Burnley Grammar School

Just a question to all these men who seem to have hated communal showers and PE more generally.

Did you never play a team sport or did you never go to a gym? Both of those places require changing and showering together with other men and so did you avoid those activities between leaving school and now? If you didn't, what was so different?

Comment by: Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35
If anyone on here was in a job of work right now where your employer demanded you had to take a compulsory and fully naked communal shower with your fellow workers at the end of the day if the job got you a bit sweaty or dirty, be honest, how many people on here would seriously entertain the idea of that and go along with it?




Yes Grant I would go along with it if I was in a job like that and my boss gave me such instructions as part of my working day. If I'm being paid to do something then the boss has that right in my view and I'd readily accept it rather than blot my copybook, affect my prospects or be seen as a prude.

I believe there are diamond mines in South Africa where the workforce has to submit to compulsory cavity strip searching after shifts by their bosses to ensure no theft of valuable gems. It makes your question seem quite tame in comparison Grant. But you take the job knowing the facts, you can't complain.

Maybe 'Mr Chips' nickname at school was, er....'Mr Chips'. But that just sounds too quaint for me, I know what real nicknames sound like and they don't start with Mister anything.

We had a PE teacher called Mr Crawley for gym. He was known to most of us as 'Creepy Crawley' for many things, including the way he watched over boys and sometimes the things he said. He was always looking 'down there' at us when on shower watch.

Conscientiously object to showers at school, no. Why should that have been allowed?

Compulsory school showers for everyone at secondary level was always the best way to go and the clearest and simplest too and I support it then and now. Concerns over sharing close range group nakedness are vastly overplayed, everyone no matter how shy and self conscious about how they look to themselves or others is more than capable of overcoming such fears in quick time if they set their mind to it. Mind over body!

To the questioner who asked about first time school showering memories, mine is quite fresh to this day although it took place way back in 1971 back in my primary school where there was some light hearted teasing without bad intent on anyone's part but the standout moment for me is a lad called Justin who for some reason just could not control his laughter as he looked around at us which I think must have been the way his anxiety over the new situation we were thrown into showed itself. I think we would have all been about the age of 9 at that time so a lot younger than those who wait until they get to the seniors to shower with PE.

Come on then Mr Chips, what was your nickname at school, or maybe your had more than one over your career in various places? Every teacher knows he has nicknames so don't be shy.

Nathan, thanks for the link there, a good read there. We were planning a bareskin run this evening at 5pm in the region of about 5 miles which was going to attract about five of us but you might not be surprised to know we shelved doing that kind of length. But three of us did go out and do a quick fifteen minutes run, when the ambient air temperature was barely hovering above freezing. To me that was the running equivalent of a cold shower, or maybe those Russians who like diving through into a hole in the ice. I felt incredible when I'd finished and so did the other pair with me, two guys aged early 40s. We all had rosy red chests. But the shortened time was perfectly manageable for us, fit and healthy younger end middle aged men. The good thing about tonight was how calm conditions were to run in, despite the low temperature. I love running in calm weather. The windchill can be a right beast even at much higher temperatures, so a strong wind in say 10 degrees is far worse than a calm run in zero degrees for example. If there is a strong wind on any night we decide to bareskin run then we check the direction first. If you are the kind of person who doesn't generally moan about the cold in everyday life then running for a short time on a calm night in close to freezing air is a lot easier than you might think.

Nathan, would you bareskin run or give it a go?

Steve B on 24th November 2023 at 18:06

I don’t think challenges ever do us any hard particularly when we rise and meet them. You now have the wisdom of retrospect and can see that. Well done!

Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35

I think you are representing the view of an insignificant minority of boys here. Communal showers were and in some settings still are the norm for men and they have plenty of positives like post-game camaraderie that you would find among rugby players.

As for your time at school, what did you have free choice about? Doing your homework? Attending lessons? Sitting in a class room smelling of stale sweat and inflicting it on everyone around you? Much better that you were made to shower. I think the majority would agree and it was compulsory in case you didn’t appreciate how bad you smelled. There is no need for any teacher to think you might not want to wash, washing was required by people who didn’t want the alternative inflicting on them by you. It’s only you who doesn’t understand that simple fact.

Robbie on 25th November 2023 at 04:06

‘Ole Chips’ indeed. My hand is itching to reach for my cane ;-)

Believe me, communal baths were never great. To begin with getting enough hot water to fill one for each team was a struggle in most rugby clubs and so at the start they were usually luke warm. Then by the time you get twenty muddy guys into it, the water didn’t stay clean for long so while you got to wash mud away and as any rugby player knows, on a wet day, mud really does get everywhere, the water was now cold and pretty grey so apart from losing the mud, there wasn’t much to like about them. Showers which were hot or indeed almost any temperature you wanted were a huge improvement.

