Burnley Grammar School

Nigel on 23rd November 2023 at 16:40

Showers in schools were designed by architects who were probably men in the time scale we are looking at, approved by education departments or school governors and built by builders so I think you can believe that’s what was the accepted standard and how they were meant to be.

Perhaps instead of showering, you would have preferred to sit between others smelling of stale sweat for the rest of the day and inflict that on your teachers too? You would have been in a very small minority of those who wished to endure that. That’s the reason showers were compulsory and, in my experience, boys recognised that and the need to be clean.

While I wasn’t a PE teacher, I did coach rugby and my group were aged sixteen and seventeen. Coaching was after school for a ninety minute session including getting changed at both ends so we had about an hour and ten minutes of actual training. On return to the changing rooms, I don’t remember having to tell the lads to get in the showers and as it was the end of the day, they could have gone home in the state they were in had they wanted to. All had a shower without me saying anything.

When that was done and they left, I went next door to the master’s changing room and usually met up with colleagues who had been coaching too and we all took a shower and yes, the master’s showers were also communal, no one would have expected anything different. The only difference to the boy’s changing room and showers was that it was smaller. There was the same arrangement at the rugby club I played for and also at any away match. Men had communal showers though for rugby in the early days it was sometimes a bath, showers were definitely better than that.

Brian on 23rd November 2023 at 22:10

You make an interesting point but if you can have a ‘conscientious objection’ to PE or taking a shower at school, why not also have one to learning English or music or indeed anything and why not extend the principle of conscientious objection to going to school altogether?

I find it difficult to accept that back at the time so many boys disliked taking a shower especially in an age where few would have had them at home and as someone has said, a bath was a weekly occasion.

When I was at school (sounds very old now) we had showers, communal of course and they were always cold but we still used them and I don’t remember anyone objecting or indeed not getting properly under and getting washed.

I suspect there are people around who now want to feel they were ‘wronged’ in some way during their time at school. They weren’t. Everything that happened was above board.

Original Andy on 24th November 2023 at 15:32

I wouldn’t have let you off either but that probably won’t surprise any readers here and it’s quite right, there was never a better intentioned boy than one who was about to be caned and no better behaved or more studious one than a boy who had been caned.

Mr Chips on 23rd November 2023 at 15:51

Thank you for your comprehensive explanation and answer to my question sir (I think I have to add sir!).

I can now understand why those who took the legal case against won with relative ease but of course as you rightly point out, all punishments have variable consequences for the recipients.

Although I certainly didn't like the cane at the time and did my best to avoid it, for me, the 'short, sharp, shock' was highly effective and got me to mend my ways very quickly indeed.

I remember once asking to be let off promising to mend my ways and the master laughed and told me there was no better intentioned boy than one who was about to get the cane and no better behaved and diligent one than a boy who had just had it. I think that was probably 100% true. Needless to say, I wasn't let off.

Not that long ago on these pages I'm sure I saw someone write a comment which referenced the 'conscientious objection' term and thought it should have been able to be said in school over the use of showering. I didn't seem to notice much to and fro over that comment that I recall and to some it might seem quite a ridiculous concept I suppose but it's worthy of development as a point of polite argument I think and as we have another teacher on these pages keen to contribute a considerable amount of his own thoughts maybe this is worth a few words.

So in those schools where showering was, and possibly still is a compulsory element of doing PE should anyone have the ability to conscientiously object to doing so, and should they have been able to in years past? If so, should that be a free pass or the refusal face a penalty of some sort for it?

I'm only playing devil's advocate with these questions to generate some thoughts. It does seem to me like a lot of men here who were there at the time doing these things in those decades who know what the times they grew up in were like have simply and quite understandably repositioned themselves into the culture of today and forgotten the reality of yesterday. That's not really a criticism as I think we are all vulnerable to that.

If you want me to really throw a big curve ball out there then should less athletic or unwilling youngsters have the right to 'conscientiously object' to physical education completely after a certain age, maybe 12, maybe 14?

My own answer to the last question would be a decisive and firm no.

Nigel on 23rd November 2023 at 16:40

As I've told earlier, at home I got one bath a week shared with my brothers and dad, I was very grateful for showers at school and had no problem that they were communal and that I was naked with other guys. Showers like that were normal back then and the gym I use now has communal showers too, they are alive and well!

There was no 'buck'. School showers were designed to be like that because for men it was quite normal. Nothing to be nervous about.

Nigel - 23rd November at 16.40.

Good question, never really thought about it like that.

I was largely unfazed by the school shower ritual after a nervous start with it, like everyone felt I think if they are being fully honest about it. It did seem like a kind of ritual we went through for the sheer hell of it a lot of the time when I quite clearly was in no real need of standing under a burst of water washing fully down.

