Burnley Grammar School

Is that post that was left here on Sunday lunchtime meant to be some kind of gigantic P take out of the comments Craig leaves on here about his bareskin running whatsapp group, because it somehow reads and feels like it to me.

A student teacher or someone on work experience joined our class in a state junior school when I was nine (that young, I cannot remember which she was). She worked alongside our older, experienced teacher. It was summer 1994.

One moment sticks in the memory. Our older teacher was out of earshot. Our class was outside in a games lesson (possibly sports day), all of us in white T-shirts and shorts, and I was sitting cross-legged on the grass with other children waiting our turn. The young woman student was with us. Two boys in our class jogged past right in front of us. One of them was somewhat shorter than average (his feet are off the floor in a school photograph), the other boy was the tallest in the class and unfortunately rather overweight.

The student shouted: "Look! Little and Large!"

They must have heard but gave no visible reaction (goodness knows what they were thinking). I was scandalised, but powerless to do or say anything. (She referred, just in case anybody doesn't know, to two television comedians of the time).

I don't give my full name or name the school partly to avoid identifying the two boys; it was the same school I mentioned in my comment on 9th October. It was a lovely school and I was happy there; the unexpected crassness just noted was all the more surprising.

(By the way, I also stopped wearing a white cotton vest under my uniform - and under clothing in general - aged eleven, at my mother's suggestion, to change for PE more rapidly).

Steve, 3rd December
"Mum. No one wears a vest". Isn't that the battle-cry of all early teens? Within half a term of topless PE being introduced at my school, the hitherto ubiquitous vest had almost universally disappeared from the changing room.

Greg2 - 'I do remember a student Gym teacher being at my school with us for one term. My main memory of him was his interest in measuring the bodies of each boy while filling in long lists all written down in his book. He was interested in distances between joints, various limb lengths, even our hands and finger lengths, together with our weight and height and precise age. I remember we each stood on the long bench seat in our changing room as he measured each of us.'



The detail you mention there seems very strange to me Greg and not the job of any PE teacher, trainee or experienced to do any of that. But could you provide any further details about that, do you know any more about why that was happening? That sounds much more like some kind of agreed set study rather than something that would take place during regular PE lessons in a school gym just because of the peculiarities of any teacher. How was it conducted and how were you dressed for it, and what exactly was he measuring, and for whose benefit exactly? Finger lengths, that's an odd one. Can you remember the year that happened Greg?

Comment by: Mr Chips on 3rd December 2023 at 12:25
Just to report I went wild swimming yesterday.



Last week you told us that some of your eldest former pupils are now in their late 70s. What age are you then out of interest? Telling us you now go wild swimming is extraordinary.

Despite my own difficulties to deal with at school, my adjustments to the new routines seemed otherwise trouble free, compared to what others have said. I don’t ever remember bare chest running outside, though we certainly did cross country, with several different circuits which were chosen at random. I don’t ever remember shirtless gym either, though I don’t think this would have bothered me at the time, possibly due to witnessing from a young age my eldest brother (9 years older than me) being frequently shirtless around the house as he posed in front of a mirror, striking up what seemed to me at the time, amusing poses, specifically designed to display particular muscle groups, as he observed how each were developing. He had taken up body building around the age of 21.

I do remember a student Gym teacher being at my school with us for one term. My main memory of him was his interest in measuring the bodies of each boy while filling in long lists all written down in his book. He was interested in distances between joints, various limb lengths, even our hands and finger lengths, together with our weight and height and precise age. I remember we each stood on the long bench seat in our changing room as he measured each of us.

Au vieil homme,
I could never entertain wild swimming, but do think I can understand the benefits. I decided I hated swimming at the age of 9, and this psychological blockage emerged entirely due to one experience after happily going to the local pool with a few similar aged friends one hot summer’s day. We were with one older boy of about 14, who was entrusted to look after us all. But, for some reason, soon as we’d all entered the pool, he kept coming up behind me and pushing me under by my shoulders. I seemed to swallow a gallon of awful tasting water and remember trying to avoid him after that. I eventually got fed up with it and left the pool, to just sit on the corner steps which lead down into it. I can remember people’s legs brushing past me while I sat there waiting for them to finish, before we all went home.

