Burnley Grammar School

Danny C (3rd November) – I’m not saying I agree with it, but I can kind of see the argument for removing shoes, socks and shirts for Drama lessons. I am, however, completely puzzled about the three stage shows you had to perform shirtless. Were these plays where it was appropriate for the character you were playing to be shirtless, or some sort of song and dance performances, or what? And were all the boys taking part required to be bare-chested, or just those with certain roles or parts?

Steve, interesting to read that your school used bare feet as a kind of punishment. Was it really part of the punishment or was it that the boys had Detention but obviously didn't bring suitable footwear to run in?

Doing PE and XC barefoot fir me was never thought of as punishment or harsh it was normal and sometimes quite fun plus I never had the added baggage of carrying around muddy trainers after a xc run.

My claim to fame, if you can call it that, was that our PE teacher used to stand shamelessly nude in the shower with our naked class last lesson of the day on Friday, and I once felt his bare foot kick me right up my bare arse crack for using a swear word. That swear word I think was 'bloody'. He was fond of kicking lads backsides, on the playing field and the changing room, like a karate move. Such was school in 1975.

Good morning from here in the United States, my perspective compared to Brits. I was a mid 80's school kid who never forgets things easy and put this on my personal blog just recent in 2022.

Has anyone over there read or heard about Harris's plan to allow trans people and those of a different biological sex into school campus open plan changing and group communal shower areas here if they re-identify themselves and their change pronouns?

This is effectively mixed gendering our private areas for young males and females. On some school campuses now they actually allow you to decide your gender from day to day and accept this as real and there have been cases where those with predatory behaviour or even just jokers have been enabled because the system in some parts will not make waves for fear of litigation and so big majorities of people have to suffer the consquences and be made uncomfortable just to make one person more comfortable.


To my piece about me;

We were forced to get naked in junior high. Mandatory showering after P.E was bullshit.

One thing about my awkward junior high years I’ll never understand was being forced to shower after class in P.E. At the height of our 6th and 7th-grade insecurity, someone on the school board thought, “Hey, how can we make these kids’ awkwardness any worse? Oh yeah, let’s force them to get naked and shower in front of each other.”

We had big communal shower rooms in junior high, they could take in 60 naked guys a go and sometimes did. What a sight and sound! We had to shower before and after the swim class too.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no prude. But what in the actual f**k was the reasoning behind forcing 12 and 13-year-old kids to shower in a communal shower, like prisoners in some gangster movie? Body image, what was that? We were such young kids and it could be scary. A guy in my grade was known for coming up and feeling boys balls for hair in the shower and shaming them for things beyond their control.

Most guys had our boundaries but some did not. Even some of our gym coaches were know to objectify what we looked like and pass judgement. The communal shower was a noisy place, a hotbed of stange tensions from large numbers of reluctantly naked boys put in there by our school P.E coaches.

I can hear the sound of the place, the hollering, the water, the feel and color of the tiles, the wet floor underfoot and the sight of those I was forced to share the naked time with, the sight of many of the peckers we pretended not to notice but were forced to confront and check out time after time.

Mom once said don't show you're too scared to shower Jason, it'll make you a target of the others. Except most of them were also too scared to shower and trying not to show it too! Like little lambs to the slaughter we all got sent in accepting our fate like good young kids.

I didn’t stutter. We did not enjoy the single, modern day gym showers with a curtain you can pull for privacy. We’re talking about a single large shower area with likely 40-60 or so shower heads and as many boys. No privacy whatsoever. It was big. It was wet. It was hot. It was steamy, unless the ice cold shower trick came along or the hot water was off. We still had to shower, just quicker and keep the noise down from the shock of the cold. Once in a while came a cold shower on purpose, the dreaded whole class punishing scam. A quick cold shower that made us screach was deemed the quickest and most effective option. It happened 5 times and I remember each and every one of them perfectly, "Harmless" said the P.E coach as we took 2 minutes to cool down, or freeze, noticing how that situation had affected our peckers when out.

Nobody there but you, God, and 60 naked kids who I am somewhat sure wanted no part of this, as I didn’t. Hopefully not some pervert sicko P.E. teacher spying around the corner. Thank f*ck we didn’t have cell phones back in 1986. Ugh. I imagine trying to see this now for real as it was then and it would seem startling to view. One or sometimes more, gym teachers, with so much power over the privacy choices of so many young kids in one go, where else can you go and force 60 people to get naked immediately and not take no for an answer. School, that safe and secure place of course.