But I think the question you ask is a good one whatever anyone's opinion on it is.

Nigel on 23rd November 2023 at 16:40

School showers at least when I was at school were communal. As the school was built in 1958 I presume either councillors or the governors agreed the plans and so if you like, they approved the use of communal showers.

'Mandatory' as you put it school showering was just common sense, if you got sweaty and dirty doing sport, you needed to wash it off and as others have said from that time, no one had a shower at home and a weekly bath was a luxury.

We hear about who set the rules for corporal punishment and all that but who set the rules on all this state sanctioned compulsory childhood communal nudity with mandatory school showering we all got put through with eager PE teachers following orders?

It seems very hard to find out where the buck stops on this one.

I laughed like a drain when I read your first comment Adam.

Cheeky naughty boys can get away with lots. You were brave rather than stupid in my eyes. It was harmless tomfoolery to me. Save caning for the very worst offenders.

Leave him alone Mr Chips. I think he was hard done by to get the suspension there even if he did enjoy his time off.

Original Andy on 22nd November 2023 at 20:48

Thank you for your comment Original Andy.

I’m aware this subject is now highly controversial but please remember at the time I am recalling, it was totally legal and so it’s in that context that I make my reply.

Local authorities who were back then responsible for state sector schools set regulations about corporal punishment and they varied enormously from one end of the country to the other and sometimes in adjoining local authority areas, there was no consistency in what was allowed, not allowed or even required. In private schools, the governors were responsible for setting rules though often this was left to the discretion of the headmaster but in later years as it all became more controversial, they took more interest to avoid litigation.

When I started teaching the school was under local authority control and their regulations were very simple. The first one didn’t apply in a boys school as it was that girls should not be subject to corporal punishment. The second stated that the only approved instrument of corporal punishment was the cane (so a PE master with a plimsoll was operating outside the rules but that didn’t stop them) and that the cane must only be applied to the buttocks of a boy.

In terms of what might be laid down now, that was vague, nothing about the thickness of the cane, nothing about the number of strokes and nothing about clothed or bared. While they were local authority rules, they were adopted by the governors when the school became independent in 1975 so nothing changed. When after a court ruling, we were advised that parental consent was required, the policy and consent form was sent out with the school fees to be signed and returned with the cheque and it was kept on file so again nothing changed. I don’t remember any parent refusing to sign and the response would have been to remove their boy from the school.

The only other guidance we had internally was that if we considered a caning in excess of eight strokes was necessary, we had to refer the boy to the headmaster. I never referred a boy to the headmaster although one or two of my colleagues did from time to time.

It was only about 1995 the then headmaster decided to introduce alternatives to the cane and we were asked to use it sparingly. By that time as a department head, I only taught the fifth and sixth forms where corporal punishment was rarely used to it didn’t make much difference to me.

There then was the discretion, the power you might use in your arm, the thickness of the cane, there were usually three choices available, the lightest would deliver an immediate and atrocious sting that would be gone in minutes and the heaviest a deep, burning and lasting pain, the number of strokes and obviously the clothed or bared choice. If you placed the strokes separately you would create one sensation of pain, if you grouped them tightly in the sit spot, you would create something far more painful.

As a master, there was a myriad of choices depending on what you wanted to achieve and the message you wanted to convey. It was ultimately this level of inconsistency that STOPP used to get caning outlawed in state schools claiming there couldn’t be justice but of course there is no consistency in punishments anyway, the same thing will affect different people in different ways.

How much discretion did I use? The full range. A junior boy who had no plausible excuse for failing to do his homework would probably get a couple of strokes, just enough to sting badly for a few minutes to remind him to do it before the next lesson or perhaps face four strokes on the next occasion or the threat that usually chilled a lad of ‘and the next time it will be on your bare bottom’ which was rarely carried out except for the more serious matters. If it was, the pain was usually no more but the perception of it was so the threat worked.

A sixth form lad who had stolen or bullied a much younger boy would get something altogether different although occasions like that were very rare thank goodness. It was unusual for a lad in the sixth form to do anything that warranted the cane but, on the occasions, it did happen, it was always pretty severe.

Adam Bell on 22nd November 2023 at 23:24

You most certainly would have been caned, having just said above, that I never sent a boy to the headmaster because I considered eight strokes sufficient to deal with anything, I might have sent you. What you did was stupid, irresponsible and you invaded the safe space of the girls while they were in an estate of undress, exposing yourself inappropriately. I struggle to see why that childish act was in any way amusing. That you were suspended for two weeks should tell you that at the time, what you did was regarded as a serious matter though I would say the punishment you were given was ineffective since you wasted your time and laughed about it. As I said earlier, had I dealt with your misbehaviour, you would have been back at your desk in fifteen minutes not having a fortnight’s holiday. Were you always the class clown or was this just a momentary lapse?

