Burnley Grammar School

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Barney. Lovely comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alan on 26th October 2023 at 03:28

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brian on 25th October 2023 at 19:14

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

Alan on 26th October 2023 at 03:28

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

James 23rd October at 16:27.

Thank you for your kind words.

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

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

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

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

Alan on 25th October 2023 at 16:25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some responses from a new guy:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Comment by: Barney on 24th October 2023 at 11:10


I wouldn't recommend loitering outside schools these days, but, as this is half term week throughout the country, and you claimed to have done this "this morning", perhaps it wasn't so odd as it sounds.

I am not a fan of shirts against skins in school gyms. Far better that school PE is done in tops of some type that everybody is expected to wear, or otherwise if school wants skins then make sure that the whole PE structure in gym is clearly set out as that and everybody does it.

I was often singled out for shirtless PE when others weren't and it does create division and some feelings of unfairness that's for sure. Children always want to feel things are being fairly applied. In my case one day I annoyed my PE teacher over something to do with accidentally kicking another boy in gym and he thought I'd done it deliberately and I was told to remove my shirt for the remainder of the PE lesson as well as spend a period of time sitting at the side on my own just watching until being allowed to rejoin after ten minutes or so but without the top on, my top half bare. Then there were other times when there was a tiny minority of about three or four in PE out of 25 or so who were shirtless just because the teacher had said so, not forgetting the team skins things like everyone else seems to have been roped into at some stage.

Not all, but some PE teachers used their ability to make boys go shirtless in PE as a device of discipline and control, I feel certain of that considering my own recollections of such situations in draughty school gyms of the 1970s. When you're suddenly shirtless, especially if everyone else around you isn't, and it wasn't your choice to be that way, then you are instinctively feeling vulnerable even if you are a normally quite assured young person.

I was in secondary school from 1981 to 1986. Games kit was rugby shirt, shorts, socks and boots. PE kit was the above substituting boots for trainers inside. I think the idea was to save parents money given the rugby shirts had a school logo and could only be bought from one shop.

That PE kit lasted the first year. Then the school had the gym floor redone and I presume to prevent scuff marks etc, the indoor kit went to bare feet and at the same time shirtless. In addition to the existing school uniform another pair of shorts was required, colour depending on which house you were in.

On the whole it was popular. Sharing the same shirt for rugby and indoor PE presented laundry turn around problems and as we mainly played basketball as well as doing circuit training indoors, it was a bit hot for that. The different coloured shorts also removed the need to bands etc for indoor team games as the different coloured shorts depending on house easily differentiated one team from the other.

Unusually for the time, PE was also required in the sixth form with the same kit.

Barney - you make an interesting point about footwear. I don't think trainers had appeared when I was at school in the 60s so the only footwear available would have been plimsolls. However, just as we never wore tops so too we never wore footwear. This would seem to have been an even better idea when trainers appeared as there may have been the possibility of those with richer parents showing off their trainers while those with less well off having to make do with plimsolls. Good to see there are still schools with a shirtless policy and masters who lead by example.

Kenny - I think my school may have got it right - no-one ever wore a top for any p.e. so there was never an opportunity for any-one to feel victimised. It seems a lot fairer if every-one wears the same. We wore coloured bands in the gym to differentiate teams - outside we wore black or white shorts which was better.

Jeremy - I agree with what you say especially if it is standard practice and, as I said above, every-one is treated the same.

Does anybody agree with me that it's good for boys to see each other barechested in a physical education class?

If it encourages a heightened sense of body awareness then that is also a good thing, possibly making them not just competitive in the sports being done or the tests undertaken but among each other about what they look like.

That was always how I looked upon things when I was at school and it made me want to strive to look my best and place more effort into what I was doing to attain it.

Simon, my school generally speaking sounds like yours. The splitting of the class into half who had to go shirtless and the other half who didn't was frequently done, the skins and shirts, and it never failed to cause one or two boys resentment from memory. Nothing made some boys feel more victimised than finding themselves skins on successive lessons when others weren't. Doesn't that suggest shirtless is more of a big deal than has ever been generally accepted?

But we also did fitness tests once each term, about three times a year and on the days we did these, just like you, the whole class went into what seemed like the fitness test uniform of going shirtless skins to do this. Generally speaking, with one or two exceptions, these tests were the only time that come easily to mind that the entire PE class would be wholly shirtless as told to be by the teacher.

I've just walked home from my usual morning gym session and in doing that I walk along the boundary of the sports field of the school I attended in the 1960s, then a boys state grammar school, now a top performing, independent boys school with very high success rate of Oxbridge entry.

It's a beautiful crisp, autumn morning and what better morning for a run so I was pleased to see two classes of lads out doing circuits of the field accompanied by their sports masters. This was something in my days there I did more times than I could count and I loved it and all other aspects of PE.

I stopped to watch and as I did, it occurred to me that really at least on the surface, little had changed. There were two classes of lads, running, attired in white shorts and trainers accompanied by sports masters attired in black shorts and trainers all looking a picture of health. It was a fairly tight group so no laggers and keeping a good pace as they went. I wanted to go and join them but I doubt now I could keep the pace even though I'm fairly fit.

In my day, it was the same except we wore plimsolls on our feet - trainers then, were very new and very expensive and my parents certainly couldn't have afforded them for me, we wore white shorts and the masters wore black.

