Burnley Grammar School

Craig on 1st December 2023 at 21:48

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


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

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

Alan on 20th December 2008 at 10:53

He just can't help himself.

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

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

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

Jason.

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

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

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


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

You two just don't give up do you.

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

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

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



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

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





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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr Chippy on 30th November 2023 at 17:19

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

Barney on 30th November 2023 at 12:29

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

Alan on 30th November 2023 at 12:49

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hugh on 30th November 2023 at 16:19

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

Will on 30th November 2023 at 17:35

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Craig - "bareskin runner" man.

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

I've never gone to work expecting my colleagues to be my actual friends but I have gone to work expecting them to be basically civil and friendly towards me most of the week. I think children going to school should at least expect the same from all their teachers. How ironic to find I was met with such an unfriendly reply, still at 74 there's a first time for everything. Why am I feeling some things here are less than real, is anyone else?

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


I'm not claiming to be a school teacher here James, which is relevant to the nature of this discussion, therein lies the difference. I'm an NHS radiographer currently working at the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital which adds nothing to the discussion does it. But happy to have answered your question fully. I've been doing the job for the past 25 years.

Unless I am mistaken I believe Alan who you also mentioned has indeed make his own occupation quite clear many times hasn't he, including today if you haven't noticed like I have.

Rob on 30th November 2023 at 18:19

I always think those advocating this sort of approach should post their own C.V. first just to show intent, example and seriousness. You don't seem to have done so, please rectify this.

Of course the other mystery remains the work and occupation of Alan Dando as I think he's best now called, what he does remains a mystery. Well, apart from collecting information on school uniforms at the current time.

Comment by: Mr Chippy on 30th November 2023 at 17:19


A fair point about carpentry but I was only speaking for myself. My interest was in electronics, especially acoustics, and music.

I am a bit of a perfectionist, and unless I can be really good at something, I don't want much to do with it. I was never going to be a Thomas Chippendale.

Again, this goes back to choice - there should be provision for lads who want to become proficient carpenters - or anything. Learning to become really proficient in a skill, carpentry, joinery, or for example, music, requires a lot of study - you don't need other distractions. Making them stay on at school till they are 18, using the standard syllabus will preclude a lot of apprenticeship opportunities, since the shrinking opportunities will go to people who have the right contacts. So often in this tight little island it is not what you know but who you know.

Comment by: Mike on 29th November 2023 at 21:25
Nathan Hind 2015 - present, Graham Butterfield 1975 - 2015 and Robert Coulson 1967 - 2009 are the three people in current and long term past PE teaching who have regularly come on here and spoken about the profession in recent times on History World and this discussion has been all the better for their inclusion. But I have noticed that one thing binding those three together that sets them apart from many others here is that all of them have been prepared to give a lot of personal information, all use their full names and also tell us about an actual named school.



Comment by: Phil on 29th November 2023 at 22:54
Mike, 29th November 2023 at 21:25

That's an observation that I had not taken notice of but very well noted Mike. I think I understand the point you are making with it.




I think a lot more open and basic transparency on this site would be a good thing so that we know who to take seriously and know who we can discard as unreliable.

Hugh says 'it was a real sign of being grown up'.

I'd like to suggest that those who are bickering on here like petulant teenagers at each others throats, on either side of opinion might just like to take their feuds elsewhere, their private emails or whatever and let anyone else just get on with some semblance of an actual decent conversation please.

Comment by: Hugh on 30th November 2023 at 16:19


What a bore. I am not Mr. Dando, and if you are so concerned I am, why not contact the administrator of this site and get him to confirm that Mr Dando's unique web address is not mine.You have the option to contact me direct, if you are that desperate to confirm my bona fides. It is up to you to seek your own remedies. I have to say, I do not agree with Mr. Dando in several things, and I have neither the time or the inclination to trawl school websites to see their uniform requirements. Clear now?

As to the rest of your post to, and about me, I never think it sensible to take "advice" from unsolicited sources on the internet. Some people are in no position to offer the advice they claim to be able to give, because they are not qualified to proffer it.. Sorry to be blunt, "doctor". Or are you the barrister|? - your posts are so similar, I get confused with who is who sometimes.

'In my case I didn't like woodwork, because to me the future is electronics and plastic, not wood, but I went along with it, and just about scraped through' - Alan.


Tell that to all the carpenters around the place working on new builds as we speak. Carpentry has never been more sought after or paid so well for the properly qualified. Then there's furniture too, and fencing and a whole lot more besides.