The set up at school for me was that there was a boys changing room and showers with room for about a hundred lads at a time and maybe fifty in the showers. Off it was the gym one way, the way to outside another and the other way was the PE office shared by the PE masters, it had a big window overlooking the boys changing room which met the required need to supervise the lads if the masters had other things to do. Next door and also with access to the PE office was the masters changing room and showers with room for about forty to change and twenty showers. The PE masters used this space to change and shower as would any other master. Without going through the PE office, there was no link from masters to boys.

I didn’t shower with the lads ever. We had good facilities, probably better than most places.

Was it right to shower with the lads? I think in the main no, however if I had been at an away match with a group of sixth formers and been muddy would I as a twenty two or twenty three year old showered with them? I may well have done. I’m not sure it would have done any harm and given that I, at times played alongside them and in practice tackles, my shorts had come down as often as any other man’s, it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen the bits my shorts covered often enough so I had nothing to hide from them and I had certainly seen them naked often enough.

From time to time, sixth form lads started playing rugby for the same club as me and while they weren’t on the same team, we were often in the changing room at the same time. They weren’t the only sixth formers, there were a few others from other schools and I can’t say I was conscious of them one way or the other in those circumstances. There were times when we were in the showers together and if at next heads, we used to chat as did any guys. I suspect but don’t know, that these days with safeguarding, under eighteen year olds would have to have their own changing room?

I would also say having played team sports and gone to the gym for most of my life, I really don’t notice naked in any different way to clothed, I’m not sure how to explain that but it’s not like I look any more or any differently when a man is clothed or naked and if it’s me, I don’t feel awkward. All that said, there is no way I would have got in the showers with a crowd of eleven year olds, that just seems wrong.

Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35

I don't remember communal showers being an issue for any lad, we just got on with it. I was very glad of the opportunity.

I suspect a very small number of lads now like to find something to whinge about but the five minutes a couple of times a week in the showers is hardly any issue.

If you got to pull out of any life experience you didn't like, how would you ever deal with a challenge?

Your comparison to the current world of work is irrelevant and inappropriate. My uncle was a miner, he had a communal shower with his workmates at the end of every shift and he didn't mind one bit compared to the alternative and I think my aunt was very pleased he didn't come home coloured black from coal.

This from BBC Sport may be of interest to some, possibly Craig in particular who likes his barechested running and the outdoors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/67473443

Comment by: Mike on 19th November 2023 at 00:10
I'd like to give Alan some homework.
Task: To give the most positive account of your schooldays you can possibly manage to grind out of your memory bank.
No excuses for not handing it in completed fully. You have until the end of the week.




Alan hasn't handed his homework in on time Mike!

Come on Alan, we are waiting.

The old fashioned communal bath got a mention there from ole Chips here. Those things seem to have well and truly died out in the last few years don't they. I don't think even football and rugby players in the professional leagues have such arrangements in their changing areas anymore like they once did, do they. Probably more hygienic, who really wants to sit in a bath with another ten men, half of them taking a pee in the water and farting bubbles like men do. How did anyone come out of those sports baths cleaner than they went in? Did these things exist in any schools anyone went to, possibly more likely private ones or boarders most likely if at all.

So you had your own staff communal shower, that will make our current PE teacher contributor Nathan on here rather envious I think, as he got it in the neck recently for asking his own class to shower communally while treating himself to a private one person shower in his PE office at school.

Mr Chips, what's your view on teachers who used to shower alongside their classes after PE and was it very isolated as a thing or widespread fifty years ago do you have any idea? In your case with your excellent teacher facilities it would not have been needed but would you have ever done so in other circumstances?

We had a teacher in my school who showered alongside fifth form boys on a number of occasions.

Going into the showers after PE at school, having to strip naked among a large group of others without free choice, was a really big deal to a lot of boys and girls when we went up to our secondary schools back in the 70s/80s.

Why the hell can't current or retired PE teachers actually understand that simple fact eh?

If anyone on here was in a job of work right now where your employer demanded you had to take a compulsory and fully naked communal shower with your fellow workers at the end of the day if the job got you a bit sweaty or dirty, be honest, how many people on here would seriously entertain the idea of that and go along with it?

Brian's points about objection to taking a shower in school, I've no doubt whatsoever if that kind of thing had been in some way officially available to me when I was at school I would very probably have pulled that one out and used it because I was shy and self conscious but it would have been a mistake which I can see with a bit of distance. I was far better off just being told to get on with it and doing some of the more uncomfortable things like that and with every day I did so the anxiety about it lessened quite a lot.

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?