Because of this, I didn’t bother trying to swim properly until I was a teenager in the sea. I seemed to just do it, which might seem odd, as I was certainly never scared of water. I’d just had the enthusiasm and enjoyment of it taken away from me when so young.

By the way, I used to spend a lot of time in France, and frequently worked from there. Only last year I sold the cottage in Parthenay which I’d restored. It was called, La Vieille Boulangerie, because that is what it once was, in its hamlet of Migaudon. Its beautiful bread oven, with its fascinating domed roof, was still there, just off the kitchen.

Just to report I went wild swimming yesterday. Just south of where we live, L' Aber Vrac'h becomes much wider before finally entering the Atlantic. It's tidal but not strong. There's a rowing club that allows use of their facilities for changing and warming up afterwards which is great.

In France, Speedo style trunks are the norm for swimming and many pools have them as a requirement for reasons lost in the mist of time so that was the most any man was wearing including me but several were naked.

I had two, twenty minute swims and felt amazing afterwards. It was a nice clear day with a blue sky so perfect for outdoor activity. It's just on a four kilometer bike ride from home so perfect warm up too. There were about fourteen of us out, I was by far the oldest and the younger guys very kindly kept checking on 'le vieil homme' both in and out of the water.

I don't know what the water temperature was but it didn't feel as cold as Arctic Norway did during the summer.

So come on lads, get on out there!

If you listen to Radio 4 you will hear a lot about wild swimming and other back to nature fads, but it is worth pointing out that it does have health hazards as the Wild Swimming Association is honest enough to mention on their website:

https://www.wildswimming.co.uk/health-safety/

I hope nobody here is thinking of it this weekend, even in London it is extremely cold the coldest early December for many years.

Just a quick note to say that I am not 'Timothy' - well I am but not in this context!

Interesting comment from Steve about 'peer pressure'.

I saw a group of boys at my local school (outer London), all running shirtless on cross country (I assume), but this was mid September and reasonably warm.

Out of 60 boys, aged 14/15, all of them were stripped to the waist, so I guess it was "normal" kit. Just one or two had no socks on, all had branded trainers, navy school logo shorts, so not quite like our cross country runs in the past !! (only a pair white cotton shorts and basic plimsols).

Boys of this age follow "peer group pressure", so as soon as one lad takes his shirt off, there is pressure on the rest. Typical of this at my school was how in the very first PE lesson at 11, we nearly all had vests on (under our normal shirts), by a few weeks later no self respecting 11 year old wore a vest. ("Mum, NO one wears a vest")

Good luck to the lads running in bare chests at that school if that's what they were doing I say. I've been reading up on some of this new fangled stripped down back to nature way of doing exercise that is gaining a following, everything from the wild swimming in lakes and rivers to the bareskin running that Craig has got into and also the new running thing called grounding, so if you don't fancy taking your shirts off to run some are now running with nothing on the feet. Videos galore on YT about all that too. Some might go for the who lot. It's all being used not for muscle and cardiovascular health like we always associate with PE and exercise but with a very strong play on the mental well being side of things nowadays for those who seek to do all this. Who knew that just taking a few bits off could be so beneficial. Those teachers who did this years ago with us were ahead of the game clearly.

Mark J on 1st December 2023 at 14:06

Yes they were definitely from the school, some of them looked to have the logo on the tops, those who were wearing them. There was what appeared to be one young adult, under 40, with them in a jacket and shorts. They were just outside the school itself going along the adjacent road Canesworde Road close by and then into a lane known as Buttercup Lane which is very close to the school but goes into a quiet area away from homes. I'm not sure how you can easily judge an enthusiastic runner but they were going along quite well.