Mr Chips, I remember having a jockstrap for rugby, it was a real sign of being grown up! I think I got it when I was fifteen, the PE department supplied them and we just had to bring in the money, I think it was £1. Interesting you can still buy them at that source of everything, Amazon not that I want one, these days I'm a compression shorts man as recommended by my physio who knows a thing or two about staying fit in sport.


Alan on 30th November 2023 at 12:49

Dear oh dear.

You still seem to be making very angry posts when others don't fall meekly in line with your view of the world and how it should be or should have been once when it wasn't. You really must get past this. Did you take any of my advice? I suspect not, given all the bile you posted in response to it.

You seem to want to group those who disagree with you or don't engage with you as some sort of conspiracy and yet you deny being Alan Dando. How very strange.

Barney it is nice to hear that jockstraps are still around and still appreciated. I too wear one for gym. Ignore what others say, Just do and say what you want.

I completely get what Robert Coulson said yesterday.

I had a pair of really down to earth, easy to get on with, and certainly I'd describe them as friendly teachers for PE. They went out of their way to help everyone, even the least able within our classes. But we definitely knew not to push our luck with them because when they did occasionally lose it with someone it would really hit home and make you quake as you looked on, but it was so rare. For anyone thinking that these teachers let us off the usual PE requirements, forget it, they still made us all do them.

Comment by: Original Andy on 30th November 2023 at 09:13
Today's missive from my friend Andy reads:

"Alan on 29th November 2023 at 16:51
Mr Dando on 29th November 2023 at 19:20
Alan on 30th November 2023 at 07:28

Well, well, once again we find posts lined up to render an attack on a poster who doesn't fit the Alan agenda that everyone here must adhere to.

The obsession with what children wear for PE at the current time, continuously referred to by Alan Dando is very unhealthy and it's clearly an obsession.

As many have said including Mr Chips who now appears to be the latest victim of Alan, (it makes a change from it being me as I've now been reduced to snide comments)"


A few comments, only

1) I am NOT "Mr. Dando

2) You state openly that " I've - [eg, you] = now been reduced to snide comments"

Yes I am sure we all get your impassive disdain (and not just to me, either). For the record, as I think I have made very clear, it is not to be pre-occupied by minimalism in school PE kit, but merely to point out - as "Mr Chips" to his credit did, - that pupils should be allowed to wear what they comfortable in.

If I might be allowed to say so, it is your goodself who seems to be more obsessed than myself - for example yesterday, you had to add the detail that you wore a jockstrap at school. Did we need to know that?. I certainly didn't.

Where I take issue with "Mr Chips" and strangely - just like you - he employs a dismissive tone and uses a rather vague disingenuous argument for so doing, and didn't answer my question - I am used to that, as "Dr Hugh" did a very similar thing), is his apparent relish at talking about caning boys. I merely asked him if it crossed his mind he might sometimes have caned the wrong "culprit," and if that concerned him. A fair question but one he chooses not to answer.

I really am a bit fed up with your "snide comments" Andy, - as you are honest enough to admit they are.- and your somewhat hyperbolic accusations might carry more weight if you had the courage to put your real name to them.

For the record all my comments appear under my real name and I have from time to time published my email address. I know you say you believe I do this for nefarious reasons, but I have done so again today. Anyone can contact me if they wish - even you. I'd encourage you to do so rather than spread venom and wild accusations on this site. If you have some personal animosity towards me, it would be better to discuss it openly with me. I have been as open as I can be on this forum. Over to you, mate!

Mr Chips on 28th November 2023 at 15:03 & 29th November 2023 at 16:01

Thank you for another couple of informative posts.

I laughed when I read your account of getting laundry done at home. I don't remember my mum having to do it all by hand but I really do remember the washing machine that moved the clothes around, it was a Hoover something I think and then you had to pull them out and put them through a hand wringer. Then she moved on and had a 'twin tub' with a spin dryer but you still had to do a lot of lifting of wet things to use it. After I started work I wanted to buy my mum an automatic washing machine but she wouldn't hear of it, they took too long and surely I had better things to spend my money on. She did eventually get one but she never thought much of it. How would we live without them today I wonder?

So yes, we didn't have many clothes but I do remember being told that I needed a jockstrap for PE and asking dad for the money which he gave me without question and I started to wear it, it felt great and so grown up. I played rugby for years and wore one right through that time and indeed still wear one at the gym for my old gits session each day and so do the guys I train with. To our amusement just a few weeks ago a couple of younger lads, meaning those about 30 came and asked us where to get them and of course the answer to that is the same as anything else these days, Amazon. I see they've bought them so maybe they are coming back into fashion.

