Burnley Grammar School

Greg2: there is certainly a great deal of the actor in teachers, as I suppose there has to be in several professions where you have to "meet the face to meet the face" as they say, but I think it appalling that a man, who, at best was xenophobic, should seek to take out his frustrations on young boys. I know one of our two very bad teachers is now deceased (the"discipline" fetishist), and it was amazing to read the euologies form from people who were quite aware of his "cranky behaviour", as one teacher, long after our school days put it. I only kept in contact with a couple of the lads I went to school with and one very sadly died just after last Xmas, and in his last letter to me he actually mentioned the two men I have mentioned - and this was at a time when he was very (physically) ill. That is the effect he had on us, and as I have also previously mentioned another boy got it far worse than us, as he was actually molested by R.

Hugh: in view of the oft-repeated " professional expertise. " you claim for yourself, perhaps you would be good enough to let us know your qualifications?.

Anon: Strange that you do not feel able to give us your name - I daresay it isn't anything so unique that you would be immediately identified?. John, Bill, Tony?, don't be such a tease, especially when you seek to traduce the character of others.

"OriginalAndy" - don't flatter yourself, you are not that original. I know you enjoy your little potshots, and if it keeps you happy,I wish you joy.

Just to set "Doctor" Hugh's mind at rest, I am not a candidate for a mental institution, I have already said why it concerns me that middle aged and elderly men take such a - strong interest, shall we say?, - of how boys are clothed for PE in 2023, and often regretting the lack of both minimalism in dress and the removal of the ultimate deterrent of the cane. Perhaps it is because it was middle aged and elderly men that caused us problems in our school that I am so sensitive in this matter - and the - as I have mentioned before - no less THAN THREE P.E teachers at the SAME SCHOOL, not three miles from where I live have been exposed as perverts (I have given a link in the past to this disgusting case) and it concerns me that such outrages are still allowed to persist in an era when there is supposed to be protection for both boys and girls.

I do not consider I have given Nathan a hard time - I have precluded him from any suggestion of impropriety, I have merely said that he seems to adopt that "teacher know best and I'll do what I like" attitude that is far too prevalent in both his profession and in politics. One size fits all does not work, has never worked and never will, however convenient it might be to think that is the case.

"Dr. Hugh" implies he is a medical man, and I will be interested in reading his qualifications. Please don't be shy.

Alan 26th October 17:37

I’m afraid this headteacher would have passed any form of physiological test with ’Spitfire’ flying colours, however inconceivable such a test would ever be. There is a school website, with a historical section (I’ve even found photos of myself on there) where everyones lavishes nothing but immense love and praise for him. His elderly daughter, a frequent contributor, glows with pride at everyone’s love for her father. But we all learnt of his real, concealed, Jekyll and Hyde character. I know my elder brother, who’d left before I arrived, had had a bad time with him. My brother became a member of an exclusive art club as an adult, which contained many retired art teachers as members. All these retired teachers knew about, and confirmed this character’s attitudes. Thankfully, my younger brother, (who had the lightest hair in my family!) was mostly spared his behaviour, as the old headmaster retired during his first year there.

Wow, it’s getting lively round here!

Jim on 26th October 2023 at 14:51
I agree, times have changed beyond recognition or imagination. When I was a boy, there was a phone box two streets away, I never imagined having a mobile to slip in my pocket and carry with me wherever I go that is a lot more than a phone and just as communications have changed, so has everything else. I laughed earlier when I watched an episode of Location, Location, Location. A couple were moving because their ten year old – only child, wanted a room big enough so he could have a double bed and television in his room. I shared a double bed with one of my brothers until I went to university and obviously again when on holiday. We didn’t have a television until about 1974 and a phone was put in when I went to university after great consideration of the need, it barely rang and was barely used.

So, yes, just as those things have changed, I don’t now doubt that corporal punishment of children in the current age is wrong and should not be tolerated under any circumstances but to go back to when I was a boy, well, remember that the death penalty was still on the statute books and I do remember the last execution in 1964. I didn’t know a lad who didn’t get the strap or the stick from his dad for misbehaviour, it was the norm. I bore my dad no ill will nor a schoolmaster either for the cane, you took your normal (at the time) punishment, sat with care for a few days and got on with life.

Don’t get me wrong though, at home, getting the strap was a rare event, perhaps twice a year each (apart from my ‘geography’ year) and always for something pretty serious. Normally dad would talk through our wrong doing and explain how we had to mend our ways but when that hadn’t worked, he ‘let the strap do the talking’ and of course we heard it very clearly. One thing however guaranteed the strap with no warning and it was telling a lie because we had done it knowingly and knew the consequence. The norms of the past should not be judged by the norms of the current time otherwise every death sentence was wrong and at the time they were perfectly legal.

Greg2 on 26th October 2023 at 15:21

I was very lucky, it was only one teacher but he was nasty. I wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of the ‘back street charity boys’ line, there were three of us in the class and we were definitely in trouble with him far more than any other lad. I didn’t try to understand him but hey, if we didn’t meet people like that then, you would meet one sooner or later in life and while I’ve always tried to start out with someone believing the best about them, sometimes you get a nasty surprise and they are a bit of a tw@t. I guess I’m pleased I learned about people like that early on. You will always encounter adversity at points in life so it’s as well to learn about it early.