Back then of course, there was a dose of the slipper for any lad who hadn't made enough effort and I guess there is a 'modern' sanction for the same thing now. Back then, a dose of the slipper or the cane was certainly a message to 'buck up' your ideas and for me at least, it always worked.

I hope those lads are as content and getting the same benefits from sport as I and my friends did because on top of a successful career (now retired) I have a very good sporting life thanks to a good grounding at school and I don't miss my daily gym sessions.

The comment from you Greg about your spell many years ago running shirtless and your reaction to that nowadays caught my eye here, as did the follow up reply about being both shy and confident which is a really great angle to develop because it is kind of true in a lot of cases.

It might come as a surprise but not everyone in our whatsapp bareskin running group, which has now hit 20 members, is what I would call the easily identifiable outgoing confident kind of man. Some are but a few among the group are definitely not. Infact I'd even say we have a few introverts among us but that has not stopped them joining a group of men who like to keep fit and active, go running, feel the environment across them and doing so bareskin, or shirtless/barechested as is more commonly used. Everyone that has joined the group has returned and done it again, except for our newest member who I'm sure will do so, they just haven't had time yet. Nobody who has joined us has regretted it and everyone seems to come away highly motivated and positive and having enjoyed the shared experience. I certainly don't think any one of us are doing it to be noticed on purpose by anybody and that is not the reason the group was set up, although obviously you can't avoid somebody reacting if you run bareskin past them if they feel some need to, but with us that has not been a factor other than what I would say have been some quite positive approving smiles or some more quizzical looks wondering why a group of men aged 25 to 61 are doing so. Our average group bareskin run is about 5 to 7 at any one time out of the group of 20 we now have.

Really interesting and long thread. Only skimmed some of it and seems PE during the 50s and 60s was austere, to say the least.

I went to a boys private school during the 80s. PE and games lessons were normally conducted with tops on, though it was standard practice to divide into shirts & skins to identify teams.

This pattern was established from day one when, during my first rugby practice on a warm September day and much to my surprise, I was told to be skins. Being eleven-year-olds, many of us didn’t get it until some of the prep school lads started pulling off their tops. Then the penny dropped!

From then on, it was rare during a PE or games session to NOT be either a shirt or a skin at some point.

The few times where everyone was skins were again rare. Once a year, we had an annual and gruelling fitness test in the gym that was conducted without tops on.

And the annual CCF camp was the other regular occasion. Here, we were “beasted” by regular army PT instructors with a daily pre-dawn two mile run, clad just in our army boots and trouser fatigues.

Overall, some great times. I can appreciate that being shirtless isn’t for everyone, but I can honestly say it did me no harm and boosted my self-esteem.

I often find your comments really thoughtful and interesting Greg and your last one is no exception.

You said that you were surprised by the amount of boys that were troubled by going shirtless in school. It does not surprise me in the least, as boys won't openly show their opposition to such things will they. You used the word 'troubled' by it. I'd add words like 'uncomfortable - anxious - shy - embarrassed - unconfident'.

You didn't like drawing attention to yourself and I was very similar when I was young, and you chose to run shirtless to keep fit, so did you see that as drawing attention to yourself at the time or is that just something you think nowadays. Among the words I listed above I do think it is quite possible to be both a shy personality and confident alongside it.

When I went swimming with school I don't remember being bothered in the least by it, although I stopped at the age of eleven, I feel if I had carried on swimming in school until later that could have changed because I was definitely no fan of being told to do PE shirtless that's for sure and if you were to ask me directly why that was all I'd be able to come up with is because I was shy, which sounds like a cop out a bit I suppose.

I’ve never thought about school showering so much since reading on this site. In fact my main memories about it are from when it all started. The following years of routine school showers, I can’t remember much about at all. Presumably I was so used to it by then that it all became a none event. Surprising really, as it was still going on, though I do think it wasn’t so closely monitored as at the beginning. I do remember one time-table where our last lesson was gym, so I think most just went home at the end of the lesson to sort themselves out. My memories of showering following school team matches, which were always out of school hours, seemed optional as well for the same reason, unless I suppose we were all particularly muddy.

I haven’t got around to checking the Communal Shower website Nathan linked to. I’ve never showered communally since school, and never had any desire to do so. I never bothered joining any public keep fit club etc, though I have done exercise routines all my life, been interested in nutrition, so kept myself slim and fit. I did go through a jogging phase for many years, starting in my 20s, and can even remember running alone without a shirt during the younger years when it was warm, and thinking nothing of it. I find this strange now thinking back, as I always hated drawing attention, but somehow this went right over my head at that time, though I do remember a few remarks by teenage girls etc as I ran past back then! I never realised how many boys were troubled by shirtless gym lessons, but perhaps this was because I’m not sure we ever did it. Though I do remember being more self-conscious having to wear swimming trunks during mixed swimming at school, when others have said this never bothered them, despite this obviously requiring you to be shirtless, as well as everything else. But, we’re all just who we are I suppose.

It's a long time since my own children were at school now, that was in the 70s & 80s so what I'd like to know, perhaps from the PE teacher on here, as a follow up to Sean is whether parents need to provide active consent to school showers in those places that still conduct them such as where he is working.