Your dad said… Most boys expressed bravado after a caning, only a very few did not have tears in their eyes at the time. I’m delighted he was able to count to seventeen, perhaps had the cane been in use when you were at school you would have learned to count higher?

Was I caned at school? Yes, probably in the early years a couple of times a year. Later, not at all. It was perfectly possible for a lad not to be caned, he just had to obey the rules and act responsibly, many achieved that.


More generally, on bare skin running, if you’ve never tried it, I suggest you do, it really does feel good and is growing in popularity again, I wish I could start again but I can’t and also, give cold water swimming a go, you will feel amazing afterwards.

Mr Chips you would have caned me for a quick joke on my birthday?!

In 1979, for that!

How many times where you caned in school then Mr Chips? I don't agree that once caned you never wanted to get it again. My father used to boast about how many times he got caned at school, I think he said it was 17 times, so he was obviously good at maths and counting.

Is it fair to say that almost nobody could avoid a caning at one point in time in schools of the distant past and that everyone felt it at some point?

Mr Chips on 22nd November 2023 at 16:50

Thank you for responding to me, it's all very interesting.

May I ask, you say the rules around corporal punishment were vague and to a point you had discretion. What sort of discretion were you allowed to exercise?

It sounds a bit like in the time of the first headmaster very little but maybe things got easier after that - though I note you were a supporter of it and given the time you were teaching, I guess that was fair enough - said grudgingly being a boy who got the cane a few times at school. Maybe, when you weigh it up against detentions, lines, essays and so on, it wasn't so bad after all. You definitely got the message from it.

Comment by: Craig on 21st November 2023 at 20:55
I heard this some time ago, it's so true on the age perception we all have of ourselves - 'Old is always 15 years older than you are, at whatever age you actually are'. So true.
The most recent addition to our bareskin running whatsapp group is actually 65, our 21st member.


Two years before I was born I thought that becoming a teenager was old.

Craig how cold is too cold for you to go running like you do with your group?

X Country Skins.

Oh my goodness the thought of running like a couple of the previous guys here have been talking about would send me straight back to something like about November 1970 and 1971 when our classes did just that almost every week at this time of the year. Absolute hell, boys like me used to be bent double with terrible stitch. I've no idea how far we used to run but it just went on and on and on. I think we ran for an hour at steady but variable pace. The slowest would be left behind out of direct supervision but there was no easy short cut to sneak when nobody was looking if you were left behind. If you were very late back to change and shower there was hell to pay, sometimes in the form of the plimsoll finding your bum. It takes all sorts and it's great that we are all so different but the thought of actively choosing to go repeating what I went through at school as a 65 year old running along in a bare chest at this time of the year would give me some right old school flashbacks and a sense of deja vu.

Mike on 21st November 2023 at 20:16
Thank you for your positive comments, I’ll stick around if you all keep me interested!

Craig on 21st November 2023 at 20:55

Thank you. That is a heartening comment about old is your age plus fifteen years. I guess it is more applicable as we get older, I really don’t think I want to see my age plus fifteen so hopefully I will never be old.

Thank you for the invitation to join the bare skin running group. In other circumstances, I would give it some serious thought but the reason I don’t run is because following being in a road traffic accident a few years back, an SUV driver failed to pay attention to me on my bike and knocked me off. I needed hip and pelvic surgery and the consultant told me that while he mended most things, I must never run again because he couldn’t mend it all. The physio then reinforced the message and as at first, I was told because of the injuries, I would never walk again I count myself as very lucky and so I don’t run, well maybe if I was being chased by a lion, I might give it a go, but for normal circumstances, I don’t. I just stick to my bike and I love walking. Good luck with it though, I think it looks healthy and it’s only back to what used to happen. Kit manufactures will hate it if you only need shoes and shorts.

On swimming, well, that’s in some ways nothing new either. When I was a boy, we regularly went to ponds, pools, river banks and lakes to swim for a couple of reasons. First there were very few pools around and second, they cost money while the alternatives were free. It was almost always cold and usually what was then called skinny dipping and I understand for much wild swimming, that’s now the norm again.

On cold water, there is something exhilarating about it. I went wild swimming in arctic Norway during last summer and felt amazing afterwards. What was supposed to be a one off became a daily event for a few of us in the tour group. There was something amazing about pushing away pieces of ice in the water while enjoying the midnight sun.