I remember the first day of 6th grade as if it was yesterday. Sitting through the first class, our last names inked onto our government issue junior high uniforms. "Provencio" barely fitted into the box. Still, I was excited. I loved P.E. Until this year, anyway.

Mr. Greeno was one of our stocky, middle aged P.E. teachers and after school coaches. Picture Richard Dawson from Family Feud if you know it, but in somewhat better shape. Thank Buddha he didn’t try to kiss any of us like his Family Feud doppelganger. But I did have to show him my white aching bare ass up close once after a racquetball hit and felt his hand brush the right cheek, as if that changed anything. Ray in class had hit me in anger. The bruise was yet to show anyway, till next shower time when it was there on view for comment.

It didn’t even have to do with the prison style showering. I was playing some sort of racquetball against Ray Williams. He didn’t like that I beat him on a point or didn’t agree with my call on a point. He whacked me on the butt with the wooden paddles we used.

That shit stung. I either went after him or Greeno saw us. Regardless, we ended up in his office.

“All right, men. What is this shit? Tell me why we’re here.” I answered quickly. “Yeah, Ray HIT me with the paddle.” Ray, eyes brimming with big ol’ crocodile tears, “Go ahead. BELIEVE HIM, Mr. Greeno!” Little manipulator. God, what a little asshole. I wasn’t putting up with this shit. I dropped my gym shorts for Greeno to see my lower butt cheek. I didn’t want this to get weird like. I was invited to pick up the racquet and do the same back but declined, although he deserved it and I wanted his ass to sting like mine too.

Yeah, and that was that. I felt vindication. Ray was shipped off to a Russian penal colony, the punishment room to work extra hours. Win-win. He might have preferred a quick cold shower instead.

Next time Ray was made to run a few extra laps and had to sweep the gym in the buff while we laughed. Greeno was fair if he was anything and it was kind of amusing and fun for us to watch. At least I never saw him creeping on us while we were showering but we had permission to creep out and enjoy Ray's gym sweep task, as my ass still ached three days later along that bench.

I used to worry SO MUCH about the whole showering thing. Mr. Greeno told us on Day 1 in no uncertain terms that we’d all be required to shower after each class. Non-negotiable, no refusals and no get out notes accepted from anyone. A sikh with a turban had his religious sensitivies brushed aside and had to shower with us and we got used to seeing him completely naked apart from his blue turban wrapped over his head and trying hard not to get the thing wet. This was tricky, the shower heads were above head height, the rest of us had to wet our hair. Eventually the sikh, Hanspal, gave up and after a few months actually removed the turban to shower and revealed amazingly long back shiny hair to his waist. He still tried hard not to get it too wet, it would have taken all day to dry I think. Hanspal had the tiniest smooth pecker I ever saw on anyone I saw naked in school P.E class, but he made up for it with the biggest hair.

What the f*ck I thought on first showers at 12. It was uncharted territory for most of us 6th graders. Public nudity? Most of us didn’t yet even have hair on our balls. What would my dad say about this I thought?

He laughed when I told him. Big time laughed. He didn’t take my request to transfer schools seriously at all when I had a bit of a new boy panic. He didn’t have my back on this in any way. That’s why he’s going into a 1-star old folks home, once we reach that stage. Non-negotiable. Moving schools wouldn't have been the answer anyway, they were all doing the same public nudity across state, giving everyone else the same naked peckers-on-parade in schools everywhere you looked.

I thought this had to be illegal. Kids my age like me being forced against their will naked together with a gym teacher somewhere in the general area gazing on over us all? Sadly, it was the mid-80s. Evidently, there were no laws regarding this immoral bullshit, as I saw it then and see it now.

It's still a thing if you're unlucky to go to the wrong places. But then it was a thing everywhere all the time then. We should have had a choice. If we wanted to just use a bunch of deodorant or even choose to stink in class, who cares? Some of us were NOT comfortable with this arrangement.

I observed a kid named Tyson becoming the first casualty of the new year in P.E. After having to shower one of the first few days, we all hauled ass back to our lockers to at least throw our drawers on. A bigger kid named Ashby walked into the locker room from the showers. Tyson was likely tired. He seemed to be staring off into space until Ashby walked right into his space. Tyson sadly didn’t immediately look away. Ashby noticed this overlong look at his groin and had to publicly shame him for it.

“HEY! What you lookin’ at? What you wish you had?”

