Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Mr Chips on 11th December 2023 at 15:39


I am not seeking to deprive anybody of anything - if people want to carry on in education above and beyond 18 that is fine by me. But for working class lads, not especially academically inclined (like myself) it is better to get out in the working world. It did me no harm, nor I think the other lads I was at school with. We learned in real world employment, far different to the scenarios that might have been dreamt up in school, and you developed self-reliance and self confidence and the ability to act on your own initiative.

By the way - I notice that when you replied to me you pulled the old ´Andy¨ trick - and his various aliases - by being dismissive and somewhat condescending )- (´I don´t know if it is worth replying to you´). This really isn´t compulsory, you know. True, I might not have a doctorate , but I am not an illiterate hobbledehoy either, and snide little put downs say more about the person writing them than it does about me.

To you and him - or them - I can only say I am just as satisfied with my current working life as you are with yours.

Of course, every opinion is just that - mine carries no more weight than yours, but each opinion is based on personal experience.

Nate on 7th December 2023 at 23:02
Oh dear, back to school for you my boy ;-) Double Latin.

Mike on 8th December 2023 at 13:27
I believe Google translate learns from the amount of translation it is asked to do. English to French is pretty good but I suspect there is little demand for Latin.

Chris G on 8th December 2023 at 15:16
OMG, what a terrible introduction, that shouldn’t have happened. In a first lesson I introduced words of things in the room for most of the lesson and then how to put them together for example, bureau et chaise, fenêtre et porte. For anyone with English as a first language, even starting to get hold of the definite and indefinite articles in another language – even though French has much in common with many other European languages but not English is enough of a challenge for week one and leads to lots of questions, some of which have no answer other than that’s the way the French language works. I hope you went on to enjoy French?

James on 9th December 2023 at 11:07 & James on 10th December 2023 at 17:09
Oh dear, day dreaming in a lesson for most of the time if you managed to get 18% for your efforts when you are clearly talented by your mark of 93% on repeat. Having determined that you were day dreaming and not distracted by something important to you, I would probably have given you four strokes of the cane too. Three stingers and the last one with a bit more burn to remind you when you sat down for a couple of days to pay attention and as you were a star pupil probably made the ultimate threat if you repeated your foolishness. Your French master was obviously a very wise man ;-).

I totally agree with your further post.

Greg2 on 9th December 2023 at 14:58
Your first paragraph sums up the beauty of France so well. I see all those aspects of it and have never tired nor grown too used to it over almost twenty years. For me, there is nowhere else like it. The Brittany Coast, which is what ultimately brought us to Finisterre is stunning starting around Mont Saint-Michel and ending at Saint Nazaire. I just love it. Pont Aven is a particularly nice spot. The Celtic links are also very strong. Not so long ago, in a market, I bought some beautiful Celtic art work that you might expect more to find in Ireland or Scotland but of course Brittany is just as Celtic as those two places. Increasingly and thanks to Brittany Ferries, we see large numbers of Irish visitors here which makes up for the decline in Brits, numbers of Brits are definitely falling post the great mistake as we call it here.

I don’t think there was a French teacher alive who didn’t insist on a long format date written in French at the beginning of every piece of work, I certainly did at the outset but later, I used to allow le 11 Decembre 2023 instead because it was simply more practical. I remember back then that companies were always very willing to send out project literature and we used to be inundated with it. I can remember more than one lad doing a project similar to yours on the French motor industry and the car makers sent lots of information as did SNCF and Air France for another couple of lads.

Thank you for the link on Cold Therapy, I’ll get round to listening. As I think I’ve said, cold does improve my movement and joints. We have another swim set for this weekend that I’m very much looking forward to. There’s also a place near here with a cryotherapy chamber that I must try out one of these days.

Frank on 9th December 2023 at 22:15
When I was at school in the 1950s we simply didn’t have PE tops, kit was shorts and plimsolls and a vest or t-shirt just wasn’t included. It’s interesting to see that more and more, lads are reverting to bare skin and of course no reason not to. There may be a bit of peer group pressure but then there is about all sorts of other things too and running or doing any other PE with a bare chest never did anyone any harm.

