Burnley Grammar School

I was going to respond to Alan in a similar way to you Bernard but I will reply to one or two points anyway.

So to pick up on one or two points from your reply to me.

1. One size fits all.

Nothing is perfect. In a room with thirty or more people with differing ability and attitude to PE you have to make the best of it. But PE was often divided up into ability groups anyway, sometimes within the class structure on the same timetable hour. When you get certain people who are naturally good at something you can actually find some others who it acts as an incentive with to do better. This was best noticed to me in athletics and timing trials we did. Even boys with a lower ability like to try and be competitive in such situations. It's rare that anyone just gives up. Everyone wants to be healthy and remain well and have good fitness don't they, so in this respect one size definitely fits all of us.

2. Browbeat.

I didn't like the use of this word at all. It's a complete misconception. But if we take it to its logical conclusion we are all getting browbeaten into something most weeks, children and adults alike. If you wish to use the word then it can be used against any subject matter at school, not just PE. But what does browbeaten actually mean, well forced into doing something, made to do it. I see there is even an online definition saying intimidated into doing something sternly!

Some people just don't like being told what to do in life. But this doesn't end when you leave school, it actually gets worse!

PE is there to push people into developing skills and abilities they might not even know they even had or were good at until they tried. It's not meant to be an easy ride, it's there to serve a purpose, the clue is in the physical part of the definition. But I also know that it affects a lot of people in a mental capacity as well as physical, many can't wait to leave school and never do it again. That's a shame and where PE in school fails badly if it leaves people not wanting to remain active doing something sporty or just exercising regularly.

Nutrition was mentioned a few days ago. I think there could and ought to be an academic aspect to PE where nutrition and mental aptitude is factored into the PE sphere. Without the fuel and the mind the body can't do it's job properly.

I read the piece about the boy with the GP note and that should have been accepted unconditionally without questioning. That surprised me a lot, if the facts were as presented and I don't doubt that for one moment.

3. Barechests for PE.

This one seems to draw a lot of attention. I am familiar with this myself from both sides, being both the pupil and teacher myself. I am fully aware that it might not suit everyone. But how many things during the course of a school week don't suit everyone? Special treatment opt outs are not the way to go in most cases and are often detrimental.

I see no major problem with the full class bare chests for PE issue or the asking of PE to be done ,compulsory, like this when required. I required it too many times to mention and have no concerns about that. Think of it like going to the doctors and being embarrassed without needing to be because the doctor has seen it all before and there is nothing to worry about. It's much the same really up to a point. We all worry about how we look, either to ourselves or others, I fully get that. But look at what the previous comment by Grant says. I can confirm his comment multiple times over. In PE and notably even in PE with bare chests, Time and again I saw people come out of their shells and bloom with confidence they didn't think they even had. I'm sorry when it doesn't work for some people and leaves them so deeply unhappy. Only a very few bad apples would be setting out to make anyone unhappy. There were always a hardcore who refused to try or truanted and were full of excuses on why they couldn't do things, they left me unhappy! I used to give them reasons why the certainly could do them.

In your case Alan I'd quite like to know how your average PE class panned out from the moment you walked into the changing room, did the lesson, and up to finally leaving the changing room and off to what came next. What did you do, what were you thinking, what did you wear, what were your interaction with your teachers and also fellow pupils? How did you yourself project yourself at the time in these situations? If you've got the time to spare for a detailed breakdown of how things were for you in some greater detail I'd like to read and understand it further and maybe give you some follow up thought if that is not too cheeky of me.

Sometimes we can have a psychological mindset that we need to unblock to move forward.

Josh, I was exactly the same as you in my teens! Shy about being barechested in public and couldn't make myself do it of my own accord outside of school... it was almost like I needed an authority figure to make me take my top off. That's the role my PE teacher filled I suppose, he was an imposing figure and in most lessons he would divide us into groups of vests and skins. Sometimes there was no obvious reason for it, but if he decided to make me a skin then of course I had no choice in the matter!
But I still found it difficult to take my top off voluntarily. Peer pressure probably helped as I got older though.

Alan - I appreciate that there was something terrible about your school p.e. experience that has left you very negative about p.e. and that no-one will ever change your views. I wonder if you have such negatives views about other parts of your school life where you were "forced" to do things you would have chosen not too.
As I've mentioned before at my school we did all p.e. both shirtless and barefoot though never thought about it as being forced to do it like that - that was the way it was done and we just got on with it. However, we all had to do Latin to "O" level and there were plenty of boys who resented being "forced" to do this.
Perhaps an important part of school is teaching youngsters that, if you expect to get on in life, you have to obey certain rules whether you see any value in them or not. It is, of course, sometimes possible to get rules changed if enough people feel strongly enough about it though it is wise to pick your battles. In my school there was far more anti-Latin sentiment than concern about our p.e. kit and I believe the Latin requirement was reduced soon after I left the school.