This was met with a loud round of laughter and snickering. Shit, we were all just glad we weren’t the ones getting called out by Naked Ashby. Tyson became the victim, for at least that P.E. class. I felt for him but was relieved it wasn’t me that was targeted. I was so paranoid after Tyson was targeted by Ashby. Christ, what if we god forbid got a hard-on in the middle of showering, or even a half chub? When you’re a newly minted teenage boy, just about anything can set you off and I was easy to. There were definitely half masts going on but you got away with those.

I was pretty certain I wasn’t gay. Daisy Duke in the early to mid-80s on the Dukes of Hazzard had me fairly convinced. Still, I was a bit paranoid about the worst that could happen. I’d have to catch a train and become a hobo if that shit happened and it probably did somewhere, the law of averages and all that with all that weekly mass school nudity taking place through the showers.

Fortunately, it never did to me. The showering thing became less and less of a big deal the more we were forced to do it. It still always felt awkward and horrible, but we all dealt with it in our own ways. But I never accepted it or consented to any of it. I am no prude, just my private personal choice that I was not allowed to make at the time.

I remember wondering if the girls felt as bad about it as most of us boys did. I can’t imagine they felt any less insecure than we did as early teenagers. I still don’t get the logic behind forcing kids to shower together in a group setting at ages when we were unbelievably sensitive about how we looked even with all our clothing on, let alone on view to everyone we knew in our raw bare assed pecker swinging naked form.

Well the world kept spinning, I’m still alive and survived it, and our teachers didn’t have to smell B.O. during math and science classes after P.E. Win-win, huh? At least I was able to repay Ray back with a well-timed snap of my wet towel after his teacher punishment and humiliation. Enjoy that welt on your own ass Ray, wherever you now are.

Come to think about it, towel whipping by naked boys was one of the more fun "unofficial" sports we got up to. What was it about being naked and having a towel that made us want to flick it at everyone else's asses! Some of those towels were lethal weapons in disguise.

Comment by: Oliver on 5th November 2024 at 02:00


No Oliver, it makes you quite a normal modest bloke. Be prepared though you will probably get some backlash from some of the more "traditional" posters here. I, too, never ran around half naked at home, and when I was playing music I always went dressed for the occasion.

I always deeply resented having to remove my clothes at school all the time in all PE lessons, simply because one was aware that our sports master was a bit. "odd"......... if you take my meaning. I was slightly luckier in that mine was an all boys school. Reading some of the earlier messages on here from pupils from mixed schools, including some women, some girls enjoyed the sight and discomfiture of half naked boys as much as the teacher.

I never understood the necessity of it, except for swimming.

We don't all want to display ourselves starked b@llock naked either as boys or men.

May I ask what type of school you went to, and in what part of the country?.

I can't even be shirtless in front of my parents around the home, and I'm 24, does that make me weird? The last time mum or dad saw me shirtless was maybe when I was ten. I go out of my way to avoid it. I only did a very small amount of skins and shirts at school and never showered. Taking my shirt off is something that comes very hard for me in front of others. I would have freaked out big time if I'd gone to some of the schools you others here went to where you did shirtless PE all the time and they forced you to shower naked, and I can't believe some people had to go and do drama shirtless too, that's awful, it really is. That would have scared the living daylights out of me being shirtless so much and up beside girls who could see me. I'm pleased I wasn't born a few years earlier than I was.

I can remember being in my last year at junior school thinking how "grown up" the boys were at senior school, and how it would be great to be like that !

We lived close to the secondary school, so saw boys out doing cross country or running immediately after school.

Boys always ran shirtless, and some groups barefoot (always the ones I saw after school - I later discovered this was a punishment, when they wore only shorts as part of the detention).

Even when I was wearing multiple layers of clothing due to it being freezing cold, I still wanted to grown up like them ! Later when it was me doing the run in freezing weather, I changed my mind.

Steve - just like Stewart and Ross I did all p.e. at secondary school including cross country wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. At my primary school we were prepared for this rather spartan kit by doing p.e. shirtless and barefoot in the last year - boys and girls were separated just for that year but there was no cross country. I think we kept our pants on under our shorts - we couldn't do that once we got to secondary school and going off the school premises dressed in just a pair of shorts for cross country was a new and exhilarating experience.
I felt very grown up in that last year of primary school - doing p.e. like the "big boys" and couldn't wait for secondary school p.e. though there were boys from other primary schools who hadn't been prepared as I had and it took some of them a little while to get used to it.

The comments by Garry on 24th October really caught my eye.