Alan on 10th December 2023 at 03:39 and more
I'm not sure it's worth responding to you, you seem you of touch with reality but dear me, depriving children of education because they don't want it, utterly misguided. I remember when the school leaving age was raised from fifteen to sixteen. That was in 1972. For the autumn term I think my cane may have been in a bit more use than normal but all soon settled down and lads who might have left without any qualifications gained some and no doubt did better because of it. I think it’s right that children now remain at school until eighteen, a seventeen year old is a child whether they (or you) like it or not. Education is never wasted and I’ll pose the question others have and you seem to perpetually ignore. If you allow children (and that is what they are until their eighteenth birthday) to do as they like regarding leaving school, doing PE, not doing PE, perhaps doing maths or English or not, where do you draw the line? Unless you know, your argument has no credibility whatever. Choice for children in all regards is not the right way forward.

Chris G on 10th December 2023 at 09:14
My feelings entirely.

Gareth on 10th December 2023 at 09:27
Quite, I know what would have happened to me had I started stating my rights as a boy and it would not have been pleasant! Children require structure and discipline.

Jonathan on 10th December 2023 at 17:32
He sounds like a very healthy young man. I never wear a shirt in the garden in the summer either.

Ken on 10th December 2023 at 19:28
I’ll vouch for that!

Original Andy on 11th December 2023 at 07:59
Very interested in your gym routine though I fear that now, I’m a bit past so many squats!

Thank you too for making the points about adults and children. My belief too is that children are forced to grow up too quickly these days and take on ever increasing responsibility while also for many dabbling in the very unhealthy world of some of the social media platforms. Childhood is preparation for adulthood and eighteen years of preparation, looking back from now being eighty three doesn’t seem that long at all. Once you pass eighteen, there is no going back and the path there shouldn’t be hurried.

TimH on 11th December 2023 at 11:29
When I was at school, coal fires in classrooms were normal and a seat too far away was freezing – as you sat in your short trousers. The winter of 1963, by which time I was teaching, was very severe, these days schools would be closed for even a shadow of what it was like but we went to school as normal and you needed to be on time. I remember the headmaster telling us that we were not to waive the customary four strokes of the cane for lateness, because as he put it, a boy who had been out in the cold for too long would appreciate a warm bottom. In reality, no more lads were late than usual, you just got up earlier and if necessary, walked to school through the snow, usually in your navy gaberdine macintosh with bare legs showing underneath it, school cap on head, just as I had done ten years earlier and lads were still doing ten years later. Those coats were real family hand-me-downs.

Neil on 11th December 2023 at 13:07
Yes, I remember that too and as a master, I still took rugby coaching during the winter and we went outside too wearing just shorts, I never wore a shirt either so I knew how cold it was but you soon warmed up.

Kevin on 11th December 2023 at 13:17
Good and accurate points. In reality, there are no grey areas, you are an adult or a child but of course that’s only about chronological age. I absolutely agree, there are wiser twelve year olds than twenty year olds but the law of course still stands.

Barney on 11th December 2023 at 13:21
Again, totally accurate and it sounds to me like your father was a very wise man and clearly the strap worked as intended as it always would.

And Finally:
This board has really livened up in the last couple of weeks which is good to see and there’s some very sensible and realistic discussion going on. I hope I’m making a valid contribution to it and I’m rather enjoying it all. Thank you gentlemen.

A large group of boys at Queensbury in Dunstable were out at 1.30pm this afternoon doing a cross country going into the quiet Buttercup Lane off the main residential road next to the school playing field and just like I saw two weeks ago, just about half were not wearing a top and were shirtless - in December. But it is very mild today. Perhaps it is something unique to a Monday at this time, I don't know. I was driving past at the time again. I don't actually live in this area near that school but do come past a lot at certain times while delivering flowers for the local flower shop part time.

Schools have rules Alan, and are some of the things on here really that unreasonable?

What was unreasonable was when every actual adult in this country at any age was treated like a child during the covid pandemic, being told where we could and couldn't go or whether we could leave the house and who we were allowed to go and see.

Gareth on 10th December 2023 at 09:27

I remember once telling my dad that I had rights and I was pretty forceful about it. He was a mild mannered man who with very few exceptions talked through things we had done wrong and I would say almost always we mended our ways.

On that day, I had clearly overstepped the mark and as he took down the strap, I began to backtrack at speed. I was one of four boys and I doubt any of us got the strap more than twice a year but that day I did. Twelve on the bare was always what happened, after four you were asking him to stop, after eight pleading and marching and after twelve, sobbing. I remember tears streaming, clutching my burning bottom, trousers and underpants still round my ankles watching him put the strap back on the hook and he turned and told me that he had rights, the right to strap an insolent and ill mannered boy and it could be repeated any time I needed it.