Original Andy on 21st November 2023 at 21:07

Thank you. I think as a teacher, I would like to think I was firm but fair. In the main the boys I taught behaved very well and worked hard but my tolerance of anything else was zero and they knew it. Some matters had to be reported to the headmaster at least when I started teaching and the headmaster I referred to earlier was there for the first ten years of my working life and then there were two more, the second retiring when I did.
In my early days, smoking and truancy had to be referred to the headmaster though in reality, they were, at least to me no worse than the other things that were deemed serious offences like bullying, cheating, fighting, lying, stealing and so on. Certainly, anything referred to the headmaster resulted in a caning and the first headmaster never exercised any discretion in that. Other serious offences also resulted in the cane.

There was not supposed to be any discretion but the rules around punishment were a bit vague so you did have some discretion about how seriously to take it and of course sometimes you just didn’t see things like I remember not seeing a group of lads having a smoke break between their A level papers. Others would have sent them straight to the headmaster. Smoking was certainly undesirable and bad for them but squirming on a hard wooden chair for the next exam was certainly bad for their A levels.

Others I know will disagree, but I was a strong advocate of corporal punishment because it was fast and in the main, extremely effective. Setting written exercises, essays or lines which were utterly pointless, you knew that and the boy knew that was just time wasting and we were supposed to be encouraging boys to enjoy study and writing not using it as a punishment and equally, detentions just wasted the master’s time and the boy’s time. By the time they became a norm, I was senior enough just to refuse to supervise them and when Saturday morning detention became the ultimate sanction short of exclusion and expulsion, I saw it as utterly pointless and disruptive. Why potentially punish a whole family with it? Once you start down that road of collective responsibility you are treading into dangerous territory. Of course, I retired almost twenty years ago now and I’m sure things have now moved on but in private schools, the cane was only banned six years before I retired and so quite legal for thirty six years of my career.

Greg2 on 21st November 2023 at 21:21

Thank you for your comments.

I think it took me a long time to understand what two world wars had done to my family, my grandparents had lived through both and my parents were born soon after WW1 so were both adults by the time WW2 came along. I don’t remember much of WW2, my father was away of course and we moved to live with my grandparents in the country. Lads older than me found it difficult to fit in but I hadn’t started school and so it was just a big play time out and about for me. By the time I started school we were back living in town. It took me many years to understand what had happened.

Almost a bit like after Covid lockdowns, people were very short tempered in those years while I was growing up and there was no tolerance of any sort of difference or as we would now call it diversity. It was in these years for example that Windrush workers arrived but were not made welcome and their skills were not recognised as they were pushed into menial jobs. It all seemed so wrong to me, you need to let people express themselves and get the best out of them both for their benefit and the benefit of all.

Talking of the lad I referred to earlier and the case of truancy which the headmaster ‘dealt’ with. I did try to look out for him, praise him a bit more and maybe mark him slightly higher than he deserved but I don’t think I was very successful. In any event, at the end of that year he moved to live with his grandparents and so left the school so I don’t know what happened to him after that. I just always hoped he was OK. The terrible thing was, had the same thing happened with another lad, the headmaster would have ‘dealt’ with it exactly the same way. Maybe it did, I wouldn’t necessarily have known. I know I wasn’t the only one relieved when the headmaster retired and while his successor was strict, he would never have done what the first one did.

Boys like me used to do 'bareskin' cross country at school from the age of 12.

Answering Craig who does the shirtless running and rates it, this reminds me of a conversation I had with my parents in the 1970s at my secondary school when I told them that one of our teachers who took us out on the school cross country would always insist that we did this the same way we dressed in the gym, which was fully stripped off upper bodies with not a vest, T-shirt or sweatshirt in sight as we began legging it out the changing room and off on our way. They thought my teacher was mad to do that to us but at no point did they suggest intervening and I would have been embarrassed if they had even tried to. We ran cross country nearly all year 'bareskin' like this as you call it Craig. The only two months we didn't were January and February but when the start of March came around just after half term we started cross country running in our shirtless bare upper bodies again almost irrespective of conditions.

However, and Craig might be able to agree with me on this, I found that although many of these cross countries began quite cold, within three or four minutes even in really rather low temperatures outside I warmed up and acclimatised quite well and it was never as physically demanding as an onlooker might think and I think many of us that did this adapted to it more than we would have anticipated the first time we were shocked to find that was what our PE teacher was wanting us to do things like.

Although we had to put tops on in the two main winter months to go cross country it wasn't compulsory to keep them on and what happened was one or two ended up sticking them hanging from their waists and seeming to take great delight in running in some seriously cold daytime weather without anything on top even when they didn't have to.