Thanks, Jim and Mark J. I am genuinely not Mr. Dando and I wasn't here in 2009. Thank you for saying so.

That 2008 post isn't the same Alan we know on here today.

If you remember anything you'll know he definitely hasn't been to a northern grammar school, but some kind of run down 'dump' as he describes it in the state system somewhere in the London area.

Over a 15 year period you are going to get some people turn up with the same names. You should know that Andy, isn't that the whole reason you now recently prefixed yours with the Original tag because another Andy came along in the meantime probably without noticing you were here already.

If the name was Aloysius, Ace or Antares then I might have thought so.

Comment by: Toby on 2nd December 2023 at 14:03
Personally it wouldn't surprise me if all four were the same person.


All four, who - Alan, Andy, Dando and which other name gave you rise for that comment Toby?

I think what you and also Derek said last night has some merit but I think if Alan and Andy were the same that would be a very schizophrenic personality indeed. I don't think they are by the way, and I don't think that Alan is Mr Dando either because I can't see the motive for him to be. It seems to me that Alan is more than happy, if that's the right word, to place his own strong opinions out there in his own name and stand by them and take the hits he gets for it.

Personally it wouldn't surprise me if all four were the same person.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts..."

Shakespeare

Craig on 1st December 2023 at 21:48

I'm really tempted to give bareskin a try. I think I'd better start back on a treadmill though because I haven't done any serious running for a few years and I don't think bareskin and outside is the place to begin particularly at the moment. If it was a summer evening, I might try but it isn't. That said, I saw a couple of guys out this morning in shorts and trainers so it is happening. I'll talk to my PT at the next session and see what he thinks at least about starting to run again. Thanks again for raising the topic.


Alan on 1st December 2023 at 19:43
"I am not Mr Dando, and I have not been here since 2009."

Dear oh dear. Alan Dando has been caught out again. His first post was in 2008.

Alan on 20th December 2008 at 10:53

He just can't help himself.

Bill, that's unusual nowadays isn't it. Do you think it was definitely a PE lesson you saw there, although if it was in school on a weekday it sounds very much like it. I fully approve as long as any boys actually wish to go out like that to run, then why not.

I'm not going out bareskin running at all this weekend myself and we have nothing arranged for the next few days on the whatsapp group until things get a touch less cold, even by daytime. I've done two cold runs this week and that's enough for me in two very small groups. I do think you should go for it and give bareskin running a go Andy and add it to your fitness regime, you will definitely be surprised how much you enjoy it if you think it's your kind of thing and it's much more enjoyable done in company rather than alone which even I would feel a bit self conscious about at some of the times and conditions we do it in. Safety in numbers.

You can be anyone you like on the internet and I think this site might just be proving it in some instances.

Jason.

What weight division are we talking here do you think - lightweight or featherweight? In the red corner Alan Dando, in the blue corner Andy Chips.

Comment by: Jason on 1st December 2023 at 18:29

As far as I am concerned Jason, the matter is now closed. Whatever I have done to try to convince the other party I am not Mr Dando, and I have not been here since 2009, it hasn't worked. The poor bloke will have to find somebody else to target in his mum's basement.


Vince (earlier today) I have never walked out of a commercial job, but I did once do it in a semi-pro band I was in, as the leader tended to get into Alan Sugar mode, and he picked the wrong day with me, and I told him to go **** himself. He told me I would "never work in Ruislip again". I never did, but I can't say it worried me overmuch. A damned long journey on the Central Line. Who needs Ruislip when you have Maida Vale!. I made up my mind, after school that I would never allow anyone to talk to me like dirt again, and I have always stuck to that. I am glad it all worked out well for you

You two just don't give up do you.

I wish we could get Andy and Alan dragged to a school gym, stick a pair of boxing gloves on them and leave them to it.

You've gotta be shirtless though Alan, is that okay?