‘Men’s bath night’ was generally a fun night, we were together as a family in a way that I think many would struggle with now as they stare at their ipads and televisions and split into different rooms. We all loved a good sing and mum was very good on the piano – how many homes now have a proper piano I wonder? Most families in our street had one. Many will have a keyboard, but the sound is not the same no matter what a salesperson tells you.

I guess the difference with the showers at school was it felt grown up. The PE masters always addressed us as ‘men’ so it made you pull yourself up to your full height and push your chest out so showers afterwards were with other men, doing what men did together, all very grown up. I’m glad I was used to them because when I went to university, halls in those days were single sex and we had communal showers there too and I don’t remember any lad being awkward about using them and I continued playing rugby and using the gym so they remained part of my life.

Your secondary school headmaster doesn’t sound good but I remember the absolute dislike of all things German in the years after the war. My dad had been in the navy mostly on convoys to Malta which were very bloody. He didn’t talk much about it and most of what I know I read after he died, but I remember about 1985 going to see a university mate who was working in Germany and my dad was not pleased and couldn’t imagine why on earth I would want to go there. I didn’t tell him afterwards what a good time I’d had and how much I’d enjoyed it and been made welcome. Well done on pulling it all back together though, I admire guys who do that and make a good life.

Marc on 26th October 2023 at 18:18

I remember Maty bubbles! My aunt – my dad’s sister who never married and who if anyone did, spoiled us, she did, bought me a bottle for my birthday, I can still see it – blue with the white ‘cap’ and the face on the bottle. It certainly added something nice to the rather grey bathwater and was even better if I got to go in first. Oh, and the same soap bar, yes, it was often Wrights coal tar and sitting down by the fire afterwards we all smelt of it, it was nicer that carbolic which was the other sort we usually had. I almost want to buy a bar if you can still get it.

I’m not sure back then and I’m a bit older than you, anyone, least of all a PE master did ‘sensitivities’. It was a case of get on with it and you just did. Our guys were fine, they never told us to do anything without doing it themselves and if you asked them to show you how to do something they would do it with you until you got it right. I loved PE.

TimH on 26th October 2023 at 19:27

Two blazers! Maybe I can equal that in a way. My third one was given to me by one of the ladies my mum cleaned for who had a son a couple of years older than me and he’d been to the same school. Maybe mum said I needed a new one and I was given his – which no doubt still had ‘plenty of wear’ left in it and it certainly saw me through my couple of years in the sixth form. I had a few more ‘hand me down’s’ from his mum over the years too and of course at home, hand me downs were pretty normal when again, there was ‘plenty of wear’ left in things.

You are right, the past is another country and may it stay there, it wasn’t all bad and it’s amusing to remember – both the good and the bad. Grammar schools were the places working class lads got a good education and allowed us to have careers that were dreams. I was the only lad in the street to go to university but I do remember how almost everyone turned out on the day I was going to wish me well and I struggled to carry the cakes and biscuits that were made for me to take along. When I graduated, mum and dad gave a party for the whole street, the house was full and it spilled over into the back yard and was a lot of fun, everyone was so proud of me. I had to wear my gown, hood and mortar board for the party and everyone kept cheering me.

Anon on 26th October 2023 at 16:32

Thank you, you make strong and valid points.

Adam Coleman on 27th October 2023 at 01:12

I have quite a few old pictures mostly of rugby teams and a few of games and action. In a few of the informal ones the PE masters are standing with hands on shoulders. I never thought anything harmful at the time and I still don’t though there are those who would now try to suggest something untoward was going on. It wasn’t. Those same masters supported and encouraged us to develop and succeed and put a lot of time and effort into their work, they were dedicated and it’s horrific to now suggest anything other.

I’m a few years older so ‘short back and sides’ was the norm and nothing else tolerated – the barber didn’t ask, it’s what you got like it or not. Well done on the baked beans, you’re a braver man than I would have been.

Perhaps he's no more a doctor than Richard Chamberlain was back in the 1960's.

Hugh on 27th October 2023 at 06:52

Well said. Play ground bully is exactly the right description of the subject and I support fully your calling him out. I don't have your expertise but what you say makes perfect sense at least to me.

I would also say I find something rather 'unsavoury' about the posts women make here, I simply never respond to them. They are usually so full of outrage and tend to miss the point completely but then as you say, they have no lived experience of the subject matter.

Adam Coleman on 27th October 2023 at 01:12

I'm sure you're right about your swimming teacher, 99.9% of us, thankfully, never experienced an abusive relationship with an adult as boys. It is only now that the few wish to see the past through a different prism and suggest that abuse was everywhere. It wasn't and they are wrong. Thank you for pointing that out. Oh and you're also right, fit lads attracted the girls, well I did anyway ;-) there was always a crowd of them watching boys play rugby - but maybe these days they should be arrested for loitering????

Julia on 26th October 2023 at 22:15

Perhaps you're one of those people who always finds the truth hurtful?