Barechested PE rocks.

I was the unconfident kid when I went into mandatory barechested PE classes in my youth and it was transformational in how I came to view myself and behave.

At school I was initially very shy about it and the only time in my youth that I ever took my tops off (other than washing/showers at home and in school) was when made to do so in very many PE classes. But I so wanted to do so in the summer months away from school but had a complete mental block and inability of being able to do so voluntarily by myself even when I actually really wanted to. I just couldn't do it unless made to do it by a schoolteacher in PE. Does anyone else here recognise this behaviour of mine in themselves?

The old footage of cycling and PE, brought back memories.

Certainly that was exactly like my PE lessons, other than we had to be barefoot as well as shirtless. We were scared of the PE teacher, after all he could slipper us, and even used the cane - you stood to attention when addressed (surnames naturally).

In the background there are numerous boys up on the wall bars, maybe as a punishment. Any minor error (or slowness) got you a period hanging from the gym wall bars with us (and it hurt your arms like hell), let go too quickly and you were likely to be stretched over the gym horse discovering how much a hard caning hurt !

Comment by: Colin on 18th July 2023 at 12:26

With all due deference , Colin, if you are a sports psychologist, I am especilly surprised that you seem to imply a "one size fits all" approach is appropriate useful or necessary. Presumably you wotk with people who WANT to excel at a sport, and good luck to them, but you have to bear in mind at school there are pupils who have little or no interest in games and "gym" (a local one in my area which opened with great fanfare just a couple of years ago has recently closed down) - those pupils are more interested in the sciences, or the arts. You cant force people to like a subject, and bullying them will never work. There has been a recent idea floated by our Prime Minister in waiting , for example, that all school children should be made to play musical instruments. Not all children are musical, I'd like to see any music teacher worth his/her salt trying to force a boy to play the trombone or violin. Then there are the practicalities - not every home has the money or space to spare, because practice is essential. Imagine three would-be musical children in a high rise flat - and more and more people live in such situations these days.

By all means encourage those who are interested, but you cannot browbeat anybody into liking your subject just because you do, and for teachers to become petulant with the kids because they do not like or cannot do what is requested of them seems puerile in the extreme. We have had in recent posts an exmple of a teacher so conceited he was not prepared to accept medical opinion - just how stupid and vainglorious was he?

Just a comment on Ricks last posting.

As people know we had National Service in the UK from the late 40s through to 1960. There is a suggestion that many of these young men were not particulary fit and that school PE teachers put these lads through it in the gym to try and develop a degree of fitness which would help them though the first weeks of basic training. Many of the PE teachers would themselves have 'done their time' and seen their unfit peers suffering and were trying to ease this 'rite of passage'.

Without checking I think I am right in thinking that the first Outward Bound School (Aberdovey) was established during WWII to teach seamanship & survival skills who might be joining the Merchant Navy and facing long voyages in open boats after their ships were sunk.

Christian on 17th. July.
What a silly thing to do by your Gym teachers. Especially as you appeared to be still recovering, and doing well to be back in school. It’s hard to understand how they could totally disregard the medical advice forwarded to your school. No wonder your dad was angry, good for him. I hope they were both told and made to understand the error of their ways. Then subsequently to mark you down is just childish. I’ve detected in the past as an adult, when sometimes having dealings with teachers how some seem to take on behavioural standards of the age group kids they associate with all day. Sad really. At least, despite my perpetually grumpy Gym teacher, he was sensible enough to leave me out of things until informed I could join the class proper. I can’t remember him making any allowances for me from that day onwards though, which I managed to cope with.

Robbie on 18th July.
I enjoyed that film, which I hadn’t seen before. These old films are always particularly interesting, as they really capture a snapshot of how the world was back then when growing up, so thanks for the link. It was made at a time when children’s films were frequently moralistic, and I would have been in early junior school at that time. A few years later I also did a similar cycling proficiency test. I remember that on passing, we received a pennant to attach to handlebars, and also an orange and green metal badge to wear. I noticed during the closing titles of the film, they showed the same triangular symbol, which was the very design of the triangular badge we all received.