I never said another word about rights!


On the broader topic of bare chests for PE, through my time at school, I never had a shirt of any sort for PE, they just weren't part of the uniform. You very soon get used to being outside in shorts - no underpants of course either back then, and you just get on with the challenge in hand. Looking at the posts here, it would seem the majority of the guys enjoyed it as did I.

I often see the lads out on the field of the school near me either running or doing other training and it's rare to see a shirt so the norm is changing back to what it was once years ago. Everything seems to go full circle.

Andy - 'The legal age of majority in the UK is eighteen and no matter how much you mewl and puke it will remain eighteen. As such a seventeen year old is a child no matter how much you want it to be different and for instance, while an under eighteen year old in some circumstances might join the military, they need written parental consent because they are children. In law, you are either an adult or a child, there is nothing in between.'



This is absolutely true. Anyone under the age of 18 is considered to be a minor. That's the law as it stands. Of course this brings many contradictions, like being able to serve in the army at 16 I think you still can if I am correct, or certainly used to be able to, which kind of makes you think we run a childrens army if you think too hard about it. There is a very strong case to lower the age to 16 for sure there is.

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!).

But then I've also seen people in their early 20's less grown up than I was at 12.

Tim H

Good point about how cold schools could be, before a minimum temperature regulation came in, something like sixty fahrenheit or something. Those school gyms could be absolutely freezing at times over winter, and if you went to a school that made you do gym with nothing on your feet and no vest on then it could start off very cold indeed. I think there were a lot of times when I actually felt colder standing in the gym with just my shorts on at the start of the lesson than I did when I went outside in long sleeves and thick socks.

Following Chris G's 09.14 comment on the 10th>

'Back then' school's (& houses) weren't as warm as nowadays ans we seemed to get real winters. In the mid-50s some classrooms in my Primary School had coal fires. I'm not sure of the temp in my early-mid 60s Grammar School but I recall one winter (63/64?) my form-room was minus an entire window for some period of time, with boys sat next to the hole in their blazers. Not a happy situation - cured, IIRC, by strong input from parents & Councillors.

TH

Comment by: Original Andy on 11th December 2023 at 07:59


Ad hominen insults add nothing to you comments, nor do they do so under¨ very similar one from your friend James last evening.

Call a 17 year old ´ a child´ and I suspect you would get a very un-child like response.


You seem to want to outdo each other in old fogeyism.

Paul on 8th December 2023 at 11:02

Good luck with improving!

This guy does do things differently to any other PT I’ve worked with. Most will concentrate on a body part on a given day and you work only that part and then not come back to it for a week.

My current guy believes in a little and often – not that it’s really a little. Every session still starts with a warm up, I’m meant to do twenty minutes of cardio on a cross trainer before we start and then the further warm up is five minutes of star jumps and burpees (remember those!) that’s hard. He does those with me either as a mirror on the star jumps or alongside for burpees, there is no break in this and I’m supposed to keep his pace which I mostly manage.

On to weights and four sets of ten, it’s squats, abductor, leg press, ab crunches, bridges, shoulder press, bicep curls, chest press and of course press ups – forty at a time. The weights on the first three are high, 220kg for squats, 100kg for abductor and 260kg for leg press and 50kg for bridges. The upper body weights are much lower, all below 30kg. The break between sets is on a stop watch at not more than 30 seconds so cardio work continues throughout the session because of the pace. With the lower body stuff, he increased the weights very gradually and never more than once a fortnight and then only by 5kg at a time. Upper body stuff goes up about 2kg if at all and it hasn’t for more than six months but now I have good tone, it’s maintenance whereas lower body muscles are still developing.

I work with him once a week and do four days alone and then have two rest days. The only other advice he gave me was to start wearing compression shorts because they concentrate muscular blood flow and apparently that helps so I started – always commando before and they are very warm to wear so blood is obviously flowing but as it’s a men’s gym, I don’t wear a shirt for training and other guys don’t either. I also take my shoes off for lifting as I notice does every other guy, I can't remember the reason I was given for this but it sounded very valid at the time and as I see other guys who know far more than me doing it, there must be something right about it.