Back in the day when I was at school, the playground bully would have been sent for the cane, no other outcome was possible. Instead, I've adopted a modern day approach and recognised that the subject has a mental health problem and suggested he seeks treatment and yet you still have a problem. My judgement is based on observation over time and of course professional expertise. I don't and never have done empathy, just truth.

I will go on to say that on a board where men discuss growing up and time at school I find it very odd that women attempt to participate as they have neither knowledge or experience. Then again, as the case of Jacintha McSherry O'Connor demonstrated so recently, women are abusers of young boys but of course it doesn't often hit the headlines.

I've got photos from the school county swimming team 1985/6 where our teacher who took us for it has both his hands on my bare shoulders in one of them and in another has a hand touching the side of my bare waist. Because of the way people talk nowadays it makes me look at them and question it. Then I come to my senses and realise it's nothing more than the fact that some people are just more tactile than others and that is all there is to it.

Maybe I'm one of the lucky ones, as I've never had problems or worries about how I look and what I'm seen like. To me, seeing some people who torture themselves over a barechest PE lesson is so much wasted time worrying about nothing. To me it is nothing I would even think about and to go bare chested or shirted would make little difference, either are just fine and one is no worse than the other. If somebody wants to look at me, let them, so what, and if they want to judge me, go ahead, what do I care as long as I'm fine with what I look like.

Actually one of the most embarrassing things about my swimming photos I've mentioned is not that we are wearing tight trunks that show one or two of us up a bit, or our bare bodies, but the limp damp looking long eighties mullet hairdo's that three or four of us seem to be sporting that really have not stood the test of time. I can't believe some of us were allowed to be in school with them and told not to get our hair cut shorter.

Being on the boys swimming team at school was beneficial far beyond just the actual swimming. It shot my confidence up considerably, made us popular with teachers and the opposite sex and girls liked boys on the swim team as they knew it meant we were rather fit lads who took care of ourselves.

When I was 15 me and my friend Stu who was also on the swimming team spent a whole lunch hour in a dining room both sitting in a tub of cold baked beans in just our pants for a hospice charity connected to a young teacher who we'd lost to cancer shortly before.

I started school quiet and rarely the type to put my hand up and ended it outgoing and up for anything.

Comment by: Hugh on 26th October 2023 at 13:56
Alan on 26th October 2023 at 03:28
There is one sort of doctor that you normally don't need to make an appointment with, it is made for you, usually without your knowledge and he will just turn up. That's how many people have their first encounter with a psychiatrist. Think on it and tread carefully or it might just happen.



Are these really the words a medical doctor would write Hugh? They seem very aggressive and lacking empathy, everything I don't expect from a doctor.

Jason on 26th October 2023 at 19:30

Thank you for you post. I've watched this board on and off and I don't know how many times I've seen a poster with something positive to contribute start out but be repeatedly attacked by Alan because they don't fit his perverse agenda that no one else seems to identify with. The latest was of course Barney who was accused of 'loitering' when he stopped to watch some sport. There have been many others.

It's refreshing today to see the majority of guys calling out the behaviour and I really do hope it changes things but I won't hold my breath but I guess the lesson is to keep calling it out. There is lots of interesting and innocent chat here and long may it continue.

That's right 'Anon'.

I know he defended himself quite well but one of the more disappointing things I've seen on here in the last two months or so is the reaction to Nathan, mainly from you Alan it has to be said. He seemed to me like an outwardly sociable and articulate person keen to make his case as someone doing a PE job right now that is talked about on here. There was nothing in anything he said that gave me any reason to criticise but Alan you made a determined effort to drag Nathan down to the level of your own low expectations and rotten teacher for doing his job in the way anyone might expect. You made him feel guilty for being a PE teacher at a school that requires showers and you even made him feel guilty for having some PE lessons where boys might run about without their shirts on for a bit, questioning why, with the underlying insinuation that this is being done for less than decent and proper reasons. That gentleman was immediately placed into a highly defensive position. Yet wouldn't most of us agree that there is absolutely nothing wrong in the comments that Nathan made, or a PE teacher doing those things.

I’ve thought long about making this post:

Alan – you made a statement about school holidays which contained a basic (but understandable) error. A number of people corrected you but instead of saying something along the lines of: ‘Oh – I didn’t know that – thanks for the information’ you just grudgingly say that ‘Virtually every school in my area regardless of age have their half term in the last fall week of October’.

Barney’s comments of 25th October ring very true. In Junior school in the late 1950s a friend did live in a ‘2 up, 2 down’ as described by Barney, whilst in the 60s a very good friend lived in a ‘model’ 1930s Council House that was basically 2 up, 2 down (and looking on the web they’re now selling for quite good prices). Although I lived (still do live) in a three bedroom semi that came to my parents ‘through the family’ we were certainly not rich. Barney says having three blazers in seven years – I can beat that – I had two, and the comment about the numbers of shirts & underpants runs true. As has been said – clothes were bought a bigger and you grew into them – I’m not sure how many pairs of gym shorts I had in seven years but it wasn’t a lot. Being an only child didn’t cause problems with privacy except that you were told never to lock the toilet or bathroom doors (or your bedroom door) because you might not be able to get them open again (and what if there was a fire in the night?).