Mr Chips,

It’s been very interesting reading your responses and comments on various posts here, and thank you for your 18th November, thought-provoking reply, to mine.

You comments regarding some of the older teachers you remembered who’d served in WWII was particularly interesting to me, and explained much for some of the experiences I’d had, no doubt from similar characters, during the late 60s to the 70s. Obviously I was far too young back then to understand any of this, but found your comments quite revealing, and coming from a contemporary teacher of those times. I must admit your ‘kraut child’ comment I did find amusing, making me smile and laugh a little. I’m sure I did look a little like that back then, but strangely I don’t think this name would have bothered me too much, and anyway, I was a full 50% English…and my father was ‘very’ English!

I never acknowledged that my father might have appeared suspect for bringing a German girl back at that time, which was another very interesting point for me to read. You are quite correct that my mother did suffer when she arrived in this country, not only from some locals, though not all, but also from my father’s mother and one sister, though my mother did always say that dad’s father was always kind and understanding. He was born in 1900, so too young for WWI, but this still might appear surprising I suppose. My mother was always very industrious, clever, and determined to succeed, so together with my father, they were both able to do well in the end. She was also very pretty, so none of us were at all surprised that father fell in love with her, and brought her back here to start a new life together!

Well, all this off topic stuff must seem terribly self-indulgent and boring to most, so I apologise and I’ll end it here. It’s just particularly interesting for me, and something I never thought I’d discuss one day with someone who taught at the time I was at school. So thank you for your contemporary school information, Mr Chips, which I found fascinating.

I thought your headmaster’s caning of the upset and, grieving boy was unforgivable; it was just wrong. You appeared much more sensitive and aware of his real needs, so I do hope you were able to, ‘put in a bit more effort and reinforce his achievements both in my classes and more broadly when I had the opportunity’ for him too, which I feel would have helped him at that time, and something he would have always remembered you for. Your disgraceful headmaster’s behaviour would certainly have remained with him into adulthood, to tarnish his childhood memories of the time he lost his mother.

I appreciate your comment regarding my catching up and getting to university in the end. Though many years ago now, this coming from a teacher who actually taught my generation, I found particularly special to read, and it meant more to me than I’d expected. I’m therefore grateful for your kind words, which I suppose make up for never having received them from my own teachers. Thank you.

Mr Chips on 21st November 2023 at 18:05

Thank you for your informative posts, I am finding them fascinating and so informative of a teacher's perspective, please don't think you are rambling.

I have two impressions of you though, one and the first one I gained from your earlier posts was of a man who was very strict and pretty severe but as you've talked about coaching rugby, I'm seeing a man who was a good leader and a lot of fun who was passionate about his job.

May I ask, are both right or were you more one or the other or perhaps different entirely and I'm just jumping to conclusions?

I heard this some time ago, it's so true on the age perception we all have of ourselves - 'Old is always 15 years older than you are, at whatever age you actually are'. So true.

The most recent addition to our bareskin running whatsapp group is actually 65, our 21st member.

Mr Chips I know you said you taught French not PE but you've taken some sport at school in your past career and you clearly are a great advocate of the age is just a number attitude. There is no reason why anyone at any age can't do lots of physical activities as long as they are well enough. You'd be a welcome member on our bareskin running group with your outlook which I know can be infectious and motivate others. What do you think of bareskin running as a concept and would you do it at your age, or would you ever have done? Many of us that do it find it has extra benefit that regular jogging doesn't although we can't really pinpoint precisely why. It's increasing in popularity and so is wild swimming away from mainstream pools. It's not so frequent at this time of year now but we did go out with 8 on Saturday morning just gone and ran 5 miles bareskins, and as I think I might have said a few weeks ago when I dropped a comment, it's not a group of buff extravert show offs wanting to be noticed, we have a few runners who have admitted to actually being introverts and shy but it didn't stop them wanting to join and go out with us. The only thing we wear above the waist is an LED headband light to see the way through the darker areas we go to stop us tripping up, we wouldn't want to do that with no protection.

Our next run is set for Friday evening but it looks to be getting much colder so we might have to shorten the distance and make it a quick one.

Very much enjoying Mr Chips contributions the last few days. I hope you stick around.

James G on 21st November 2023 at 01:37

Thank you for your comments James.

I’m a little older than President Biden, I am fit but I’m not sure I could keep up with the pace required of him but I would give it a good try.

Some time ago, a former colleague developed dementia and he has now died. I did read a bit about it then to try and be at least a bit useful when I visited him. One of the things I learned was that we nearly all fix our perceptions of who we are in our mid-30s. That made sense to me because I’ve never really felt much older than that so when I used to go to see Jack, I would take along things from then and those days so the 1970s. There are maybe others here who can throw more light on this?