How come all us boys who were in school in the 70s and 80s weren't also going through all these alleged intensely militaristic PE routines to knock top level fitness and total subservient discipline into us when we were constantly being told WW3 with the USSR was about to break out at any moment and we lived in fear of that at any moment and the Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Granted that no amount of fitness was going to save us from the dreaded 4 minute warning.

Very good post TimH. It would be interesting to know what the daily food and drink intake was of those boys back then compared to now. They looked good on far less one must surely assume. No hi-energy drinks and bottles of water constantly at their side. Just a drinking fountain somewhere, like I used at school. Remember those.

My brief: Ex-PE teacher of 15 years standing. Now a 69 year old part-time sports psychologist.

I have a bit of a problem with two of your comments Alan.

1. Gung-ho physical fitness.

What is wrong with physical fitness, even a bit gung-ho as you put it, or done with a bit of collective purpose. I wonder just how many of the boys of the film in '36 if they had all been around 40 or 50 years later would have rubbished their school PE class like that. Not many I'm sure.

2. Discipline fetishists.

Again, what is wrong with discipline and using it constructively such as we saw in the PE class of '36. It was discipline for a purpose and in no way is that any kind of negative as you attempt to paint it. The film was a good example of well practiced discipline in a hugely beneficial manner. Many of those boys probably felt the cane too at some point in school, now I've never been a fan of that at all but the PE discipline should be highly regarded, and that includes what they did, how they did it and how they dressed.

So both the points you raised as negatives, physical fitness and discipline are infact massive positives for a good, healthy and well lived life and physical fitness and discipline for me both go hand in hand with each other and are excellent for the brain and that modern word nowadays, mindfulness.


On the war point. What's wrong with being physically prepared just incase? What's the alternative, be unprepared, unfit and lose a possible war? Of course nobody in our country was looking for such an eventuality or wanted it but we didn't have the luxury of ignoring it unfortunately.

For Will (& Alan)
Pre-1914 the state of the 'National Health' was pretty poor - many young men joined the Army & Navy to get three square meals a day. When Britain went to war many in the Army were unfit reservists or recruits.
Moving on to the 1920s there was still this general ill-health - think of tuberculosis and rickets, and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. With increased medical care these were overcome and there was the feeling that a good physical life could help everyone. People (who could) started good healthy exercise - think of the YHA, the Ramblers (founded 1935), the mass trespasses on Kinder Scout, etc. as well as local football & athletic clubs, etc. Some 170 'lidos' were built in the 1930s, as well as improvements to open-air swimming pools. I think you can go on about this - the film of Leyton High School (and, I think, earlier, a school in B'ham is from this period). 'Outdoor Education' also started at that time - I'm thinking specifically of Whitehough Camp School in Lancashire and Ingleborough Hall near Settle - all of this is on the lines of a 'Healthy Mind & a Healthy Body' and I don't think it was necessarily militaristic.

As Alan says, by the mid-1930s, many people were aware of the threat from Nazi Germany and preparations were begun to fight a war that many saw as inevitable. (There are pictures of a car with the placard: 'half-a-mo-hitler-lets-have-our-holidays-first'). Many young men sensing the inevitable, threw themselves into an 'outdoor life' to be fit for war. One guy I knew, a leading rock climber, went to Mallaig and then walked across the Highlands to the Depot of his fathers old regiment, where he enlisted.
Having rambled on, although these films are from this inter-war period and knowing something of the history of the period, I still find it very difficult to find anything purely 'militaristic' in all this.
End of rant.

Comment by: Will on 16th July 2023 at 22:59


You haven't seen the old Pathe' newsreels then, Will - apart from the 1936 PE one?. You will find stock footage of old Mrs Smith taking her kettle to the salvage yard to get them to turn it into a Spitfire, or elderly Mr Jones joining the Home Guard or fire watching at the age of 70. I am sure that most people on here will have seen examples of the "Britain can take it" trope they employed. Examples of gung ho physical fitness was another.

Why as adults should we concern ourselves with what schoolboys do today for exercise?. Times change, and even schools have to change with it. The days of sub-Army drilling in school is long past. Many of those lads had to join the army whether they wanted to or not, and there is definitely no money for the discipline fetishists to get their way with conscription again now. I am glad they don't have to go through the miseries some of us had to go through.

One here for Mike and Greg.