Barney’s comment along the lines of being the ‘first from the family at Grammar School’ resound with me, and I also thing back to ‘family pride’ with memories of going off to University (and indeed the maternal ‘trepidation’ when I disappeared off to Nepal many years ago).
For many of us the past is ‘another country’ – I look back and wonder whether I could have done things differently (& better) but I do know that I got a very good education in a Grammar School in the ‘state system’. This is possibly getting ‘off topic’ but I know of many youngsters of my age from a ‘working class’ background who went on and made a success of things in life, despite all that the ‘system’ threw at us.

I think it must have been somewhere around about 1974 when our dad hung a shower up in front of the bath at home. I would have been 10 years old at the time and had a brother aged 8 and a sister aged 6. When we had all been a bit younger and a bit smaller our mum used to throw all three of us in the bath at the same time on Sunday nights at about half seven in the evening. As we got bigger it was just me and my brother, we used to have a lot of fun together actually and make a bit of fun of it as we would be left alone for a bit before getting told to jump out. Our sister was often jealous she couldn't fit in and join us.

Dad had a job that meant he needed to take a bath every single night of the week when he got home, he was a self employed builder, and so we were never allowed or able to have baths in the week so there was enough hot water for him.

After the shower was fixed up it changed our bathing habits and all three of us used to have to stand in the bath while mum unhooked the shower and showered us while we stood there. She would not let us do that bit ourselves incase we wet the entire room or wasted hot water which the shower saved on. It was nothing like a power shower though, just a steady spray. We'd be soaked wet and then it would stop while we had to wash ourselves sharing the same soap bar then be rinsed down. It was much quicker than a bath but not as much fun as we loved Matey bubble baths. I still shared the bath sometimes with my brother until I was maybe 13 and he was 11 just because it was a fun thing to do sometimes, but mostly it was showers at home.

I never felt at all self conscious at home sharing the shower or bath with the other two but when I started to take PE showers at school I was hit by an unexpected self consciousness I didn't expect and it seemed very different to sharing at home. I soon adjusted though. This was in the mid 70s. I must have taken my first school communal shower in autumn of 1975 as that's when I started the big school, a secondary modern. The importance of showering after PE at that school was impressed upon each of us quite firmly I seem to remember and there was no tolerance from the PE teachers at that school for anybody who thought they'd like to be different and not do so. Showers were compulsory and they made sure you took them and they watched every move we made. Sensitivities not included. A plain water shower was not acceptable, we had our little glycerin browny orange soaps and we had to use them all over with our hands. PE teachers of the time were not exactly what I'd call lovable characters and could often be quite abrupt with you which possibly didn't sit very well with your average sensitive 12 year olds getting used to the new ways. What I do remember is that they didn't like those who made excuses, whined about stuff, bunked off or wouldn't try and make some effort. I don't think they were there to be loved were they and most people if surveyed would probably say they hated PE lessons and even more would probably say they hated school showers if they were honest about it.

Greg2 wrote "At my eventual secondary school, I immediately discovered that the headmaster there seemed to have an instant dislike for me. I didn’t understand this for a long time, thinking he was just strict and difficult, but in the end I discovered the reason. He’d been a Spitfire pilot during the war, and so really hated the Germans. So, as an innocent 12 year old whose mother just happened to come from Berlin, I didn’t stand a chance with him. We somehow had a slightly different look about us as well, so I suppose we stood out a little, which didn’t help either."

That is disgusting and proves what I have often said, and that is that some people should never be allowed in the teaching profession, and those who are should be subject to psychological assessment. prior to employment.There are and were she lunatics about. Whatever his war experiences were, he should have risen above them.

I would suggest it was this type of man, and many others with very jaundiced outlooks, who continued to poison their profession, who should seek the treatment that "Doctor' (if, indeed, he is a doctor) Hugh suggests is appropriate for me.

Alan,
During the first Covid lockdown I really struggled to cope with bitter memories from early in my career - my work had been claimed by other people, who had far less talent than I.
Three years later and I have been able to find my peace - and in fact, dismiss those no talents for what they were.
But at no point did I make my problems anyone else's - apart from a great friend who has had similar problems.
Whatever caused your problems (YOUR problems!!!):

YOU HAVE NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER TO VENT YOUR FRUSTRATION, BITTERNESS AND IREA on anyone else.

There have been several interesting contributions, in between others, on here over the last few weeks, and Barney, I thought your 26th October 12:12 was lovely to read through. There is usually at least one teacher who will be a problem during your time at school, and I certainly found mine. The consequences you found for yourself, initially due to an idiotic sounding Geography teacher, but also together with your dad’s strictness, I found upsetting to read. I hope it all worked out for you in the end. Thank you for posting it.

It inspired me to quickly write a mini autobiography of my own school years, and it would be interesting to read others. A bit off the beaten track of gym stories, but let’s hope this diversion is acceptable just for the moment.