I would also say I went to work to work, not to be friends with anyone. I always found the over friendly approach of some to be thoroughly unhealthy. You may make friends with a work colleague, you don't go to work to make friends unless you have a very strange out look on life and in any event, I had enough friends outside of work without looking for more. The term 'professional distance' springs to mind about work, when that is compromised is where problems arise.

It seems new posters here are often attacked unless they fit an unhealthy mantra. When I said in my first post that I had stopped to watch some lads doing rugby training the response was that I had been 'loitering'.

I do wonder if the poster knows the definition of that but it is generally a reflection of unsavoury activity so an utter insult in response to my first post. It said way, way more to me about the mindset and intelligence of the poster than it did about me, pausing on my way home to watch rugby training at a school I attended as a boy and where I am now a governor who has had all the necessary checks to ensure my suitability for that role.

Some people want to drag everyone down to their level with sewage flowing through what should be a brain and their obsession with the unhealthiest aspect of anything. Others shouldn't engage with this. This is a forum with many contributors and no one is obliged in any way, though it does seem that those who refuse to engage are subject to insults and snide comments. How very childish but then someone who is obsessed with their past can't possibly have grown up.

Alan on 29th November 2023 at 16:51
Mr Dando on 29th November 2023 at 19:20
Alan on 30th November 2023 at 07:28

Well, well, once again we find posts lined up to render an attack on a poster who doesn't fit the Alan agenda that everyone here must adhere to.

The obsession with what children wear for PE at the current time, continuously referred to by Alan Dando is very unhealthy and it's clearly an obsession.

As many have said including Mr Chips who now appears to be the latest victim of Alan, (it makes a change from it being me as I've now been reduced to snide comments) those at school now should have choices we never did have.

All that said, I was always quite content in my plimsolls and white cotton shorts out for a run even on a morning like this one with a heavy frost. You soon warmed up. I have good memories and although I have only done weight training for several years, I'm almost tempted to get back out there and do some bare skin running.

Comment by: Robert Coulson - Teacher 1967-2009 on 29th November 2023 at 18:04


I entirely agree with Robert that you can be friendly at the same time as maintaining, for want of a better word, standards. Though never a teacher, when I employed Saturday lads, I was able to get them to understand that if, for example,, a courier was coming to pick up a parcel at midday, you wanted it ready for collection at 11.45, not 12.15 and you wanted them to be on top of things without having to keep telling them.. Whatever the occupation, work is always more enjoyable AND productive if you keep amicable relations with everybody involved. As a consequence I found that my assistants were always cooperative. I see no point at shouting at people and behaving like a martinet, calling them only by surname.

Robert makes the point that one of his colleagues kept a nicer personality behind his dour outward expression - acting against your natural type always looks phony, and you see it every day with politicians. In the end it is self-defeating because people will see you are acting (which Robert clearly did). Nathan always ensures his lads are properly dressed when they go running in winter - admirable and sensible and it is good that he ensures the welfare of his pupils. One would hope that all teachers in 2023 would be as considerate.

Given all this I am surprised that there are still people (we see them on HW) who hanker after the "good old days", which were anything but.

Somebody the other day (I have forgotten his name) asked if there were subjects other than PE which we disliked. In my case I didn't like woodwork, because to me the future is electronics and plastic, not wood, but I went along with it, and just about scraped through But the thing is that all of the other subjects were taught in classrooms or workrooms fully dressed, not in some dingy, dirty, cold assembly hall-come gym, with a very dubious teacher.

There are some subjects - I am sure the teachers here might agree - which are going to be of no practical use to most of us (when was the last time algebra come in useful in your daily working lives?), especially in this computerised Google world?. We go along with the curriculum because it is there, fixed and pointless, like putting the clocks back at the end of October. Like so many things in Britain we love tradition. My point is that if we are going to force lads and girls to stay at school till they are 18, education should be geared to getting them to do the subjects that interest them or will be useful to them personally (and yes that includes PE if they want some sort of career in sport) but a firm no to the things they don't want to do. I emphasize I am talking about older teenagers, who, in a country that had not been let down by successive governments of both persuasions, would have been free to be out of school and following their own individual career paths. The one thing education doesn't need are Mr Crocker-Harris's in 2023 (I was watching the film The Browning Version a few days ago and this austere figure reminded me of several people who have very "traditional" views on education, some of which are vouchsafed on here). I think the only way to communicate with the older teenagers is to treat them in a friendly way, not as conscripts undergoing National Service in 1950.

Mike, 29th November 2023 at 21:25

That's an observation that I had not taken notice of but very well noted Mike. I think I understand the point you are making with it.