the parents, not the school). He got into study and was encouraged at every level and obtained a Batchelors and then a Masters in his subject. He worked hard for a number of years and then, about two years ago returned to education, funded for full time study and with a guarantee on his former income while he did it. He's completed whatever it was and is now looking for a new job, still funded as a percentage of his last income while he did it. Compare that to the anti-learning and get to work model of the UK. No wonder Danes are so much more content and attracting investment in high level jobs and a 'student loan' just doesn't exist.


Mr Chips on 11th December 2023 at 15:39

Ouch, you were as tough as my French teacher ;-). Was four a standard for that sort of failure and what was the 'ultimate sanction'? Star pupil? Maybe, I did get an A at A level in French but I wasn't the only one.

On the current theme, I'm a bare skin runner, I've been doing it for over a year now in all weathers. Like many, for me PE like that was a norm so it was returning to that rather than trying something new that attracted me. I could remember how good it felt once you got over the cold and I wanted to feel like that again. It worked. At first it felt a bit strange going out particularly in the winter in a brief pair of running shorts, then I thought I was doing nothing wrong so why worry.

I run all weekday evenings, it's home from the office, strip, shorts and shoes on, pick up keys and out for about 5km. I'm very much a loner when I run but do occasionally run alongside another guy if he wants to join me. I note that now, I'm not the only bare skin out there which I was when I started. When I get back, cold shower and feel amazing, far better than I do when I get home from the office.

What's not to like?

I am sure an under 18 would not be deployed to the front line, but I suspect in all other respects a 17 year old who has signed up is treated exactly the same as an 18/19 year old is.

This is how weird we've got over school and nudity now, and this is in France not renowned for such sensitivities. Young secondary age kids refusing to look at a work of renaisance art, obviously a religious angle involved here, but what is it coming to when such young children are acting up like this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67691484

Kevin - But the fact remains that at 16 or 17 you are legally a child still even if you are 6ft 5inches tall and have genitalia that swings between your legs that is twice the size of your own father (or teacher!).



A very well made point with an amusing latter point that better be the warning to any of those PE teachers who wanted to share the shower with the class. My PE teacher actually did this a handful of times, when we were even quite young at 12 and he would have been over 35. At the time this would have been in 1976. Nature can be so cruel at times. At school two boys got teased when we showered because one of them was quite a big boned large chap by about 14 but with a tiny willy and the other was barely five feet tall but blessed down below and we used to point and joke that these two had been given each others vital bit. That was the cruelty of the school changing room with certain boys in my school. Sometimes the lines between a mild joke and banter got blurred between that and the onset of less pleasant taunting.

I was a private schoolboy, not in the state system.

I'm just back from my morning, old gits gym session - I and three others who are retired meet Monday to Friday for a workout, it certainly does me good.

Anyway, on the way home, as every morning, I passed along the boundary of the school I went to as a boy and where I'm now a governor. Usually a couple of classes are out doing PE and this morning was no exception. Two classes of lads running circuits of the field and over about fifty lads and two PE masters running with them, there wasn't a shirt between them.

I watched for a few minutes or as an unsavoury character might call it, loitered and then decided to walk across and talk to one of the PE masters who I know. For the sake of curiosity, among other things, I asked what the policy was on shirts since they didn't have one between them and he told me they are 100% optional but also that he couldn't remember when a lad last wore one and none of the masters do in class.

Pushing my luck, I asked about showers and were they optional too and he looked in amazement and said they certainly were not, any lad who had been exercising needed a shower but he also said that he had never had a lad object to taking a shower. I know from my various tours of the school that the showers are communal and remained so even after a refit just a couple of years ago and yet no lads object to using them. They must be very grown up.

We seem to be developing a new generation of boys who recognise that bare skin running is best and who don't mind at all taking a communal shower. Hopefully in a few years when they are eighteen we'll have a better generation of men rather than snowflakes.

Child Soldiers ...

Try and find this doc on the www
'ForcesWatch briefing The recruitment of under 18s into the UK armed forces' (it came up easily searching under 'Child Soldiers UK' - I think it goes into this into fair detail, although I haven't been through it deeply.
I think the following is accepted by everyone:

'members of the armed forces cannot legally be deployed on the frontline until they turn 18'

However complicated the UK system may look, it is fairer than might be found in many countries.

(Thinking back, a very good [and younger] friend was an OD(?) on a RN DD off Vietnam in the early 70s. For reasons which we needn't to into he found himself 'embedded' with the US Marines at Da Nang for some time - I wonder what age he was then? [and he did see action])

Kevin on 11th December 2023 at 13:17

Thank you for reinforcing the point I made. I agree, the situation with the military is a strange one but those under eighteen do require parental consent to join. I’m no expert on what happens after they join but I suspect they are not allowed in combat zones or other risky places.

When I was sixteen, I wanted to leave school and join the navy but my father who had been in the navy had other ideas and he wouldn’t sign the forms so I continued at school and then entered my father’s preferred profession for me which was law. I have no regrets and have a good career.

Age and emotional maturity are two completely different things. I’m sure much has been written about it by people much wiser than me.