What I would add is that when I first looked at this place, it was a bit intimidating, so many super fit guys but as there’s no long contract for membership, I thought I’d give it a go for a month and I’m so glad I did. It took a few weeks to become familiar and recognise other guys but now I do and am part of it, it’s very friendly and very supportive with everyone looking out for each other and making sure everyone is safe with help if you struggle.

I think that’s it, if I’ve missed something, please ask away. It has all done me the world of good.


Michael on 9th December 2023 at 20:59

I don’t think as a boy, I ever had much of a choice about anything! It’s how it was.

Alan on 10th December 2023 at 03:39

Oh dear, is something keeping you awake at nights? A guilty conscience?

Alan on 10th December 2023 at 14:11

The legal age of majority in the UK is eighteen and no matter how much you mewl and puke it will remain eighteen. As such a seventeen year old is a child no matter how much you want it to be different and for instance, while an under eighteen year old in some circumstances might join the military, they need written parental consent because they are children. In law, you are either an adult or a child, there is nothing in between.

Alan on 10th December 2023 at 19:11

My goodness, three posts in a day. I’ve already corrected the errors you have made in this one above. A child may join the police at seventeen however they may not be a police officer until they are eighteen – by law. If the police take in a seventeen year old for questioning, because they are legally a child, they must have a responsible adult present. Imagine your world of seventeen year old police officers, they would need an adult present to question someone. You missed that bit out. Was it deliberate or just ignorance on your part?

In your world, you force children to grow up way too fast. Childhood is to be enjoyed as a time of learning and development. I think forcing children to be adults prematurely is abuse.

Will you be making a fourth post? It was so pleasant here over recent days while you were festering in the background but not posting.


Gareth on 10th December 2023 at 09:27

Absolutely spot on and I’d add, we can’t change the past and unless you want to pursue a legal case of abuse, there’s no point in someone continuing to whine and whinge about it but some here can’t resist. Concentrate on making the future better and let the past go.

James on 10th December 2023 at 17:09

Very valid points. Without some degree of compulsion and sanction we would live in a lawless society, it may suit a small minority but not the majority. The most amazing thing about all those who would advocate endless choice, no rules, no compulsion about anything is that no matter how often you ask, they don’t have any idea where they would set boundaries about anything. It’s disordered thinking.

I totally agree, education is never wasted. In Denmark for instance and because they have a much better system than the UK does, people are often aged 30 before they enter the workforce full time but when they do, they bring a high degree of expertise and strangely, Denmark has extremely low crime rates and one of the most socially just societies in the world.

Ken on 10th December 2023 at 19:28

I agree, children need structure and thrive within it gaining independence gradually. Young offenders institutions are full of children who have not had that sort of upbringing an have gone way off the rails because of it. It’s really a failure of the parents but the child suffers.

Bernard on 10th December 2023 at 22:50

Excellent points and very valid. I enjoyed PE in shorts only or plimsolls for outdoors. It was so free compared to the constraints of every day life. I think the vast majority of boys benefitted a great deal from the regime and developed physically in to fit boys and later men. It was PE at school that gave me my life long love of sport and fitness. There may have been challenges at the time but challenges are exactly that, to be an opportunity for growth. Remove all challenges and what is left? Cosseted, wet boys who whine for the rest of their lives.

I also enjoyed being bare chested. Like others, the main reason I liked it was how it felt free from constriction. At my school in the 1990s it was a choice, so you had to be brave enough to come to class without a top. It started with 2 to 3 who chose to be topless at the start aged 11, but by the time we were 12, slowly we were converted so sometimes as much as a third of the class was bare chested. It was definitely appealing to more than just myself. I was not very good at PE, but I found that being without a top made me feel more confident and I found I wasn't as bad as I thought.

I was curious about going without a top and I remember that after I tried it, I realized how much freer I felt and it felt more normal to be without a shirt than wearing one. It also meant my friends and I grew more confident about our bodies outside of school as well. Was it the same for others?

I didn't much relish the prospect of doing a lot of PE at senior school while not being able to wear a top of any kind, which was the case at my first senior school and I knew this before I started because the boy next door was a bit older than me and told me what it was like there. When I started there we were always being told to do PE in a total bare chest which was an anxious thing to do for a short while before settling in to that way of doing things. Two years later I moved to another school and there the PE gym was always in a tee-shirt and I had got so used to doing gym PE not wearing anything on top that I now felt like I didn't want to wear the tee-shirt in PE and would prefer the bare chest instead but that was never really allowed unless we went skins for team splits occasionally.