A short film about cycling proficiency from the sixties somehow ends up showing boys doing barechested PE in the gym, and if you look to the background there are all those boys hanging from the bars along the edge of the gym like you described. Not easy I agree. Then off to the shower - who would think they could get a shower shot into a cycling proficiency short film. I did that bars thing too by the way in gym, and took the proficiency test.

https://youtu.be/JlEm4tEodhU?t=197

Is it even legal to defy a genuine doctors sick note like that or are they just advisory?

Greg2.



In the spring of 1976 I had glandular fever and was off school for a month at the age of fourteen. Two PE teachers at the time actually defied a doctors note given to my school when I returned very weak and lethargic and with low energy levels, making PE a big struggle.

Because of that GP note I came into school without PE kit with full expectation of sitting it out or doing some other desk work. But I was called a malingerer who looked perfectly able to do at least something and was given a spare pair of shorts first timetabled PE back, and only shorts, and sent to gym as normal. Protest dismissed. I could barely stand for more than five minutes at a time. I was standing about doing an indoor ball game of some sort, barely touched the ball. Made to shower and could barely manage to get back dressed at the end. Even my friends were all hacked off for me.

Next day, after a very mad dad had taken charge of things with the head it took the family doctor to actually phone my school directly right to the top as well, following up his actual note, to bring PE two teachers into line and tell them I was not to do excess activity for a further month, meaning no PE.

I spent my time in the school library instead, quietly working and reading. They didn't want me even sitting out within their lessons. Neither did I much if I wasn't taking part.

Boy did I discover that PE teachers don't like being told what to do in the aftermath. I'd generally been a B grader in the subject through school but suddenly became a D or even E grader and the PE teacher/pupil relationship failed to recover even when I had done so and was back to my old self.

I don't know what the "Britain can take it" attitude is exactly, perhaps you know your history details better than me Alan, but I'm not sure schools in Britain were actively militarising their PE lessons in the mid 30s just incase of future hostilities. Perhaps the bigger question should relate to now and why schools are diminishing PE so much, far fewer hours each week than years ago, and what they do barely raises the pulse at times. We should think about getting back to the Leyton style of doing PE for intense working out and agility, not casual half hearted team games with half the class dragging their heels. By getting back to the Leyton style like the film showed I don't mean having to do it shirtless, just the actual content, although surely everyone doing PE shirtless like that does give added incentive to the lesson and foster a certain kind of collective spirit in some way. When I was in classes like that, every single boy without his shirt on, told to, it felt like we were all at one in some way and generally more disciplined. I associate being shirtless with being highly disciplined and I think it works well.

Mike, Yes, the school had been informed that I wouldn’t be able to take part in any form of P.E. until cleared by the hospital, and I think I can remember taking a hospital letter about this to the headmaster. I think I gave something to the Gym teacher as well, telling him when I would be able to take part. I expect this gave instruction on what I would and wouldn’t be able to do, and until when. I don’t remember doing rugby for instance for a long time. I’d actually been captain and top goal scorer in my junior school football team (!) but although I did again get into school teams, I was never as confident again somehow. Thankfully, my leg grew straight and strong, and was never a problem in later life.

Your description of the wall bars exercise was exactly what we did. We had such fixed wall bars all along one side of the Gym. I also remember it being very difficult on our arms at younger ages, until we’d built up some upper body strength during later teens.

I'm fully aware of the date and its significance Alan, so not sure you draw my attention to it. It's why I made the comment. My father was born in 1923, so 13 at the time of the film so 22 when the War ended, having joined up for training at the age of 18.

I'm making a big assumption here because I don't know, but has anybody ever addressed why there was never a no underwear rule for girls all those years ago in school PE like there was for the boys in some places? If not, why not? Why was it so vital in some schools for boys to do that and not girls? It's a presumption I'm making that this practice never involved girls, maybe due to monthly issues developing I don't know, but boys still had that little bit extra to keep tucked up didn't they. The whole thing is a head scratcher to me.

Greg2 did your parents not write or contact the school in some way to actually tell them about your fractured femur so that at least your PE teachers would be aware of any potential difficulties you might have in class rather than expecting the same from you as the others? I would imagine if you missed three months during your transition they must have known something. What a nightmare to be off school for so long at such an important moment in time that must have been.

I also remember being hung up on the side of the school gym on the frame bars we had while they were pinned to the wall rather than pulled out properly. We would hang in a line and have to lift our legs right up together to a certain height parallel to the floor, so our body was bent at an angle of 90 degress. When I first did this I was surprised just how much hanging my relatively light body with both my arms fully outstretched above me pulled on those arms and really strained them. Others found it harder than me and simply fell off too soon.