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



Where were they running and were there teachers with them then, and did they look enthusiastic? Perhaps this bareskin lark that Craig says is getting popular among a certain set is now finding its way into some schools all over again. That won't please some of the bodyphobes on here will it. I just can't imagine anyone was pressured into doing that against their will though. It's not 1970 after all.

Comment by: Original Andy on 1st December 2023 at 08:14





"I really do think you should stop attempting to draw others into your stance and posts. This is a typical example:
Repeat of my message 30/11/23 1249


"...I take those who post here at face value with the exception of you because it is clear over time that you post under multiple handles and a sign of that is your enthusiasm to accuse others of it. It was something it had never crossed my mind to do and other than to control an agenda, I can't think of a single reason to do it but any poster here only has to look through the 190 pages of entries to see you continually attempting to control the agenda and in many cases succeeding because people who have a different point of view get fed up with your abusive comments and just go elsewhere."
--------------------------
If I were you "Original Andy" I wouldn't talk about "abusive comments" since you make quite a few of your own. Pots and kettles, dear boy, pots and kettles

I really can't be bothered with you any longer - just let's say there is a remarkable similarity in posts, not just in content , but tone, coming from yourself, Hugh and the new late entrant James. The sniping waspish comments to myself and a few others who you do not agree with, and the frankly, ingratiating, Uriah Heep on an especially humble day , tone to others (you even called somebody "sir" the other day!). I am done with you, clearly a troll. I m sure others might have noticed it.

As I have said before anyone is welcome to contact me - I do understand you are too frightened to do so, because you have some paranoid belief I could harm your online integrity. I couldn't be bothered, even if I were clever enough to do so (and I'm not).

BTW "handles"seems a remarkably non legal word - for a barrister!

On Alan's last point, I have actually walked out of a job because of the way someone has spoken to me. You should have seen the look on the chaps face as I got up from my desk, collected my bag and personal belongings told them I was off and left with my head held high. This was also a foreman who came up to our works office and thought he could simply talk to me like a piece of rubbish, I'd seen him do it to someone else at the time who put up with it. The managing director was at a desk opposite me and as I went he added his own two pence worth and told me that the world didn't owe me a living and I responded that he wasn't giving me one, the salary was so poor. Stunned silence in the place and out I went and was gone, never to return. During the exchange I'd had my surname thrown at me in anger plus a couple of expletives over something to do with a phone call I was alleged to have taken that I had not done.

That was at 11am in the morning. By 5pm I'd already secured another interview, got the job and was back in a much better place earning more money being spoken to rather better. That's the way to do it, although I could afford to act like that at the time, obviously not everybody feels they can do so.

When it comes to using your surname, I'd find that trickier if they were not being outright hostile. It can also depend in what context they are doing it.

Mr Chippy on 30th November 2023 at 17:19

Excellent comment, I'm always so grateful that there are those around who have a different skill base to me and who are prepared to do things I can't - just earlier this week I needed a plumber when our hot water was cold - not the weather for that at the moment. Fortunately it was sorted out quickly but that's why we need to recongise difference at all levels and value the skills of others, not deride them.

Barney on 30th November 2023 at 12:29

You sum up the situation very well and yes, I saw the completely inappropropiate response to your post.

Alan on 30th November 2023 at 12:49

I really do think you should stop attempting to draw others into your stance and posts. This is a typical example:

"Yes I am sure we all get your impassive disdain (and not just to me, either)."

Aimed at me of course. No one else has made a similar comment about you but you would like to claim it's happening.

I take those who post here at face value with the exception of you because it is clear over time that you post under multiple handles and a sign of that is your enthusiasm to accuse others of it. It was something it had never crossed my mind to do and other than to control an agenda, I can't think of a single reason to do it but any poster here only has to look through the 190 pages of entries to see you continually attempting to control the agenda and in many cases succeeding because people who have a different point of view get fed up with your abusive comments and just go elsewhere.