ChrisG - I too was at school over half a century ago and had to wear the same amount of clothing on my top half including the much-hated vest until I eventually convinced my mother that I really didn't need to wear one. It was indeed a relief to undress completely and put on just a pair of short, cotton shorts for p.e. and games even when we had to go on a cross country run in the middle of winter. Some-one commented a while back that you warmed up after a while or perhaps you just got accustomed to the cold - either way it didn't seem to matter much how cold it was - it was just great to be active and unconstricted.

Alan on 10th December 2023 at 19:11

Oh dear, just another rant rather proving my point. You didn't answer my question either so I presume you would rather just let chaos reign.

What's wrong, are you worried about the pending cut in your universal credit?

Ken on 10th December 2023 at 19:28

Exactly though there are those who post here who choose to remain insightless to your wisdom and would rather believe anything but the truth.

A lot of children actually like strict teachers telling them what to do.

Good intelligent kids who want to learn and do well hate soft wishy washy teachers who let classes descend into chaos with little discipline.

Comment by: James on 10th December 2023 at 17:09
Alan on 10th December 2023 at 03:39


James most of your message is risible, but just just one quote of this frankly over the top message will suffice:


´Is there anything you would compel a child i.e. an under eighteen to do or would you prefer to just let chaos reign?´

Anybody over 16 IS NOT ´a child´?. As for the nonsense about sending children up chimneys, I treat it with the contempt it deserves. It is you who seem to have a Victorian attitude. I invite you to go out and meet a group of 16-18 year olds and call them children and see the response you will get. and it not creating chaos to allow them to express their own personalities and their own style.

I think the problem with you,and those that think like you is that you talk ABOUT young adults and never TO them. You are the problem, not them.

By the way, you do realise to join the Metropolitan police as a cadet you need to be 17, and an RAF entry can be made at 18. Are you seriously suggesting that a 17 year old is a child?

Chris G's part 'Some of us actually enjoyed being bare-chested' is very true. There's actually a guy living at a house in my lane with his parents who is about twenty years old who seems to spend all summer never bothering with placing a top over his torso. He's nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal looking lad but seems keen to do this, to the point of being too keen because we have been in situations where he goes about where it looks less than appropriate and when he's going about in his bare chest look he actually walks differently, almost a strut. Me and my wife have actually laughed at it before. He was at his family BBQ over the summer which we were invited to and spent the whole time mingling completely bare chested among the guests when everyone else had made a bit of an effort to dress smart casually.

Alan on 10th December 2023 at 03:39

Is there anything you would compel a child i.e. an under eighteen to do or would you prefer to just let chaos reign?

I was at school when the leaving age was raised from fifteen to sixteen, quite a few lads didn't like it but after a couple of years, all were used to the idea and the majority took advantage of gaining some qualifications.

As Mr Blair said in due course, Education, Education, Education. It doesn't do harm. Of course if you want to roll back time, perhaps instead, you would like to see the school leaving age reduced and we could send children up chimnies and in the world you seem to live in alongside Mogg and that would be fine as long as they had a choice but Mogg wouldn't give them a choice. Education is not wasted and an additional two years would grant opportunites to the majority and they don't need a choice about it because that's often a life on universal credit or in a poorly paid job.

This is 2023, not the 1950s or whatever decade your hatred of all things to do with education is founded in. Get over it.

Comment by: Frank on 9th December 2023 at 22:15
Even if they had not chosen to do so I see no problem with an actual teacher instructing them to do PE shirtless even in those circumstances as a compulsory element of the class.



Neither do I. What are we saying here, that we should be worried they might have been a bit cold or that we should be making them ashamed of their bodies, a bit of both or something else?

I do agree that they were unlikely to be doing anything they hadn't consented to willingly in this case but I was made to run the school cross country shirtless many times during my school years and I found it quite an enjoyable way to run and when we did have days when we did so with our sweatshirts on again I felt rather constricted, we didn't run like that over winter but I'm sure we did sometimes in the first part of November coming off the half term. This goes back to the early to mid 70's time.