I too had my childhood in the 60s going into the 70s and can certainly relate to a lot you say. I’d never even had a shower to wash beneath before school, only the quick run through a cold one on entering the swimming pool area when there, which wasn’t the same. We had a bath in our bathroom at home, which I remember sharing with a brother when little, before graduating to taking it myself a few years later. We would come downstairs to help dry off in front of the coal fire in the evenings during the junior school years. Your family meal treats on bath nights sound lovely, and must hold special memories for you.

I loved my junior school years. It was a beautiful school building and setting, with no upstairs, so widely spread out and surrounded by large lawns. I had borderline 11 plus results and remember not knowing whether I would go to grammar school for some time as it seemed to be based on how many from the area passed properly that year. In the end I wasn’t selected, and do remember that my same age girlfriend at that time did go, which didn’t really bother me.

Secondary school experience was different. I did go to a very good school for a short time, which had been arranged by my final year junior school teacher who was moving there for the new school year. She became the art and music teacher there, and had even arranged for me to be in her form. She liked my family, I think because we were all artistic. My elder brother was quite brilliant at drawing, and I was naturally musical, both of which she seemed to admire. She even arranged for me to have a voice trial for the nearby cathedral school, which I passed, but decided not to take up.

I did go to the better school for a short time, but it proved too far to go every morning when recovering from a leg injury. So, I ended up at the local secondary school, which I remember as a big family discussion. A vivid memory of that time is lying in bed while looking at my new school uniform hanging from the wardrobe on it’s hanger, and knowing that it would have to be changed again as I fell asleep.

At my eventual secondary school, I immediately discovered that the headmaster there seemed to have an instant dislike for me. I didn’t understand this for a long time, thinking he was just strict and difficult, but in the end I discovered the reason. He’d been a Spitfire pilot during the war, and so really hated the Germans. So, as an innocent 12 year old whose mother just happened to come from Berlin, I didn’t stand a chance with him. We somehow had a slightly different look about us as well, so I suppose we stood out a little, which didn’t help either.

Consequently, I became a slight rebel during my last year there, and I can’t believe some of the things I got up to. I think that around the age of 15 or so, a boy starts to have more of an understanding of self-awareness, and indeed, self-respect. This can then lead to resentments, but these are still dealt with in a childish way. I therefore left school as soon as I could and so found myself at home wondering what i would do next. So, a mundane job set up by an uncle who knew the manager there, followed by learning a trade, then eventually back to college to catch up where i'd left off a few years before. My old headmaster would be very surprised to know that I eventually did obtain all qualifications required for the profession I ended up with, but none of it was with any thanks to him.

Barney. Lovely comment.

Many of the comments in the past year have been very readable and decent reads just laying out things as they happened to be. I do agree that if you go digging far further back there looks to have been one or two iffy comments along certain lines that didn't look like they were being genuinely placed for the right reasons, but most sensible adults can make their own judgements on what they read.

But going back to you Barney and your father. This is a great way of seeing how times have changed. I think you will probably agree with me that if a parent nowadays was to do those things you describe then they would be in a lot of trouble, possibly be in criminal court and even lose the child to care.

This just shows why it is almost impossible to apply today's rules and attitudes about doing things to times long ago, it just doesn't end well if you try to. I'm quite sure that you Barney would not even think for a moment to strike your child or grandchild a dozen times. I remember the comment a few weeks ago that said that life in the past, regards young people, was more physical and this is fact whether we like it or not. I felt the hand of both my parents many times when young and a couple of times from a teacher also. This would best be described as reasonable chastisement in those days.

If I may turn to Alan and offer some gentle words of well meaning advice, and it is simply this - in this life it's often not what you are saying that is the problem but the way you are saying it. Many fair minded and reasonable people, I hope I count as one of those, would find some of your points agreeable but they are made in what seems like an overly strident and provocative way instead of a more level headed composed fashion.

Call it a sixth sense but I feel you might have already taken Hugh's advice in the past possibly and spoken to somebody about your childhood like many adults do in later life. But that's your business not mine. We certainly shouldn't make assumptions one way or the other.

I do hope further comments don't now descend into personal infighting.

Alan on 26th October 2023 at 03:28

There is one sort of doctor that you normally don't need to make an appointment with, it is made for you, usually without your knowledge and he will just turn up. That's how many people have their first encounter with a psychiatrist. Think on it and tread carefully or it might just happen.

My goodness, before I first posted here, I didn’t see a list of board rules listing what may or may not be discussed, I’ve looked again and I haven’t missed it. The term ‘toxic troll’ used by one poster seems appropriate, I’d add embittered to that. I’ll post a bit about my experiences of growing up in the 1960s, I think it’s allowed.
Mike on 25th October 2023 at 13:35
Thank you for your comment. I suspect you and I grew up in different worlds where in mine, communal showers were certainly a luxury and I looked forward to the times in the week when I would have one, it was just so nice and refreshing. That said, what my mum called ‘men’s bath night’ was always quite good fun at home. There was no particular order to it other than dad always went last and you had to give the back of whoever was after you a good scrub as you got dry – woe betide you if you left the bathroom wet and dripped water on the lino outside. Then wrapped in our towels, we all went down to the back room to sit around the fire while mum cooked fish and chips in the scullery. When we’d eaten, she would strike up on the piano and we would sing for the rest of the evening.