There was no obvious choreography in the style of Lewis's film that I recall myself doing but it looks like it might have been quite fun learning to sync up a routine with everyone else once in a while, I would have been alright with that.

I hope they all survived the war, especially the older boys at the end who may have served. A couple maybe still with us today, testament to those fine PE lessons they were given then, and good family genes.

Greg2: Look at the date, Greg - 1936 - the world had already seen the rise of Hitler and many people were already contemplating another war. This film is clearly part of the "Britain can take it" attitude that would continue up to and beyond the Munich crisis. It is similar to John Kennedy's promotion of La Sierra in 1962 - which just happens to be the year of the Cuban missile crisis.

I should assume that the lads taking part had been specially selected, especially as they are of different ages - perhaps there was a schools athletic club?, - I don't know.

I suppose, given the times you can understand it, but all the vaulting horses and headstands in the world will be no answer to the sort of war that will be unleashed, should we ever be pushed down that road again. Perhaps that is just as well - I read only this week that the Royal Navy are having problems recruiting submarine operatives, as they can't use social media on them -the horror! :-)

Lewis on 13th July at 01:31. What a great archival film to watch. I bet those boys would remember those exercises all their lives, if indeed this was a routine Gym lesson, and not just set up for the camera. But they all do appear very well practised with the routines, and all was certainly well choreographed with all boys looking trim and healthy. Though I don’t think many were overweight back then, and it was much that way still years later in the late 60s-70s when I was at secondary school. My father would have been the age of those younger boys at that time, and later to become a young soldier of WWII in for the last two years of the war. All those boys looking so young and healthy at the time of this film, it makes you wonder what fate had in store for them in those years to come. I do hope they all came through it safely, as my father did.

I don’t remember such a choreographed routine in our Gym lesson. We did do a few set pieces and stretches, which would follow our routine run around the Gym to warm up. I remember some routines hanging from wall bars while keeping outstretched legs. Very difficult for undeveloped 12 year old arms as well as legs. Similarly, there was a ground exercise which I also found surprisingly difficult on joining the class, this would involve lying on the floor, and then with outstretched legs, having to keep your feet about 6 inches from the ground. We would be expected to maintain this position for about 1 minute, which was very tough on young stomach muscles. It seemed to me at that time that most of the other boys were able to do this, almost effortlessly. But I suppose with only joining this class towards the end of the second term, having spent three months on a children’s ward with a fractured femur, I certainly wasn’t up to speed. My accident happened during the summer between junior and secondary schools, so I missed this big transition together with all the others boys.

So, before I was able to join all the others for my first Gym lesson, I would still attend, but just sit along the side of the gym and observe, or usually just do homework etc. I was still receiving weekly out-patient physiotherapy for the next several weeks and had to be careful. At the end of the Gym lesson, I also witnessed the obligatory showers routine. So, I knew what was in store for me with this too when the time came. When that day did come, I still vividly remember being so eager to get dressed, the Gym teacher barked out, ‘Dry yourself properly boy before putting your shirt on.’ So then having to take it off again and do that. What a strange, slightly vulnerable feeling it is, when you have your first communal shower at that age. Everything seemed out of your control and new. One of the things I most enjoyed after school was not having to do things I wouldn't chose to do any more.

Our Gym kit was strictly all white, and I don’t think we ever did Gym without t-shirt and footwear. I do remember being particularly proud of my new white Puma trainers, and we always had different coloured bibs for different team games. I’m not sure being shirtless would have bothered me too much anyway, as our class was usually all boys, and I was a slim, sporty kid, and I do now realise I was lucky in that regard. But, I’m sure I would have been much more self-conscious if we’d routinely shared the lesson with judgemental girls. What I do remember as feeling odd, was the seemingly almost nationwide routine of no underwear being allowed under our, short, shorts. And, I do remember this being checked a few times by teachers. There were rare occasions when we were joined by the girls for a Gym lesson, probably when their teacher was unavailable for whatever reason. The girls certainly knew about this ’no underwear’ policy for the boys, and took full advantage of our discomfort, often giggling together as they shared this lesson with their usually fully school uniformed classmates. We all thought this was very unfair, but as I think has been mentioned previously, there seemed to be no regard for boys’ dignity or indeed privacy in the past. In fact, this reminds of occasions when the girls’ Gym teacher would sometimes walk right through the boys’ changing room whenever she decided to, as though she thought she was entitled to do this. I remember she always had a slightly embarrassed smile on her face as she did so. There was never any need for her to do this, as the girls’ room was just on the other side, leading to the same Gym and staff changing room area.