The school gym for me at comprehensive school from the age of 11 until I was 15 was next to nothing - one single quite basic pair of white shorts. Nothing else ever got put on. Chest, legs and feet were bare. No discussion about it. That was the rule, we knew it and we adhered to it. The fact that you might be personally shy or self conscious about your own body counted for nothing and was irrelevant, and when we came back from the gym and had to remove those shorts, complete nudity was expected without argument or hesitation and we went to shower with each other and no fuss about it would be expected or infact tolerated. You knew where you stood whether you liked it or not. The teacher reigned as the supreme leader whose decisions were almost always non-negotiable, certainly when it came to what we were allowed to wear.

What was good about this was that it made it completely impossible for anybody to avoid gym PE on account of not coming with the right kit which was sometimes the case outside when we had much more to bring along. If you didn't come to school on PE gym day with your shorts then you were in your pants getting out there on the gym floor, not sitting the lesson out, but there was a lost property box of shorts ready for that possibility so rarely happened. So I think my PE gym teachers loved the very minimalist basic shorts only kit for this reason as much as any other and at least it meant not lugging too much around all day like sports shoes and other stuff. At first I was bringing towels to school which slowly got smaller to hand towel size and ended up a lot of the time I never even used to bring a towel for the showers but would simply slip a small dry square flannel to dry off with which always seemed good enough, so those gym days ended up remarkably easy. I used to sweat profusely under even minor exertion as a teenager so I definitely needed those gym showers at school.

Comment by: Gareth on 10th December 2023 at 09:27


You and Frank are the ones harking back to times past. I was making the point that in 2023, 16/18 years are not boys, they are young men.

You then mention that in your boyhood you had to do what you were told. Who is doing the harking back here? - me or you?

If you want to take me to ask at least do it fo something I have done, not something you erroneously think I had done.

Alan on 9th December 2023 at 07:36

When I was growing up, boys didn't have rights, you did as you were told whether that be by parents, teachers, neighbours or any other adult and that was whether you liked it or not and if you didn't a punishment usually resulted.

Things are very different in 2023.

Do you need to keep harking back and ranting about times past? It all seems a bit childish to me.

Frank makes a point that seems to have got lost among all the angst and recrimination generated here. Some of us actually enjoyed being bare-chested for PE and games. I know I certainly did, and I don't remember anyone grumbling about it during the all-too-brief years that I experienced it. In my school days, over half a century ago, the top part of my school uniform comprised vest, shirt, pullover, blazer. The pullover was generally optional, although expected in the colder months, and vests, while not actually mandated by school, we're definitely mandated by Mums for most, sometimes all, of the year. That's a lot of clothing for a young boy, and being able to escape into PE kit was a relief, especially so when that PE kit was just a pair of cotton shorts and a bare torso.
Compare that with today. Even at this time of the year, kids will think nothing of spending the school day with just a polo shirt between themselves and the North Pole, and of going home afterwards similarly (un)clad, and no one bats an eyelid.

Frank. It is 2023. Not 1953. In a more ´normal´ society, you would have lads and girls of 16 choosing either to go to work or stay at school. If they were anxious , as I was to get a job, some of the them will really resent the extra two years they are compelled to be in school. - was going to say waste at school. Do you really want to antagonize them further by instructing them to do things they don´t want to, and for which there is no need, to satisfy the whims of a teacher?. They are adults for God´ sake.

Comment by: Brian on 8th December 2023 at 15:27

Whereas boys in school doing the cross country back in the 60s, 70s, 80s and possibly the 90s might have been told by their teacher to run shirtless like that there is no way I can see that kind of old school way still being applied to a class in this day and age so they must have agreed to be running like that and been enjoying it you would think. It's an intriguing observation all the same.



Even if they had not chosen to do so I see no problem with an actual teacher instructing them to do PE shirtless even in those circumstances as a compulsory element of the class.

If you went to some of the top further education establishments in the USA in the sixties you had to be photographed naked full frontal, profile and behind on entry as a new fresher and some of those pictures have ended up online today. I don't believe there was any choice in doing that.

Alan 9th December 07:36

Perhaps he could have been an orthopaedic medical student or something, I really wish I could remember. He did explain what he would be doing and why before he started, but most of it went right over my head at the time. I’m sure I remember the word, ’student’ being used.

Alan, none of us were made to feel as though we had to go along with it. I think had any of us not wanted to, I have the impression that he wouldn’t have minded. I remember him as being friendly, unlike our usual gym teacher, and he did seem to be respectful to us all. I don’t think kids mind going along with most things, as long as they have an understanding of what’s going to take place, and they feel comfortable with it. We all found it quite interesting in the end I think.