He could talk perfect sense for hours when we focussed on that, sometimes a bit repetitive but mostly very accurate things about what was happening then, often more than I was and I’d done some preparation. He couldn’t remember what he’d had for lunch today but a news item from back then and he was there. My point here is, that I still have a much younger outlook on life than you might think, when people talk about ‘old people’ I wonder who they mean, certainly not me but my body doesn’t quite keep up these days.

On not wearing a shirt for PE or rugby training, I never really thought about it at the time but I never wore a shirt and nor did the PE masters or the other masters who coached rugby and other sports so I suppose it was just a case of leading by example and what you did whether you meant to or not, the lads would do more easily too. For rugby, I coached sixteen and seventeen year olds. At the start of my career, they didn’t have shirts anyway and I coached until the mid-1990s when they did have shirts but they didn’t wear them.

To make a comment on the picture, it may have been that the lads didn’t have shirts to wear, their shorts and plimsolls, no socks, are exactly what I had as a boy and what the boys had when I started teaching and I see the year was 1959 so exactly in line with my experience. The difference of course is what the master is wearing, when I was at school, no PE master wore a shirt and as I’ve said, when I started teaching, masters didn’t either.

At first the lads were a bit nervous of me. Their previous coach, a maths master, had left the school. He had never changed out of his suit for rugby coaching so clearly not physically involved and rugby is possibly the sport with the greatest physical contact of any so not a sport for anyone uncomfortable with that.

I think they got a bit of a shock when their new coach appeared in their changing room in his shorts and plimsolls and was very active alongside them. When I started to get them to lift me for a line out, they were incredibly nervous about touching me and holding me but I reckoned that if they could learn to lift me, they could lift each other with ease because like any lift, it’s technique that counts and when you know where to put your hands, a line out lift is quite easy. The lads doing this were the props and often bigger than me so it was well within their capability.

I also got them tackling me, if they could tackle me, they could easily tackle the opposition. Of course, as players know even today when kit is so much more technical, in a tackle, you can lose your shorts and inevitably it happened. I remember the look of horror on the face of the first lad who had pulled mine down and the relief when I just pulled them back up and told him it was a good tackle, he will remain nameless but he went on to play for England. I pushed the lads just about as hard as my county coach pushed us and it worked, they went from being a bit of a joke as a team, to winning very well.

When we used the gym, I always took my plimsolls off, the PE masters always left lads to choose but all the lads I was coaching took their plimsolls off too, it may of course have been coincidence or it may have been because it’s what sir did.

My comment about marks on backs and chests was when I was a school boy, we didn’t have shirts, clothing was just off ration and I would say it was into the 1970s before people bought it freely. We were marked with a marker pen back and front as we left the changing room, it was quick, effective and washed off. When I started teaching, the PE masters used to give out coloured bands to teams because shirts were not part of the kit at the time but it did become shirts vs. skins when shirts were introduced.

Back in the 1960s, town twinning was a big thing, your town twinned, usually with a similar town in France or a few more places, even some in Germany. I remember it all being set up and as a fluent French speaker, I was part of that and the first visit to France of councillors and dignitaries. I saw an opportunity though and while the headmaster would never have approved of this had I gone to him first, I suggested to councillors that we should take the school rugby team to France and they thought it was a great idea and so it was set up and became a bi-annual trip with the French lads coming here in the other year. It was a great opportunity for the lads to see something different, foreign holidays really didn’t happen back then and to speak the language I spent hours teaching them. While there they stayed with French families and masters stayed with the French teachers. The whole thing ran for about twenty years and once word was out about it, all of a sudden, interest in rugby sky rocketed.

On clothing more broadly, when I started teaching, I had one suit for school, one pair of shoes, two shirts, two ties and three pairs of socks and underpants, a pair of plimsolls and two pairs of shorts as school clothes and not much more for leisure time. You didn’t need a big wardrobe (the furniture item) in those days. While clothing was off ration, it might have been freely available but it was not in huge supply and was very expensive compared to today. Things got a bit better when a cousin qualified as a tailor and he started to make suits for me (off the peg was not common) though I still only had, I think three, but that was luxury.

Gentlemen, am I rambling too much? By all means tell me to shut up.

Mr Chips.

Based on the year you said you began teaching (1962) you must be in the Joe Biden kind of age bracket one assumes (he was 81 today) so I am very impressed with your active lifestyle, including riding a bike and running, although you said you don't do the latter anymore. I know a 91 year old man who still rides a pushbike near to me.

