Burnley Grammar School

Thankyou for asking the question Tanya. I have never felt I have anything to get over. Placing my own direct experience in short essay form just adds my personal little bit to the historical record, and this is a history forum. I am an active 83 years of age now and the lessons I was given some 70 years ago have stood me in good stead for life. At the time my experiences took place the sensations could be deeply intense. Any young man at the time who may say he wasn't anxious, however short lived, is lying. We all were. In the early 50's boys were not expected to find our naked form at all concerning, even in front of the opposite sex but of course we did. Family night was the one night when the opposite sex, moms, grans and sisters could come and see us all perform. It gave me a strong constitution because I had to overcome any thoughts and in my case do my best to pretend it was any other time without them there looking down from on high. I think it was very difficult for boys once they reached the age of 14 to be doing this at a time in 1952 when boys that age were treated very much like young adults and in most cases looked like them too.

But I have nothing to get over and never have felt that way and am not in any sense resentful or suffering any long term trauma so thankyou for asking and allowing me to set the record straight.

To answer you Tanya on this whole naked swimming thing my take on it is that yes it was a real thing that happened for those people and must have been utterly hideous if you were shy, insecure and unconfident. It might have even been a big deal if you were confident and good looking too. But the trouble is that alongside the undoubted truth that all these men tell is a parallel narrative that looks to have also been created with what I can best say are extra embellishments to the core truthful facts of the time. I could be wrong, I wasn't about in the early 50's to know for sure and American culture compares dramatically different to British.

Do you mean this one Adam, I love this, how cool was that. You shouldn't have worried, I bet you looked just great without tops doing your stuff to this, you sure sounded it, someone at your school had a good vibe going there. That track went top ten in late 1974. If it had been my school we'd have done something to classical music going back a couple of centuries.

This tune also reminds me of something else in the past, just can't place it.

Peppers - Pepper Box

https://youtu.be/ZLWv8hwoBAk?feature=shared

"Comment by: Tanya on 28th August 2023 at 19:16"
(apropos) Comment by: Jeffrey on 24th August 2023 at 06:25



"....But just one question, you went all the way back to 1952 with that which means you must be a past the wrong side of 80 by now. Isn't it just time you finally got over it all? "

Tanya, whatever you do please never become a councillor. You remind me of the story of the man who went to a psychiatrist and told him that he thought he was a pair of curtains and the psychiatrist told him to pull himself together.

I can't match 70 or 80 years, but even you must realise for somebody still to have unhappy memories dating back that far they must have traumatic memories, which they can't just "get over".

Perhaps you were lucky enough to have schooldays reminiscent of Enid Blyton's heroes, (and good luck to you if you did) but not everybody has wonderful memories - some people have very traumatic ones, which they don't fully go into. And with such a trite, glib unsympathetic answers such as yours, perhaps that is no wonder

Last year I joined a local squash club and I ended up playing in the squash courts of my old school that I actually left twenty one years ago. Afterwards I even found myself standing in the exact same communal shower that I'd last used at about fifteen in PE, something that was unexpected. One of the men I was playing squash with in our foursome has a couple of lads that go to the school and I asked if they were still used in schooltime PE or just for the likes of adults such as us nowadays doing evening sports and he told me they still used them for his boys and he supported that fully. I hadn't used a communal shower in years and although I was only sharing with another three men I immediately felt perfectly at ease with the situation and comfortable in my own skin which was exactly how I used to feel at school as well when doing it.

Women are every bit as bad as men when it comes to boys in school and not allowing tops on but for some reason it always seems worse when women do it than when men do it.

Does anybody remember an old instrumental tune called Pepper Box quite well known from the 1970s by any chance?

I heard it playing in a shop recently and it reminds me of one of the most embarrassing days in my time at primary school in February 1975 when I was in my last year there. We went up a year later in my area than some other places and I was already 12 years old by then but still in primary.

All the boys in my class at the time had to do a synchronised dance routine at our school's half term concert alongside girls in our class and all the boys had to do this in our bare chests beside girls in normal PE kits for our mums and a few dads who could get off work in the afternoon. I can still just about see the enthusiasm with which the girls took to their task and the deep reluctance many of the boys felt about any of it.