On Saturday nights which was mum’s bath night, dad would cook her a Vesta meal – (remember them) while she bathed and they would take it in the front room – the only time in the week it was used unless we had an important visitor and they would spend the evening in there. That said, when I was revising for o and a levels, I was allowed to sit in the front room in the evenings to do it because this was regarded as so important.

The day I started grammar school, dad took the day off work and he walked me to school the first morning and on the way he told me that the only thing I would ever get into trouble with him for was not trying my best. I was lucky, I had an opportunity that he and my brothers had never had and I should take it with both hands and make the most of it. When we got to the gates, he shook my hand and told me to walk ahead into the land of dreams and opportunities and seize them.

I loved school from day one and almost all the masters were kind and encouraging but there was one, a geography master who used to refer to lads like me as the ‘backstreet charity boys’ and he paid us little attention and a lot of cutting remarks. I loved geography and fortunately this man only taught us for one year and at the end of each term he wrote on my report that I could try harder and do better so I got the strap at home.

Over the years at school, I got into as many scrapes as any other lad at school. Getting the cane always resulted in a letter home. Dad would read it and say I had deserved my punishment and it was over. A line on my report though that said I could try harder and things got serious. The sanction was ‘grandad’s strap’ which my dad had felt as a boy. It hung on the door of the back room and we all got it ‘when we needed it’ and a boy not trying his best definitely needed it. It was about two feet long and three inches wide and made of heavy leather. The standard twelve whacks of that had you stamping your feet and in tears after four and begging him to stop after eight, he never did though, twelve it was. I got over it and tried harder! That’s how life was.

Brian on 25th October 2023 at 19:14

I think we all walk innocently by such places while out and about, looking at what’s going on is healthy. I stopped to watch lads rugby training this morning and strangely I haven’t been arrested for ‘loitering’ or indeed anything else. It’s good to see and funnily enough, I care about how well the next generations are doing. I totally agree with your sentiments about the supposed PE lesson you saw, if anyone is wrong here, it’s the teacher taking the lesson for going ahead under those circumstances.

Alan on 26th October 2023 at 03:28

Here we go again with attacks on posters who come along and make posts that do not conform to your idea of what this board should be about.

You are very boring and tedious and I rather hope that on this occasion people you are being abusive to do not simply go in the way that usually happens but why on earth on the other hand should they engage with a disturbed person who wishes to do nothing other than be a toxic troll who is best ignored?

Are you perhaps the owner of the board and have set it up for your own gratification?

If not, will the owner of the board please deal with the Alan problem so that healthy discussion may continue?

Hugh. Thank you "doctor" for your diagnosis.To think I didn't even have to phone for an appointment, and you were able to give your prescription without even a phone consultation!. I really am humbled.

Barney said in terms, Brian, that he "stopped to watch", he didn't suggest he was just walking along.

I will be blunt, I do find some of the posts on here disturbing. here is a quote from one completely at random : "Seeing other lads the same age either bare chested or naked allowed you to see that they were developing in the same way as you, the obvious things were muscular growth, body hair developing, testicles dropping and penis growing larger.". I think you would have ended up with a black eye if you had studied fellow pupils in that way in my school, and my question remains WHY are middle aged men so prurient in wanting to know what boys are wearing (or not wearing) today, having left school. decades ago . WHY does it bother yesterdays poster, for example, that pupils were fully covered last week when he witnessed a games lesson?. I could answer that it could be because these days some teachers are more sensitive and understanding of their pupils feelings, it might be a health or safety issue (in summer even people working on building sites are now told to cover up because of the danger of skin cancer in being uncovered in summer), or it might be because we now have multicultural schools where there are religions which do not allow it's adherents to dress what they would regard as "immodestly".

In the past we have had screeds of messages about "discipline" and the use of canes and slippers, nude swimming and for a time much discussion on "jock straps", which thankfully seems to have abated now.

Only the writers know why they have written what they have. I recall one person mentioning they were obliged to do PE lessons naked - does anybody, even the most ardent supporter of the "good old days" really believe that tripe?.

For myself, I recognise that we are in 2023, people have minds of their own, and we have moved on from the days of the old cane swishing hack enjoying himself at the pupils expense, we have older pupils forced to stay at school longer h
and that they shouldn't be babied and "told"what to wear and certainly not given physical punishments or humiliation. It is sad so many of you still seem to be stuck in VE Day.

Perhaps "Doctor Hugh" might like to open his cyber surgery for some of those gentlemen.

"Alan on 25th October 2023 at 03:29
I wouldn't recommend loitering outside schools these days, but, as this is half term week throughout the country, and you claimed to have done this "this morning", perhaps it wasn't so odd as it sounds.

Comment by: Alan on 25th October 2023 at 16:25
Virtually every school in my area regardless of age have their half term in the last fall week of October."

Dear oh dear caught out again with your sewage posts and attempts at suggesting sleaze. The disordered person here is you, stop suggesting it's others.