You mentioned PE teachers leading the way and dressing the same as the pupils, no tops. I do wonder if some of the guys on these pages would have felt better about doing their own shirtless PE if their own teachers had done the same as you have told us and not been like the photo above where the teacher sets himself apart from his class, expects all the boys to go shirtless but won't do so himself.

The one thing about whole classes going shirtless is how do you divide up into identifiable teams when needed. You said this - "For team games we had a coloured mark on our backs and chests at the start of the lesson." What did you mean exactly by this, was this a piece of fabric or something like paint or ink directly on skin, that sounds very unusual and more effort than just requiring half the class to stick a vest on or something else.

Physical education is all about the body so I see no point in trying to hide it away in a gym and therefore I would favour shirtless PE and mandatory with it - just like I faced. It did me no harm. Too many expect to get indulged nowadays so we now have men who probably didn't really mind getting shirtless and showered in PE a few years ago now suddenly deciding a bit late in the day that they didn't fancy it after all.

Lance on 20th November 2023 at 13:25

Thank you. I’ll do my best bearing in mind that I taught French.

When I was at school, no boy had a shirt for PE or gym so no one wondered whether we should be wearing them or not. We had white shorts and white plimsolls – dreadful to keep clean, black would have been so much better. For team games we had a coloured mark on our backs and chests at the start of the lesson.

When I started teaching, it was normal that boys still did PE and gym without shirts and indeed, at what I’ve said was staff PE, no master wore a shirt either, it was plimsolls for running outdoors and we all went barefoot in the gym. For me at least, no shirt was a great incentive to keep in shape and toned.

Things changed over time and PE shirts; white cotton T-shirts, were added to the uniform list but I’d say not every boy liked them. Cotton gets wet when you sweat and therefore not so pleasant to wear particularly out in a wind when you will feel cold quickly but sweat would just dry off and so most lads continued to go without and as I remember, the PE masters didn’t mind one way or the other. There were some shirts vs. skins team games played where one or the other was compulsory. The PE masters generally didn’t wear shirts for lessons, maybe that had an influence on what the lads did.

The rugby team I coached were almost all without shirts for training, it was their choice though maybe because I never wore a shirt they followed ‘sir’s example’. My method of coaching was to lead from the front so I always demonstrated exercises and techniques and then joined side by side with the lads to do them before standing back to appraise technique and ability so I was very much part of the tackle, line out, scrum, maul or ruck with the boys. For games they were obviously properly attired in rugby kit as was I. At the time I didn’t see shirts as any issue one way or the other for me or the boys.

These days, fabrics are so much better and they keep you sweat free and comfortable as I know because I still ride my road bike and the gear I wear today is so much better than even a few years back. I don’t run these days and I don’t use a gym but I imagine gym shirts and shorts are at least as good as my cycling gear at keeping you dry and comfortable.

I think in the school situation, the thing I’m most in favour of these days is boys having a choice so they should wear shirts or not depending which is comfortable. I see men and boys out running most days and I would say that it’s an even split as to who wears a shirt and who doesn’t. That’s the best way, offer a choice then no one is compelled to be uncomfortable. Sport is to be enjoyed not endured and a good grounding in sport at school which is enjoyed sets a boy up for a lifetime of fitness.

Garth (Nov 20). Meanwhile, here in Rishi Sunak's UK, "women" with penises {my Latin is a bit rusty, so should that be penes?} are demanding cervical smear tests.

Mr Chips what do you personally think the best way to turn out in a school gym is? Are you a fan of the shirtless appearance or the vest and t-shirt, or maybe you think it should be left to the individual to decide, or not?

Here in New Brunswick Canada where I work and live at the moment away from back home the latest diversity wheeze is to say that men can actually have a vagina and a woman a penis. We've started having issues even in schools with self identifying and genders being forced to mix because of it in changing areas. That's Trudeau's Canada for you. At this rate showering will be unisex in the country's schools.

I stuck my first comment on this forum three years ago to the very hour I have just noticed but it has been two and a half years since I last placed anything. For anyone wishing to know my backstory please go to 19th November 2020 about page 92 currently and there are a few follow up over the next six months.

A couple of weeks ago someone put a comment on here about feeling certain their teacher would have picked them up and thrown them into the school shower if they had not been keen to do so or refused to take one. Well I can vouch for that from 1981 as written on my first ever comment here. I got caught with my best friend trying to evade our first school shower and me and him were stripped naked on the spot under his angry gaze towering over us and he then physically grabbed the pair of us by the back of our necks and frogmarched the two of us either side of him across the changing room and literally threw us both into the shower. So to the guy who asked about first shower memories that is mine and even 42 years doesn't lesson the memory of that happening which can replay easily in my mind when I care to think about it. Yet I went on to have a decent relationship with that teacher but was forever wary.