We had a feisty pair of primary music and PE teachers who bossed us about all the while. We had to learn a 3 minute synchronised routine to show off to our nearest and dearest, using hoops and ribbons. When we practiced we stayed in our normal working school clothes but then our music teacher said she wanted a dress rehearsal and said that meant PE kit. The boys PE kit was not always a bare chest, only sometimes. We often wore any tee-shirt we came in with but when we did this to rehearse the teachers didn't like it for the concert so opted instead for boys to be bare chests and it's fair to say it was one mighty long time ago now but that feeling of complete powerlessness that hit me and scary feeling was a strong one. It had to go down as one of the longest two and a half minutes of my entire life, what made it worse was I was quite big (tall, not fat) for a 12 year old and stood out more beside everyone else and I was never as confident as I wished I could be. You were never allowed to say no to things like this in those days.

Pete, Sounds a little like our teachers. When we'd turned 13 our teachers started having us wear vests instead of rugby shirts outdoors. They'd always split the class into skins vs vests and picked out those to strip off. Cross country and indoor lessons were always performed stripped to the waist.

Comment by: Jeffrey on 24th August 2023 at 06:25


Quite an interesting read. It seems the longer comments often get completely overlooked in favour of the shorter ones.

But just one question, you went all the way back to 1952 with that which means you must be a past the wrong side of 80 by now. Isn't it just time you finally got over it all? It can't even be close to the worst thing that ever happened in your life surely?

I also don't really believe that they were forcing naked swimmers in school to face any girls other than accidentally.

Nothing that Neil Little stated actually surprises me. I don't know when you were at school but it largely fits in with some of my own recollections.

You can't really imagine the girls PE teacher actively wanting them to march back to get out of excessively muddied kit and wet through can you, whereas that was the norm going all the way through the winter season for boys. There was one thing in PE you didn't want to be seen as and that was a boy who was averse to a collecting up a bit of the earth on him, or getting wet. I remember forever spending time back home scraping bits of the school field off my boots, shin pads, and even clothes before they were even good enough to go in the wash. We had a machine where you lifted the lid and plonked all the washing into it and sprinkled ample washing powder and then used wooden tongues to poke at it to clean it. No tumble dryer when I was at school for a few years yet.

I used to laugh at some boys who pulled the 'my kit is in the wash' excuse time and again. I remember the same faces using this one and it was mostly when we had to go outside in the colder weather they did it. Even I never believed them so no chance any of our teachers must have done.

We had a new PE/games teacher at the start of year 3 (so aged 14).

Until then I had enjoyed PE, it being a mix of 5 a side, basketball etc, plus some exercises. Kit was "normal" (shorts, vest, plimsolls). XC country was weekly, and we were allowed rugby kit in the winter

Our new teacher had a totally different approach, he was much stricter, indoors we had to all strip to only our shorts, xc was shirtless all year. Additionally, lessons were non stop workouts - I hated it all - thus I "needed" discipline. I got it, of course, both slipper and hard canings over a gym horse.

I wasn't the old boy stretched over the gym horse !

The perfect way to judge the male/female double standard Greg2 is to be like me, a sixty year old man with a twin sister. We both went to the same schools but were always kept separate from each other, wasn't that always the way with brothers and sisters in school. There are quite a few double standards I can think of over the years, not just at school actually, but when it comes to school PE days then the two most obvious to me were that in our big school the boys always had to go out in all weathers for PE and come back in like drowned rats at the end of it, or freeze our bo**ocks off whilst the girls didn't have the must get sent out in all weathers rule for them and were ALWAYS able to switch inside for inclement conditions outside. Boys such as me didn't get that luxury and I think our PE teachers revelled in this out in all weather rule.

If you ever saw the girls doing PE at our school they always looked well turned out, tidy and clean. It looked to me like their teachers wanted to make sure it stayed that way while ours went in the opposite direction so many times. I have memories of standing about cold and very wet on school pitches where my boots were sinking into the ground in places. I actually recall a time when I handed the schoolbag washing over for washing at home and being asked me why I couldn't keep mine as clean as my sister's washing. The other double standard was that we showered and the girls didn't have to. When I came in with my washing on school PE days I always had to put the towel in the wash after just one use in school. My sister never did this.