Monsieur Chipps 6th December 15:49

I shall always miss France, as stated previously. I spent so much time there for more than 20 years that it became a big part of my life, and my work in the end. I was lucky that I was be able to incorporate my job as a documentary photographer into my travels around the country, which gave me opportunities to explore much more and to get closer to a lot of its culture. My initial impression of France was how visual everywhere was. Everywhere seemed so visually interesting and deliberately aesthetically pleasing. I particularly liked the frequent rows of pollarded trees, not only creating colonnades of shaded protection from hot sun, but also wonderful shapes and shadows during the winter; all so great for photography. All the best photographers were French, Henri Cartier-Bresson anyone? Before him similar subject matter was being painted by Renoir, Degas, Seurat with their visually aware impressionism. I remember when in the south of Brittany visiting Musée de Pont Aven where there was a great exhibition from a group of Irish artists who settled there at the end of the 18th cent. I still have a print from there on my wall.

Your mentioning of French course books sent me off into the loft searching for my old school books, some of which I’ve kept for all those years. Amongst them I found my very first French lesson book, where I’d written very neatly at the top of the first page with my fountain pen, Mercredi, le dix-huit Septembre. I didn’t write the year, but it would have been 1969. Looking through it seems my very first lesson was learning, les jours de la semaine, which I’d neatly and correctly written out, for which I got a nice red tick. Interestingly, further along in my book I see we had to translate our Form time table into French. Unusually, this class had boys from a variety of forms, all made to do French because of our English grading, so most would have been different, so no cheating here. I notice that I had a French lesson every day of the week except one, Jeudi, which started its morning with, double Anglais. Relevant for this forum, I see that Monday morning our second lesson period was, Gymnastique, followed by more Français, and then later that same afternoon, Double Sport (obviously Games) So it seems I must have had two showers in one day at the age of 13, having already had a bath the Sunday night before, I must have been the cleanest boy in the world by Monday night.

I couldn’t find evidence of the course book we would have gone on to use. I’m disappointed I couldn’t find a French project book I’d made on French cars. We’d each chosen our own subject for this, so as I’d always interested in cars, that’s what I’d chosen. I remember sitting in class writing letters in French to lots of French car companies of the time, Citroen, Pergeot, Renault, Simca, and others. I gave my home address for replies, and so subsequently became bombarded for weeks with large, thick envelopes, full of brochures from the many different car companies I’d written to, all jam packed displaying their new models. I remember having to write back in class to thank them all, which must have been unusual for these places to receive, but good practice I suppose. I enjoyed writing about the cars in French, and giving my opinions of their new designs etc. I also cut the brochures up and stuck them in my book, with attached labels where I’d written, ‘pull here’, which would then open up into double page spreads. I must find this book which I know I have somewhere.

Several have been mentioning bare skin running, and Craig has his WhatApp group seemingly going strong. Also there’s been wild swimming mentioned, with Mr Chipps diving in too. Has anyone been listening to doctor Michael Mosley’s Radio 4 series called, Cold Therapy? I didn't catch them all but see the 4th episode was all about taking exercise within cold temperatures, and episode 5 was actually about cold water swimming. All episodes are still available as podcasts to download to listen to if interested here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0gt2krh/episodes/player

Mr Chips on 7th December 2023 at 17:01

I never thought I'd write again about M. Jazy.

When the outline of the story was read to us, I wasn't listening and was thinking of athletics training later that day so what I wrote was nothing like the story we were supposed to write. I was pretty good at French so when I got 18% for this rather than my usual 85%+ I had to explain why. Of course I just mumbled about not really having grasped the story so I was given a lunch time detention to repeat the exercise. The outline was read to me again and I wrote my essay.

On completion, I was told to return at the end of school by which time it would have been marked. When I returned, I was shown the two versions, the first scoring 18% and covered in red pen and the second with one red mark on it which scored 93%.

Again I was asked to explain and of course had nothing to say. The result was four strokes of the cane to help me stay away and paying attention in future. They were four absolute stingers and it worked!

What would you have done Mr Chips?

In answer to Greg2's question on 5th December, it is just possible your PE teacher's interest in measurements might have been a study in anthropology - this would tie in with Graham's suggestion of extra mural activities. That said, ALL studies should be conducted with volunteers not conscripts.