You might remember my posts from some time back which were verified by another poster and that I'm a doctor. Go and get yourself some treatment. You need it and leave decent people alone.

To Greg, I was generally shy for a long period of time. It probably took me until I was maybe around 35 to 40 to grow out of it. I have no recollection of being shy about going swimming at primary school at all, which was done in mixed classes all together. But I was definitely not thrilled the first time I showed up at secondary school and was told I did not need to bother placing a top on for a PE lesson, and that was amongst just boys whereas the swimming had been boys and girls. For some boys I think something changes quite rapidly between the age of around 10 and the age of 12. School showers are mentioned a lot on these pages and isn't it fair to say that most of us at school stepped into them when told to with a bit of trepidation or reluctance at first? But if I had to give advice to anyone facing such things right now I'd say they will be more bearable than you probably imagine. That was my own experience. I had a view of how the school showers environment would be and it didn't match what I thought and was far less of a problem than I anticipated it might be.

The best way I think I can put it is that I simply had to learn to cope and feel okay to be able to go naked among a group or remain shirtless in a lesson, and learn to do it I did. Without school I would never have chosen to do any of those things and now as an adult I'm not so sure I would choose to do so with any great enthusiasm if the situation presented itself somehow. I was taken with Craig's comments about his running group however and who that attracts and what he said about it. I was extremely good at running in school and it gave me some of my best marks.

If you were to have given me the choice of whether to stand up in front of the school and read aloud, maybe give a short speech to a packed assembly, or to take continued naked showers with a couple of dozen others then I'd easily take the showers, that would be far easier to me than giving a speech to school. Yet I didn't think of myself as especially lacking in confidence more than anyone else even if I was a more reticent person.

I'm sure what I'm saying here must be very familiar to the average person surely.

You are most welcome to the comment, there was one thing I remember a very good decent PE teacher I had who once said that positivity was infectious. Being around positive people lifts others up, and I generally had quite positive PE teachers who added constructive comments and criticisms rather than destructive ones most of the time.

Alan there is a primary school near me where all you have to do is walk alongside on a public footpath and can clearly see them out doing PE without any need to hang about or loiter as you put it, but just pass by quite normally doing your think going about your day and observe what they're up to the other side of the diamond shaped wire fencing that is so familiar everywhere. Last week I did so and noticed that they were out doing what was clearly PE and were dressed in nothing remotely resembling any PE kit I ever wore, completely covered up and wearing jackets. What kind of PE lesson is that meant to be for heaven's sake? It wasn't even that cold that day. So I did think to myself, and I've seen it before, just why are they taking PE like that and not dressing accordingly in anything resembling a PE kit, and don't tell me it's because they are next to a public footpath.

James 23rd October at 16:27.

Thank you for your kind words.

Regarding shirtlessness, I don’t remember doing shirtless gym when older, but had done shirtless PE as long back as I could remember at Junior/Infant School, where the boys had bare feet with just their school shorts, with the girls just in their underwear. Didn’t most boys go through something like that at younger ages? Not today I expect, but it’s certainly how it was in the 60s to 70s and maybe into the 80s. Also, don’t most boys love swimming, and can’t wait to get their tops off if going to the pool? I didn’t mind too much taking my top off when growing up, maybe due to having brothers, but lost all interest in swimming from a young age. I remember this dislike was triggered by one incident when splashing about with friends around the age of 9, when one bigger boy about 14, for some reason decided to keep coming up behind me and pushing me under the water. He didn’t do this to any of the others, and so after swallowing ‘a gallon’ of horrible chlorine smelling/tasting water, I left the pool, and this put me off for years. I learnt to swim some time later in the sea.

You are completely correct, that boys will often avoid mentioning any personal bodily issues they might have with one another. I find it interesting how this masculine indifference to sensitivities is such a collective understanding, and even an expectation, of all boys at that age, and just at a time when you’re expected to deal with shirtless gym and showering. I do think that when growing up, anything we notice about our bodies; anything we might immaturely interpret as an imperfection, we probably magnify out of all proportion. At that age we don’t want to be different; don't want to jeopardise the innate need to belong, and to be accepted amongst our peer group.

I really wasn’t hoping to draw attention to myself when I went out running in my 20s without a shirt. In fact I only did this once or twice when it was really warm. I do now realise I was lucky in that I was naturally slim and proportioned okay, though not necessarily muscular, so I knew I looked, not too bad. It was more in hope of getting a bit of colour from the sun on my usually pale, fair skinned appearance. I remember using lots of lotion because I always burned so easily. My running circuit was mostly away from public roads…where people’s dogs being walked caused the most nuisance.

We did swimming until the second year of Secondary School, so up to 12 -13. When you say you were shy during school age, do you mean generally, as in hoping not to be chosen to read out your essay in front of class, or just bodily? Did you dislike showering as well as having to remove your shirt during gym? I wasn’t too bad with removing my shirt, but still bodily shy, which might sound contradictory, but I do remember lots of childhood experiences which I found uncomfortable; things that might not have bothered others. I was always sufficiently confident, but would still have chosen, when possible, to keep my trousers on!