Another one from inside the school gym was the ropes. We used to have rope races between boys in gym to see who could climb to the top the fastest out of the half dozen or so dangling ropes we had. Now I was quite good at this. My sister told me they'd never used the ropes in gym. I couldn't believe it.

Jeffrey 24th, August 2023.

I’ve alway hated the gender double standards, which I’m sure most men will be able to remember from childhood, if they admit truth and try hard enough. I certainly remember many situations that bothered me at the time, things that happened, and what I had to put up with that girls would never experience. But, being made to swim and parade around naked publicly, that would have been on another level.

I read some time ago, on what turned out to be a rather strange site, many accounts similar to what you describe, Jeffrey. Lots about forced boyhood nudity, and all the ensuing humiliation, and often while being watched by same age girls you knew. There were also many accounts of boys having to take part in swimming galas, obviously while forced to be naked and not wanting to be. All this while being watched by your friends’ parents and sisters, same age girl classmates etc. Like yours Jeffrey, such vividly descriptive accounts of situations you hated frequently seemed to end up with the maximum humiliation imaginable for you during this discomfort: having to then stand outside the water right in front of these very people for several minutes, and right up there on the tri-level podium, because you also won your swimming contest. So, the ultimate, maximum embarrassment for you then. Always in the USA it seems, and with more description of how you by then appeared to everyone observing while you were cold. So detailed and vivid for a situation that you never wanted to be in in the first place, and so would rather forget…I might add that also on that site were frequent writings about adult females, or often maiden aunts who looked after children. They’d always end up taking them to some beach, or friend’s pool, completely undress the usually one boy in their charge, so that he would have to run and slash around all day with the several, always fully costumed, similar aged girls for them to observe.

I’m afraid I discovered on this site that are certain people that seem to get a kick out of forced humiliation, and I think that therefore most of such accounts might be fantasy. There were often comments to read about the writings on that site, which sometimes linked to more reliable fact checked news outlets, or just more accurate and reliable recollections. It seems no one could ever remember having to take part naked in a swimming gala that was open to family of general public to attend, saying this was the only time they would wear swimming attire. During their usual naked swimming lessons in the USA, they were strictly single sex and held at different times to the girl’s sessions. In fact none remembered female coaches either, which was another frequent memory, together with detailed body reactions of the many writers on that site.

Now, I do know that many UK public schools also had naked swimming lessons for boys, as I had a friend at such a school at the time who confirmed this. He never liked it, but it was the convention, and all boys together, so he just got on with it. He also had a sister who was a border at a girls’ school, but she said she never had to do this. I remember thinking then that I was glad I didn’t have my swimming lessons like this, and thinking back, perhaps it is this that started my dislike for the many double standards that I noticed during my own growing up, many I’ve always remembered, and which made me uncomfortable at the time.

Now, I also was a ‘handsome child’ and it amazes me thinking back how I always had childish ‘girlfriends’ from such an early junior school age because of this. Without going into unnecessary detail, I was always bodily self-conscious with girls at that age, unlike it seemed most boys seemed to be that I knew as friends at the time. Perhaps this is why girls were more curious about me, I’m not sure. I was certainly no girly boy, despite how I looked. I was a slim and sporty kid, and frequently for whatever reason, in fights with other boys. I really enjoyed gym and games lessons -which, seemingly strangely were never bare chested- and I was always picked for most school teams. But, I always hated swimming. If I’d been made to appear naked in front of all and sundry at a swimming gala at that age, this would have been just hell for me. I didn’t even like wearing those skimpy swimming trunks we wore during junior school swimming lessons in front of my girl classmates. I can even remember trying to rearrange myself ‘down there’ to try to make myself less conspicuous, which I find astonishing thinking back now. I might add that I was a very average boy in that department, so there was nothing really to rearrange, and I probably made things look even worse. But to have had to appear naked in front of everyone…I would have rather died.

Others might disagree, but to force boys to do that in mixed attendance, if indeed it ever did happen, I feel would certainly be a form of totally disrespecting and disregarding child abuse.