Myself and the boys in class had to do barechested drama lessons at my school about half the time I took them. Most of my earlier comments on this site are late 2020 early 2021 so can be read there, including the drama done barechested and doing 3 school stage shows shirtless out of about 10 I did. I'm certainly interested to know of others who not only did PE lessons barechested but had to do drama that way too in their school like I did. Taylor asked the girls question, and of course drama lessons were always the normal class mixed gender and I can assure you that a self conscious shirtless boy in these lessons was not the greatest experience. One or two knew how to push buttons on boys who were insecure. When I stopped having to do drama I was relieved. This drama experience took place from 1981 until 1984, but I did barechested PE as well until 1987, and as I said four years ago on here, so many weeks during my first three years at secondary school I could end up spending at least an hour barechested on 4 days per week, only a Tuesday involved no PE or drama lesson. The drama lesson lasted me 2 hours all afternoon, so twice as long as a normal PE one. A lot of drama when I did it barechested was like a PE-lite kind of lesson with music and movement based activities, but sometimes I just wondered why our drama teacher had us remove our school shirts and ties because we were just doing a lot of sitting around. We had to remove our shoes and socks while doing drama most times too.

At the end of this week I have an invite to a "Class of 84" school reunion where both a PE teacher of mine and my main drama teacher of the time are supposed to be attending. I'm considering whether to go.

Very much like Stewart at my school PE and Games which included cross country was always done in bare feet without a shirt and just shorts.
We all knew about the shirtless requirement but I'd say mist of us were a little surprised when we were told to remove our shoes and socks and that the expectation was we went out barefoot.

Stewart

When boys started at your school did they expect to have to run xc bare foot/shirtless, or was the first lesson a shock ? Was it strictly enforced by all PE teachers ?

(While shirtless xc was common, I think bare foot was rare)

Steve…at my school in the 1960s, we weren’t allowed trainers or socks for cross country (well, it was actually plimsolls in those days).
Strictly bare chests and feet.
I’m sure health and safety wouldn’t allow it nowadays, but it didn’t do us any harm.

Garry, were there any girls in your PE and drama lessons? If so, what did they wear and how did they behave around the shirtless boys?

Comment by: Garry on 24th October 2024 at 15:23


I have heard this nonsense about shirtless frama classes before, somebody I know endured them, but you have to ask, what the **** for?. If you are playing a police officer, or a City businessman or a vicar, why would you do so without a shirt?. Strange lot, those actor ,laddies.....

Frankly "drama" should be an extra-mural activity, and seems useless as a "subject", especially now that we are forcing girls and lads to stay at school till they are 18, when they are adults. There are more out of work actors, simply because supply outstrips demand, and not every would-be Richard Burton will get a two minute appearance on Emmerdale.

If we must have people clogging up schools till 18, at least teach them something practical, and leave the arty-farty stuff for outside school.

We are breeding a generation of adult children. Let's hope we have enough "safe spaces" for them to emote in.

I will say in defence of my school that "drama" was not a subject.

Martin your school appears to take a very mature and traditional approach to this subject and so do those who attend.

I myself attended such a school many moons ago and although reticent at first I found being shirtless among a large group of others somewhat liberating, in P.E especially. I did nearly all indoor P.E lessons and every drama lesson shirtless whilst in school. I don't remember much choice about it being involved in either of those two subjects, it was simply the done thing at school, with these subjects boys were expected to be shirtless without fear or phobia, much the same with schooldays shower nudity together. We even used to be told to go and shower sometimes after drama when we'd done an intense lesson and perspired a lot, both subject blocks were adjacent to each other and shared the facilities. I'm fifty six now so this goes back a little while to the days of my old comprehensive school.

A private school near me certainly makes boys run cross country shirtless, as you see them out running.

It seems this applies in most conditions, maybe not in the winter, but certainly not just summer time : also every boys has to do this, as the whole group just have shorts, trainers on (some with socks).

Martin, thank you for commenting. Excuse my asking, but do you know if your private day school was once, decades back, a state grammar? I have heard of other examples of grammar schools converting to the private sector, to avoid becoming comprehensives.

Would you mind saying, very roughly, what part of the country your school is in? I gather standard practices varied in different regions, particularly in the past.

Thank you.

The lads in years 7 to 10 at my school are required to ALL go shirtless for PE once per week and everyone seems fine with a bare chest and no problems have been created by this. They must all shower properly together as required also, again absolutely no problems arise I'm pleased to say. The school is a private day school, not state. I've been there thirty five years on and off and it's always been the same.