Alan on 25th October 2023 at 16:25

There are 182 pages of this blog going back fourteen years. You can skim through it picking pages out at random and you can with a 99% degree of certainty find a post by Alan. Always expressing the same sentiments, always attempting to denigrate the contributions of a new poster who fails to agree with his 'every adult is an abuser' and school was an unhappy and abusive place line, always attempting to see the worst in what are accounts of times gone by, always looking for a line that might be sleaze.

Reading the same posts, I can't see any of those things. What I do see is a contributer who is obsessive and quite disturbed. The latest suggestion that anyone stopping to watch school sports is in some way disordered is a case in point. It certainly isn't. It's a healthy interest in how young people today are progressing and developing, something we should all care about. I can't either see anything disordered about 99.9% of the posts here. They are healthy recollections of in the main, happy childhoods. Anyone who was so unhappy is not going to find solace spreading poison here, they need professional help but of course some refuse to seek it.

I was happy at school, we had compulsory bare chested PE with cold communal showers afterwards, when we misbehaved, we got the slipper or the cane (something else Alan thinks it's wrong to mention) but in a boys school in the 1960s it was normal and I doubt if a boy went through my school without getting the cane a few times. It's a fact, it's not wrong, it's not perverted to mention it in passing. Unless you want to distort the past and pretend everyone should be as unhappy as you were and clearly are now.

Whether he wishes to engage further with me or not, I would still say it is unwise to hang around schools to look at what sports kit boys are wearing when you are in later life. Or any time at all, if you are no longer a pupil or student. I don't think it is just me who would wonder why. Talk about slippers and canes doesn't add to a good impression either. Thankfully, at least those days are now officially over.

Virtually every school in my area regardless of age have their half term in the last fall week of October.

Barney you are the second person in the past few weeks to come on here and describe the school showers as a luxury to enjoy compared to how it was at home. It's a really interesting point that has now been made twice and not something I would have ever thought about.

Tim is correct. The half term begins at some of the schools in my area on Friday and they go back on November 6th, although a couple in the same area are off this week. They are not even on uniformity within the same educational area, there are differences between secondary and primary schools where some that have a child at both have got them off school in consecutive weeks, quite annoying if you want to go somewhere as a family for half term and the holiday doesn't match up.

Can I just say that I do very much agree with the last paragraph that Lee has written here. I know it's something that has been written about on here previously.

Some responses from a new guy:

Jeremy on 24th October 2023 at 18:15
Certainly the world today is very different from the one I grew up in. We lived in a terrace house and I was one of four boys who shared the same bedroom - one double and two bunks. There was no privacy for anything. We weren't allowed to lock the bathroom door when washing because we had to get on with it in the mornings and make way for the next one, it was really a top and tail, we didn't have a shower, bathnight was Friday and we went in one after the other - no change of water, it would have taken too long to heat and no doubt cost too much. My dad went in last, mum had her own bath on a Saturday. The 'privy' was at the bottom of the yard with a door that didn't really fit well.

I certainly grew up seeing other boys naked and so when I went to grammar school, the first one from our family, and under pressure to do well, the last thing that bothered me was being bare chested with other boys or PE masters and compared to Friday night baths, communal showers were an utter luxury to be enjoyed as you chatted with mates.

Seeing other lads the same age either bare chested or naked allowed you to see that they were developing in the same way as you, the obvious things were muscular growth, body hair developing, testicles dropping and penis growing larger. Bearing in mind that there was no sort of 'sex education' back then, the best on offer was seeing other lads were developing in the same way as you were so all very healthy and reassuring.

I would say I was always very comfortable in my body and still am. I've, as usual been in the gym this morning, I showered afterwards in a communal shower with three other men and I think nothing of it. We had good humour and banter as we washed away the sweat.

Bernard on 24th October 2023 at 21:36
Yes indeed - these days when you see so much branded gym kit (which I am guilty of indulging in myself because I like it and these days can afford it) even today you wonder how much pressure parents are under financially to buy it. My old school still has a very simple sports wear policy of white shorts and one pair of trainers and a towel for a shower just the same as when I was at school, branding is not allowed.

It was what we wore for all activity except rugby and only then, if you were picked for the team did you need boots, socks, black shorts and a rugby shirt. I was picked for the team and I remember that my mum 'went without' to be able to afford the kit. I learned quite quickly that when I needed any sort of new school uniform - my brothers went to the secondary modern which didn't have a uniform - that I always got it a bit on the large side, I grew into it and then wore it all a bit tight before I asked for new, knowing that money was tight and sacrifices would be made to pay for it. Over seven years, I had three school blazers and I had two white shirts at a time and they had to last a week between washes, the same with underpants, two pairs so it's as well we were told to take them off for PE as otherwise they wouldn't have lasted the week either and that wasn't unusual back then.

Alan on 25th October 2023 at 03:29
The dates of half term are not universal across the country. In this patch state schools are off this week, private ones are off next week.

I find the remainder of your post what I will gently term, 'the product of a disturbed mind'. I won't engage with you or your posts further than to say that.

Alan ... your comment re school half terms ... I'm sorry but these dates are not uniform throughout the UK.
T