The film clip certainly looks like a formal display put on by the best in the class. When we did pe there was no stipulation on the colour shorts we should wear and most wore black or dark blue. Furthermore they were shorter than those seen in the film. My secondary school years were 1961 to 1966.
What brings back memories for me was the vaulting horse which i had difficulty in clearing and in the same way I did not like the box because I was always banging my shins on it.

Toby males who pull their shorts too high and cover their belly buttons while shirtless look stupid. It reminds me of old men who pull things too high up. Definitely not a good look. Just be out and proud!

We should be very grateful to those who had the foresight so long ago to film everyday things like a PE class in a time when pointing anything at anybody and photographing or filming was a quite big deal. I wonder what the reason for it was at the time. I would suggest that the PE boys of Leyton were making an extra special effort to impress because they were being given the great chance to be filmed in 1936, the year BBC TV started. They would not have realised their school day in the gym would prove to be an enduring interest for posterity in the historical record. Whatever anyone's thoughts on the whole PE kit issue surrounding shirts or skins I think most can surely agree they all looked mighty impressive and great to watch.

Lewis, I'd still prefer a covered torso. But at least the students in white didn’t have to reveal their belly buttons. Our shorts were somewhat lower I remember.

Nice film of your old school Lewis.

Imagine the shock if school served that level of PE up now. But look how athletic and trim they all were. You'd be proud to do PE shirtless in that school being in that kind of shape.

I'm sure someone else put a BFI film like that on here a long time ago. A nice archive.

I was at Leyton High School September 1957 to June 1964.

PE was still be done very similar 25 years later, just a little less choreographed. It's how it should be done. I enjoyed it immensely. I was so pleased to discover such a short film from the British Film Institute showcasing what for me amounts to perfect PE exercising, instilling both fitness and discipline. The PE kit is perfect, our shorts were less lengthy in my time, but I do think this has always been the most effective way PE can be performed. Coming off PE like this I felt like I'd achieved a worthwhile effort. It wasn't just for the cameras. I question whether even the most able boys in a current PE class could do many of these exercises so effortlessly. In my time we did not do shoulder stands and I've never been any good holding myself steady while upside down. I admired those who could manage it.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-secondary-school-gymnastics-leyton-county-high-school-for-boys-1936-online

My dad had a lot of gym apparatus in the double garage for his use that I also used as a teenage boy, weights, rowing machine, bike machine and much more. The odd friend popped by and had a go sometimes too. Dad often used it late at night after work when I'd gone to bed and I could hear him with it. It got quite addictive and I liked the weights and rowing machine, preferring proper biking rather than peddling while stationary. I always ended up with a sweaty tea-shirt in the home garage if I spent any length of time using dad's stuff. I always wore a top there.

But I was at one of those secondary schools in the latter part of the 1970's and beginning of the 1980's that compelled on boys PE in the gym being done blanket barechested for allcomers. After feeling strange and very different initially to previous PE it was something that soon became accepted as normal and expected in PE at my school. PE class also ran quite a few spring cross countries barechested too following on from winter when we wore shirts. I can remember the surprise the afternoon we first did that rather unexpectedly. Our cross country route was mostly away from any public areas to get us noticed by too many. It was kind of okay.

Most of our PE teachers took gym in a vest and shorts or longer sports bottoms. Never did any of them elect to teach gym or wider PE in the barechested manner to which we had been made to become accustomed to. I don't think that comes as any surprise and didn't then.

One autumn evening my old folks came back from a parents night around school and told of generally positive feedback about me, but then my dad began chuckling away and I questioned why before he told me the PE teacher he'd spoken with had described me as having - an impressive hunk of a body. Exact words. I was I think either 14 or 15 by then. Father found it highly amusing, questioning how poor the rest of my PE class must be if I was getting described like that by the PE teacher. PE class always seemed full of very slim boys in those days. Spending time on his garage equipment at home hadn't made that much difference to me I don't think, maybe a bit of tone here and there. A few months later when the end of year assessment slips came out that PE teacher used the same comment in part of his assessment and wrote the impressive hunk of a body comment down in biro and it was then that mother thought it wasn't quite the language to be using the word hunk as a description. But I was happy with it as it seemed better than some alternate opposite and I felt sure he'd used the term in PE among class too. I never told my PE teacher I was using the old folks garage gym set up at the time and if the beach photo's I've got from the same summer as that school assessment are anything to go by then I was just a perfectly normal school aged young man of the time.