It was quite noticeable that last week when you absented yourself that the discussion continued, was healthy but was not about things you would have approved of. Now you're back, stamping your foot and making accusations about anyone that doesn't agree with you and we were even 'treated' to another Dando post, something that has been absent for a long time and aimed at Mr Chips who you have already expressed your dislike for. A coincidence? I think not, I don't believe in coincidences of that scale. Your introductory comment to Barney a few weeks back was utterly disgusting. But then that's you all over.

You even choose to accuse me of not using my real name, why wouldn't I? Just another one of your continuous put downs.

Hugh on 30th November 2023 at 16:19

Well said but you'll probably be accused of being me again very soon or the other way round! (Oh, I've just read a bit more and I see it has already happened!)

Will on 30th November 2023 at 17:35

Hear, hear but I also believe in calling out bullying in cyberspace. Just look back through the 190 pages of this site and you will see an example on almost every page. It has to stop.

Comment by: James on 30th November 2023 at 22:17


Keep up James. I am not Mr Dando. I have given my email address previously and I have already said I do not agree with Mr Dando.

What part of that do you find so hard to understand?

Comment by: David on 30th November 2023 at 23:39


Very often, David, in answer to your question. I sometimes have the perhaps uncharitable feeling that certain posters are using more than one ID on here, and there have been occasions when I get the feeing that,.... well, never mind.

I am now self employed and a sole trader but when I was an employee I never encountered an employer who treated me as badly as some schoolteachers did - not one of them talked to me as if I were a conscript, or dirt under their shoes, and if they had of done, I would have walked out. As a very minor employer of Saturday lads, I always treated them as I would have - and indeed, was, treated myself, with good manners and consideration. And friendliness.

One other thing I have found on this forum is that if you have to dissent from the "happiest days of your life" scenario, some people think you are lying. A few will then seek to undermine you by suggesting that you are somebody else, even when you have done all you can to prove you are real and genuine. They remind you of the bullies lurking in the playground. To be fair to them, a lot of lads had been to grammar schools, and presumably their parents got what they paid for. They find it impossible to believe that there were some very poor schools in the state system, and perhaps even that run down areas exist and have schools which reflect the overall decay. That is their problem. I know I have told the truth, even if they don't like it.

Throughout much of my own senior comprehensive schooling I was spoken to by my surname only by both male and female teachers. A christian name greeting was quite rare to hear. It was a little bit different among the boys where a few would use christian names, mainly the closer friendships, or an affectionate nickname or play on a surname.

When I left school in June 1971 earlier than expected at the age of 16 I went to work in a builders yard where I spent three years. During all that time the foreman only called me by my surname. He did the same with other boys too. I spoke to him as Mr Eversley, never by christian name nor surname. I'd been doing that job for a couple of years when my father showed up one day and asked for me by my christian name and the foreman asked - who? - he had worked with me all that time and didn't know or remember my christian name until my father gave my full name out. He was unimpressed by that and told me to think about another job if they had so little interest in their workers they didn't even know our christian names. A few months later I got a much better job painting and decorating with a company who started to use my christian name which by then felt quite the novelty.

I've always felt that the period when I went to the main comprehensive school from 1966 - 1971 was the transition period between the old style days of my parents generation and the much more modern era of my own children's generation. I would take part in everything with enthusiasm and I think teachers always responded well to that. I have never run a cross country in anything other than a vest, or been outside in anything less than a top of some sort for the usual team sports we played or athletics. It was vests or long sleeved shirts. A complete contrast to the school gymnasium which we did in plimsolls, no socks and were not allowed a top of any kind in there, almost identical to the picture associated with this discussion in black and white taken in the late fifties here. It never really crossed my mind that we would even put anything on our top halves for PE, I'd come from a middle school where PE was done just the same where boys never wore any tops for PE in the school. We all showered without complaint with everyone having to do so. Sometimes things got boisterous and we had to be told to pipe down and hurry up. Groups of boys seem to get like that when they are in the water without anything on for some reason. I've no complaints about the way I was treated at school. It all went exactly as I would expect it to be.

Craig - "bareskin runner" man.

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