Mr Chips on 11th December 2023 at 15:39

Thank you for your comments sir, you should give squats a go!
I had one of those horrible navy, gaberdine rain coats, I hated it and used to try to get out of the house without it every morning but one of my parents was often in the hall waiting with it making an escape impossible. I did my best to lose it but my name was embroidered into it so it came back like a boomerang and I got into trouble for carelessness and losing it. I also can’t remember an excuse that was enough to keep you out of trouble if late for school and we got four strokes of the cane too.

I’m glad you’re enjoying this board, your contributions and different perspective are fascinating to me.

Paul on 11th December 2023 at 18:28

I’m glad my post was helpful, please ask away if I can tell you anything else.


And more generally:

Alan Dando remains obsessed that people are posting under multiple names, a sure sign that he’s the guilty party trying to project his guilt, and on this board, he has plenty to be guilty about, onto others. I’ve lost count of the number of others I’m supposed to have been over the years. His latest diversions about the age of majority are just another example of his crusade to change the past, failing to realise that it can’t be changed. Perhaps if he’d stayed at school a little longer, he would be wiser. Then, maybe not.

With all due respect to Mr Chips who has made some great contributions here, my wife is quite certain she’s not married to an eighty three year old retired French teacher and we don’t live in France either. She’s chuckling about what she referred to as the Alangations which are never ending, diversionary tactics to remove the focus from his bullying. He’s a case in point of age and emotional maturity not being anything like the same thing. Sadly, he must be treated as an adult when a taste of Mr Chips’ cane would probably be the best solution.

I saw a pair of shirtless Craig style bareskin running men in Richmond Park on Sunday afternoon, mid to late 30's I'd say, so there must be something in this, perhaps the online world is helping to power the trend.

When you take some of the things that Craig has said recently on these pages here and that he has attracted a following on a whatsapp group, and seeing what Bill says about the boys at the school he's seen a couple of times it makes you wonder if the boys at the school have somehow cottoned on to the new fad for so named bareskin running like that and it is even more of a thing than previously realised.

I'd like to ask Nathan if he's still reading this site if he takes PE classes out on cross country runs in the way us older guys will remember them and if so would he allow boys under his command to run shirtless if they asked to or simply discarded their top along the way?

A very silly question Gary.

Why will some people take anything they read quite literally.

Mr Chips - 11th Dec

Yes, I did go on to enjoy French. Even to the extent of getting an O-level pass (no grades in those days). And I also enjoy going to France. My main frustration. As I said, is the way the French respond to my civilised attempts to communicate in their home territory in their own language by persistently replying in mine. The Parisians are the worst offenders, but get down to the Midi. And you stand a better chance.

Comment by: Gary on 11th December 2023 at 20:33

Certainly if you take the word of one or two people on this site as gospel, that is the case, but if the armed services and the pollce services don´t regard 17 year olds as ´children´ I think it rather presumptuous of elderly teachers to do so.

Without wishing to be discourteous , I think people who haven´t actually had any direct recent experience of working or talking with older teenager,s forget they are not the same as teenagers from sixty or thirty years ago. They are people who talk ABOUT teenagers, rather than talking TO them (as I have mentioned before I used to employ some as Saturday workers, until a few years ago). Treat them as grown-ups and they behave as grown-ups.

By being ´made´ to stay on at school till they are 18, dealing with subjects they have no interest or aptitude in, they are deliberately delaying them progressing to adulthood. Mr Chippy with his roseate memories of his students being chivvied along with his cane, has no currency into today´s world (thank goodness).

If a lad or girl want to stay on in education, it should be a voluntary decision, and they should be supported in that decision, as it was until recent times. Frankly, the only reason Blair wanted kids to go to university was to try to disguise the unemployment figures - an arbitrary figure of 50% of people attending university, meant that they will spend years of their working lives paying off enormous debts (which Blair and his university colleagues didn´t have to do) - and for what?. After a course in golf course management, many of the poor devils will end up being the highest educated man or woman in the call centre.

But to go back to ´childhood´ - if the Met Police are prepared to treat 17 year olds as adults, who are the rest of us to disagree.?.

Comment by: Gary on 11th December 2023 at 20:33
So according to some people here the UK is guilty of inlisting CHILD SOLDIERS??



If you think that's really what I meant in all seriousness then you haven't understood the nuance of what I was saying. So to answer your question the answer is a loud and definite NO.

So according to some people here the UK is guilty of inlisting CHILD SOLDIERS??

Original Andy on 11th December 2023 at 07:59

Wow, thank you so much for so much guidance on gym, what you are doing is way different to anything I've done before in terms of routine and you are getting good results. I think I'll give it all a go - perhaps after Christmas, then again, I might start tomorrow. Thank you again.


More widely, to add my own experience, at school, I always, alongside my classmates was bare chested for PE and after a couple of lessons it was perfectly normal, as normal as communal showers became. I think children adapt quickly and in a structured environment, thrive. There needs to be compulsion to try things otherwise how would any of us ever try anything that we thought we might not like? No child has an informed opinion, childhood is about testing things out and also getting used to situations in which you may not feel comfortable - imagine a world of adult snowflakes - there are enough around and if no one did anything they didn't want to, we'd live in a 100% snowflake world.

Once I get working in the gym, bare skin running is definitely up for a try.