I fully approve of all the new school teacher input, that's very refreshing to see things from both sides.

The writer Denton Welch absconded from his boarding school, Repton, for several days at the age of fifteen in similar tragic circumstances to those described by Mr Chips, his mother having died. Welch describes this in his book "Maiden Voyage".

On his return (Jan 1931) he was treated with comparative understanding by staff and prefects and was not punished for the absence, though the school in Welch's account was otherwise brutal and he was unhappy there. The next term, his father (a rubber merchant) took him to live in China.

Jim on 18th November 2023 at 22:45

Thank you for your kind words. I might have acquired some wisdom with age, if I have, then, if there is an interested audience, I believe it’s my duty to share it. Learning and money are very similar and of no value whatever if you keep them to yourself.

Robert Coulson - Teacher 1967-2009 on 18th November 2023 at 23:30

Thank you for your comment. I’m delighted to see a post from a man who was my contemporary.

I agree whole heartedly, the conduct of the headmaster regarding the bereaved boy was disgraceful, indeed, that’s not a strong enough term but I was rapidly ‘put in my place’ when I objected. I was in my probationary year and it was a case of shut up or clear out. I shut up but was never proud of it.

I think the culture of the ‘war damaged’ took time to change. Men joining the profession when I did struggled with it but some simply joined in with the culture as that was the way things were done. Some of them remained around for many more years though they became a progressively smaller percentage of the staff thank goodness. Some of their influence was quite toxic.

I remember one man, an English master who was a couple of years older than me. His ability to teach was way better than mine and to listen to him talking about his subject was inspirational. His behaviour towards the boys though was a different matter. Yes, they respected his knowledge but they lived in fear of him both for his sharp tongue and regular in public put downs and disregard for any boy who didn’t conform to his ideas of what a school boy should be. While we all caned, he caned way in excess of any other master and lads went to his classes in fear. He was promoted to be Head of English and the headmaster regarded him as the ‘strongest and most capable’ master on the staff. I detested him. He was promoted to be deputy head in another school and I know I wasn’t the only one who heaved a sigh of relief when he left. He was an extreme example but there were others failed to change with the times and so while change came, it was gradual. At least, that’s my experience, you may have, of course had a better one.

Mike on 19th November 2023 at 00:10

Very funny, I have my red pen ready for when it’s done.

Kenneth on 19th November 2023 at 00:24

I thought it was about being clean and washing away dirt and sweat. As a boy at school and a man doing vigorous exercise, I needed a shower afterwards. When I was coaching rugby, I don’t remember telling the lads to get in the showers, they just did it. I only needed to stay around because they were supposed to have some degree of supervision and that was my responsibility until they were all dressed and out of the changing room.

Adam Bell on 19th November 2023 at 01:53

Do you now think what you did was funny of does it all seem a bit silly?
You of course demonstrate perfectly why suspension does not work unless your parents also reinforce it with grounding and removal of any privileges and it doesn’t sound like your parents did. Needless to say, I would have caned you. You would have been back at your desk in fifteen minutes, squirming uncomfortably on your hard wooden chair for the remainder of the day and looking rather silly in front of your classmates, you would not have missed two weeks of your education. You would probably have had tears in your red eyes when I returned you to your next lesson and I would have explained to the master taking it why you were late, what you had done and that you had been caned. Of course, in my boys school, what you did could never have happened. Returning a boy to class in those circumstances made a very loud, clear statement and was excellent pour encourager les autres. A boy who did not want to be caned only needed to behave.

You might even have repeated misbehaviour in the hope of suspension but it was a rare boy who risked the cane twice.

Before the ‘I hated everything about school and teachers’ brigade start, no, I wouldn’t have derived any satisfaction from that other than a boy was justly punished for stupid behaviour at a point in his life where he should have known better.

Tony on 19th November 2023 at 14:20

This is all part of a culture of control that now sweeps through schools and it’s supposed to be part of discipline. That awful woman who claims to be the strictest head, Birbalsingh, I think is her name would heartily approve of this because it makes identikit children. I would rather do away with school uniforms altogether and have a reasonable dress code which allows children to act responsibly and choose to present themselves well. Of course, for team sport, some sort of matching kit is necessary but other than that, school uniform which is a very British thing and about conformity, should be done away with. Other European countries managed it all very well.

Robbie on 19th November 2023 at 19:04
Very funny.

The following is a message to Alan and people such as him. It's a song lyric (Eagles - Already Gone) from 1974 and it's well worth heeding.

"So often times it happens that we live our lives in chains. And we never even know we have the key."