Mike: I can't reprint the Washington Post article as I don't have access to it, but here is a precise from another site:

https://witness2fashion.wordpress.com/tag/topless-mens-swimsuits-illegal-at-some-beaches-1920s-1930s/

Simon "back of the bus" - I know what you mean about trips on caches but I was using it in the context of the American Civil Rights Movement: "back of the bus" referred to those states where people of colour were segregated and had to occupy the rear of the vehicle, as they were considered "inferior" especially in the South. I think they coined the term after the Rosa Parks debacle in the 1950s

The way we are going it wouldn't surprise me if it became illegal here for men to go barechested in public by 2034.

Up until not long ago I used to go about quite frequently even walking the dog or jogging minus any top coverage. Without really thinking about it I don't feel as inclined to do so as much anymore and do feel less assured about the whole thing. I'm 44 and my body still looks much the same as when I was 24.

Although it's not really relevant to the UK school and physical education scene as most of us knew and went through it, after reading Jeffrey's 'essay' I have gone and seen some of the comments from the older men who were made to swim without anything on and it's fair to say that rather a lot of them disliked it quite a lot, and I don't blame them. It seems like many of them were just quietly cringing to themselves with embarrassment even back in the 60s and 70s in the latter years of that practice and many were just bewildered about why they were doing it. In my own world back here I was not fazed by the demands PE placed on me like it did with others, the shirtlessness or the showering involved, but I would have been one of those boys cringing if I'd ever been told I had no choice but to get in the pool at school without a stitch on at all. Instituting it just feels wrong doesn't it, compared to say some consensual skinny dipping with a few mates down by the pond or something. The two are psychologically very different.

Mike, If you want the facts about the widespread practice of nude swimming for boys in the US, search for Swimming in the Frank Answers blog. Frank is a retired Lutheran pastor who swam nude as a youngster and has written about the subject at length.

Alan quote - "Yet another example where boys and young men were given the back of the bus treatment."


This comment reminds me of school trips and the race for seats on the coach.

Boys loved the back of the bus, it was the seats we ran to grab first.

You obviously have an account with the Washington Post Alan. For the rest of us who don't unfortunately we can't read that story as it's hidden behind their paywall, and it is an article that I was very keen to read to find out the facts. That must have been one particular area at one particular time, not across the whole nation as an all encompassing rule for all men. Maybe you can actually paste the words directly here.

Paul R and Jeffrey. I always thought Britain was the home of double standards and hypocrisy, but it seems America can beat us, even at that. While bus were being treated in such an undignified manner (and it was immodest and indecent whenever it happened), I wonder how many American's know that until 1934 it was illegal for men to be bare-chested in public, even at the beach:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/01/05/men-were-once-arrested-baring-their-chests-beach/

Yet another example where boys and young men were given the back of the bus treatment.

Michael - your experience of p.e. sounds much like mine and, I'm sure, many, many others. Unfortunately, sites like this attract people who had unusual experiences or, in a few cases, vivid imaginations. Normal, boring experiences are not noteworthy and often not mentioned because of that.
Lisa - I agree with you but nothing will change in that direction, I'm afraid. It is a very sad fact of life these days that even partial nudity seems to be linked to sex when there is often no justification. Also, the inability of some people to distinguish between gays/lesbians and pedophiles is disturbing although I think some "pride" events have a lot to answer for in that respect.

Whenever somebody cites discomfort about a shirtless PE class maybe they should remember Jeffrey and offer thanks they didn't grow up where he did. Now that was pushing the boundaries to the limit and rather unkind and seems to stray into outright nudism/naturism as a school practice, and such things should be considered a personal lifestyle choice not an institutional requirement, don't you think.

In placed this short essay elsewhere about 5 years ago. I now live in the UK.

During the middle years of the last century in the American Midwest pornography was all but unknown (to us boys anyway) and even innocent nudity was taboo. Taboo that is unless it happen to appear in the pages of National Geographic. Without fail even infants were dressed in public. However, under certain very limited conditions, boys fourteen and under were exempt from the nudity prohibition. At that young age we were thought to be sexually innocent and chaste. Grownups felt that young male children didn’t require privacy. Girls were another matter entirely. More on that later.