Our kit was slightly different. Indoors in the gym, it was shorts only. In the sports hall it was shorts and trainers, half of us were in a house with white shorts, the other in blue so that sorted out teams for basketball etc without bins or sashes. Outdoors it was rugby shirt, shorts, boots. In the summer shorts, trainers. No issues from anyone. With CrossFit and other similar gyms, shirtless exercise seems to be making a comeback.

Stewart - I was at an all boys Grammar school at around the same time and our p.e. kit was exactly the same. It certainly made you want to keep moving when outside in the winter but it did no-one any harm.

Just looking at the latest comments about PE kit on here, I have posted this before, but it’s a long time ago, so let me reiterate that at my school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, our PE kit was a pair of shorts. Full stop. No shirt or shoes, indoors and outdoors, whatever the weather.

Greg 2 mentions unofficial punishments at his school - things like being slapped across the face, hit with a rubber tube.

While we were caned and given things like additional punishment runs (it was a boarding school), I can only recall unofficial punishments in the gym. There were obvious things like press ups, but the one I hated most was being made to hang from the wall bars (back to wall, hold on my hands above your head, feet free) - it was probably only for a minute or two, but it seemed ages, and hurt like hell.

Did anyone else have to do this ?

Stuart on 1st October 2024 at 16:36/liam on 30th September 2024 at 09:27

I was never hit with a cane all through my time school, though I think I did receive my fair share of the traditional corporal punishment of those times. I did receive the 'slipper' once, together with a few other boys all lined up after being told to touch our toes. It was a large size plimsoll that was used, wielded by our gym teacher, and he waited until we’d all changed, obviously for it to have maximum effect; I do remember once being hit across the hand with a bunsen burner tube, by a sadistic male teacher; another time a volatile female teacher hitting my hand with six rulers lined up together so that all their edges made contact with your palm. One other time I remember being slapped across the face for biting an apple at the back of an English classroom, before slipping it back into my blazer pocket, but it had been noticed by our disgruntled English teacher. I agree it wasn't a sensible thing to try, but I think I just caught him, or he caught me, while in a particularly bad mood that day. This was all in the 1970s, when it seems slightly mad people were permitted to ’teach’ kids.

I don’t think I knew anything about circumcision, and never witnessed it. What is odd is that a Jewish boy joined my school and year one time. Though he wasn’t in my form, several boys’ forms did get together once a week for games. Strangely, I don’t remember anything unusual about him either. I only recall this because I do remember him being discussed by others who were in the know about such things, one of whom I wasn’t, obviously.

Comment by: Stuart on 1st October 2024 at 16:36


When you read things like this, it makes you realise how perverted and unsuitable for the teaching profession these "men" were. These days they would be in court and then quite probably in prison.

Having had a school history involving compulsory shirtless PE, shirtless cross country etc (plus sleeping in dorms), I can only ever remember one topic being discussed when undressed/naked and that was the latest set of cane welts boys had, how many stokes it involved and given by which teacher !

In Response to Chris G. I presume the reference to Cavaliers and Roundheads was a pseudonym for circumcised and uncircumcised. as afr as I recall this was never discussed when in the changing room at school or at scout camp when we got undressed for bed.
In fact naïve as it seems I was not aware that I had been circumcised, until a school medical when I must have been about 15/16 when after stripping to the waist the doctor abruptly said "drop your trousers and pants" what was worse there was a female nurse standing right in front of me. Then the doctor asked me when and why I had been circumcised. My reply to those two questions were I do not know.
I was too embarrassed to ask my father when I got home and to this day I do not know the answer to those questions.
I must admit next time as a class we were changing for pe I did take a peek and I noticed that most boys had more skin where I do not.

Mickey, I do have a memory on a not dissimilar subject.

I remember the pang of self-consciousness one day as a ten-year-old, changing for PE in the classroom with the other children. I had taken off my shirt and vest when a girl - out of innocent curiosity - pointed at the operation scar on my belly and said, "What's that?"

I could make no reply.

At infant school, around my sixth birthday, I had glanced at another boy in PE, and realised it was not a universal part of human anatomy.

I don't remember belly-buttons ever being a topic of conversation, despite seeing numerous examples in topless PE, swimming pool, changing room, school dormitory situations. My contemporaries seemed more concerned with the differences between Cavaliers and Roundheads

In response to Mickey’s question belly buttons were not something we ever took notice of either whilst doing shirtless PE or during swimming lessons. I cannot recall anyone ever commenting on someone’s belly button.

It's only tangentially related to some conversations here, but would anyone object to me returning to the topic of belly buttons?

Specifically, if you did topless sport at school would another lad having an outie be something you might notice? Or even comment on?