April 25th 1952 was a Friday and I was twelve years old. Along with my friends I stripped down naked placing all my clothing as well as my cherished St. Christopher’s medal into a locker at the Y. We had no swimsuits, no sports jerseys and no shorts to cover ourselves with. We didn’t even have athletic supporters. It wasn’t as if we were forgetful and had left those things at home, it was that any sort of clothing was strictly forbidden. My fellow swimmers and I marched from the locker room to the indoor pool completely stark boy naked, our little white bare bottoms swaying from side to side with each step. No towels, no flip-flops, no swim googles, nothing at all. It was embarrassing, I’ll admit that, but I told myself that people wouldn’t see me as an individual naked boy, but rather as just one naked boy in a group of many naked boys. There’s strength in numbers. My nudity would blend in with all the others, or so I hoped. For a devout Catholic boy, such as myself, it was actually sort of thrilling in a weird and twisted way. It was like getting to stay up well past bedtime or going out on Halloween night to toilet paper the house of a mean neighbor. The normal rules of decorum had been temporarily set aside and that was a novelty for a scrupulously well behaved boy like me. It was like an extreme case of “opposite day.” We were engaging in an activity that would otherwise have been considered wicked, even shocking, but it was all done with complete parental and church approval.

I was a handsome child, slender and athletic, but small for my age and late to develop. I was afraid that my genitals where better suited for a nine year old than for a boy who would soon be turning thirteen. No one had ever given me a hard time on this issue. I’d never been teased. But in my current state I felt that my diminutive boyhood was the first thing anyone would notice about me. I stayed close to my friend Sammy Jones because he wasn’t all that big either.

The ancient gymnasium was beyond big. It was cavernous, or so it seemed, and I felt almost lost in it. Rather than feeling like a gladiator about to do battle I felt more like an early Christian entering the colosseum to be fed to the lions. On the pool deck stood the coaches, timekeepers and race officials. About 120 other boys ages seven to fourteen were seated naked on wooded benches along either side of the pool. No kidding, you never saw so much pink flesh all at once. As a person of deep and abiding faith I believe that there’s nothing inherently obscene or wicked about the human body. I believe that God created us all and that, man or woman, boy or girl, we are all beautiful each in his or her own special way. But even so it was a pretty strange sight.

It was a family night so grandparents, mothers and father, brothers and sisters had come to cheer their progeny on to victory. However the spectators had been relegated to the balcony, the lowest level of which was a good 15 feet above the pool deck. I kept my eyes focused away from the on lookers and on the other boys. We didn’t look up at all and our family members seemed to understand why. They didn’t call out any names or try to distract us. You could almost forget that they were there and that’s what I wanted. I wanted to feel that this was just another swim practice. I felt exhilarated as I smelled the chlorine and heard the P.A. system echoing off the walls in the vast space. I was ready to go.

The younger boys raced first. Raced? Actually most of them just sort of thrashed about and avoided drowning as they laboriously made their way from one side of the pool to the other but that was good enough. They all emerged at the other end glistening and triumphant. Then I heard my group called and took my position on the assigned starting block alongside the other twelve year olds. Standing there with our dicks hanging out I felt completely exposed, but the feeling didn’t last long. With the “BANG!” from a snub-nosed blue steel Smith and Wesson 38 police special loaded with blanks we were off the blocks in a flash. The moment I entered the water everything changed. I was transformed from a little naked boy into a demon possessed. I was fast, oh so very fast, and swimming flat out felt fantastic! I forgot all about being naked. I forgot all about the females who were watching. I forgot about everything but the cool water and the race and it was simply grand. I gave it everything I had, every atom of strength, and I finish well ahead of my nearest competitor. The crowd went wild as they say and as the other swimmers came in they all congratulated me. I was spent but exhilarated. The large clock on the wall recorded my time for all to see and it was impressive,

Then it was time for me to climb out of the pool and step up to my rightful position on the winner’s dais to receive my trophy. The second and third placed boys were to my right and left and although they might have been larger I was made taller by my place on the center and highest step of the three stepped podium. Standing there as my name was read over the loudspeakers I happened to glance down momentarily at my nakedness. It’s true what mountain climbers say. Don’t look down!

I realized in horror that the cold water combined with the physical exertion of the race had caused my already diminutive boyhood to shrink even smaller. Like the barrel on the starting gun my circumcised penis was a snub-nosed affair but now it seemed to have no shaft at all. It was just a little rounded pink button with a frilly collar. As for my balls they had pulled up so close to my body that you could hardly see them. I looked like a castrati. There were seven year olds present in that old gymnasium who were better endowed than I. I comforted myself with the thought that from the balcony the audience probably couldn’t make out too much detail. From that distance we all must have looked like eunuchs. I wondered who was watching. My mom and two sisters for sure and the sisters of some of my friends and schoolmates. Probably even some of the girls from my class were there as well. That possibility gave me a strange feeling like giant butterflies fluttering about in my tummy. The next thing I knew I was being reverently crowned with a green plastic laurel wreath and handed a trophy. I’d have been more appreciative of a towel.

We then returned to our bench to watch the thirteen and fourteen year-olds compete. That’s how it was, the younger boys swam first and then the older boys, but we were all required to sit and watch every race. No sneaking off to the locker room early

I saw someone try to refuse to shower after PE at my school and I can still see and hear what the teacher said to him - he told him to stop being childish and grow up! We were no older than thirteen.

I agree with Nathan. It should be a part of regular PE everywhere.

Liza: It is a shame these days people get so easily "offended" when nothing has been said about them. It is a good way of shutting down conversation. Straight out of the left wing playbook, but I think most people would agree with the sentiments I expressed.I have already made it clear that any other branch of teaching it doesn't matter. As somebody who had to tolerate the sort of man we had, who happened to have those proclivities, for several years, I think it a perfectly fair comment. Sorry if you really were offended. Was offended every day for 7 years.

One of my PE teachers used to share one end of the school showers with us when we took them after games. That was in the 1976-8 period when I had PE at the end of the school day quite a lot. That teacher didn't get too close to us and he kept his shorts on when he stood with us but the boys and me were completely naked. Neither of my parents batted an eyelid when I described this to them at the time. Nothing inappropriate to report. I used to trust my teachers and the thought that they would do anything wrong simply wouldn't have crossed my mind. It all seemed quite normal then. Everyone is getting a bit too fond of rewriting the past in the image of the present.

I still remember sometimes a PE teacher would briefly massage someone at the end of gym in the gym or back in the changing room who said they had a muscle ache on the back, shoulders or leg. This happened to me one day when I pulled a neck muscle and it hurt like hell and I found it difficult to turn my head in either direction. I had no top on, none got worn inside most weeks, and the PE teacher that day placed his hands on my shoulders and the back of my neck and rubbed and massaged it to try and help my movement. It helped a little bit but that was the day I found out I was actually quite ticklish and couldn't keep still as he did so without wriggling and giggling, some in my PE group looking on finding it highly amusing and even bringing my teacher to laugh at me. It's a fond memory.

What a shame a PE teacher probably can't or wouldn't feel able to help out like that nowadays because of crazy over sensitivities about the motivating factor.

Lisa, I should think that many contributors feel uncomfortable about Alan's views but hesitate to say so out of politeness, since he clearly had an unhappy time at school, and because he is frequently dismissive of any view that is different from his own. I'm sure he will not mind my saying that because sometimes he has been good enough to apologise for causing offence. Stand by!

Ivan

You said that you saw a whole class being slippered by the p e teacher. Did you know what crime they had committed? Was there a "no pants under shorts" rule and, if so, could non-compliance have been the reason?

Are any other contributors on here just a little uncomfortable with the strong way that Alan presents his arguments using sexuality issues which seem a general underlying theme.

Some just cannot separate disrobed bodies from anything other than being sexualised. The overt homophobia is deeply disrespectful to gay men and lesbian women, of which I am one.

In many years of PE/Games sessions at my school, in the company of dozens or often scores of other boys, I never once encountered any issue, from any person, about skins/shirts, showering or body image or anything remotely the like.

Frankly, we had far more immediate concerns to occupy our minds, like trying to avoid breaking our necks whilst executing mindless somersaults, or fracturing limbs by falling from ropes or climbing frames, etc.

If any such accident happened, the teacher would simply say that we hadn't been following instructions properly, or we had been messing about. No blame would attach to him.

After the session ended, showering, drying and dressing was always done at top speed. This gave us no time to ponder each other's physical irregularities or the whims of fashion, or indeed if anyone was watching us inappropriately; (I'm convinced no-one ever did.)

Despite our best efforts with our towels, we often arrived still dripping wet at our next lesson, looking, as one teacher put it, "like drowned rats!"