Burnley Grammar School

The boys at my secondary school had compulsory no tops on for PE. Girls joined them sometimes and never made any comments but the first time I did this with them and first saw so many boys in the same room without shirts on in all their bare chests I did feel a little flutter of something just seeing them all. My brother used to slam the door in my face if I caught him in his bedroom getting changed or with his top off. I walked past the school gym window one day when he was in there doing PE with his shirt off and laughed at him. It was the only time I caught him at school like that with his shirt off although I saw lots of other boys in my classes up close and very personal. All looked good shape and I don't remember seeing any boys even close to being obese, so wonder why all these old 70's schoolboys worry so much.

I think everyone is getting pretty fed up with Alans input on this forum. I hope he can find a better place to express his feelings on sites that are more relevant to his cause!

Sue
I'l join you in the SCREAMING!!,

Sue - you are absolutely right but the offender still refuses to see it.

I think all my p.e. teachers also taught an academic subject as well - they were not stupid nor were they bullies or paedophiles.

I tend to agree with you Sue. I need say no more. I knew I shouldn't have placed that BBC article on here on Friday, I think a misjudgement on my part. I've no desire to encourage the discussion into that direction too much.

I also agree with you Mike on the sudden influx of excessive advertising going on here. Is this anyone else's experience too?

Comment by: Alan on 19th May 2024

I think this is as much about the constant repeating of the same train of thought as much as the content, so on that basis I have to agree with Sue I'm afraid.

Do you remember when everyone decided to start showing a lot more respect to each other and refrain from direct insults (to you mostly) after a bit of a ding dong at the end of last year? I think that has largely held out since then but it's now you who is lacking respectful discourse with others you disgaree with, have you not noticed that. Irony eh.

We all want to scream I think.

Just put a bloody sock in it once and for all.

Comment by: Sue on 19th May 2024 at 12:57
<If I see the words "Royal Liberty" or associated issues written down once more on this forum I think I am going to SCREAM.
You are an over obsessive zealot treating this website and those who wish to engage with it for its actual intended purposes with disrespect now and we are stuck in a perpetual groundhog day without prospect of release.
If you agree with me please say, so this man finally understands.>




This would be a much more enjoyable thread without it Sue, so I can agree with you, yes. I've noticed that the amount of open PE teacher involvement has almost dried up, excluding the current one. There used to be a few retired PE teachers on the forum worth a read.

Comment by: Sue on 19th May 2024 at 12:57

"If I see the words "Royal Liberty" or associated issues written down once more on this forum I think I am going to SCREAM."

A pedant with anger management issues. Well, well - there's a surprise?.

What do you expect to see on a history website?. If it were about the war, would you just expect to read about the sing-songs in the tube stations ("I'm Going To Get Lit Up When The Lights Go On In London") and how you gave away the garden railings for scrap, and saving up your ration cupons for warm bloomers for Xmas, ?. Nothing about Nazi's or the misery they caused in the world for six years?

History includes bad as well as good, Sue dear.

Comment by: Sue on 19th May 2024 at 12:57

I do agree with your sentiments Sue. I also remember PE teachers taking other subject lessons as well by the way. It's no surprise how you found your way to this site considering your teaching background is it!

I'd also like to know why the pages of this site are now becoming saturated with intrusive adverts even between comments now like never before.

Sue, I am in full agreement with you here.

If I see the words "Royal Liberty" or associated issues written down once more on this forum I think I am going to SCREAM.

You are an over obsessive zealot treating this website and those who wish to engage with it for its actual intended purposes with disrespect now and we are stuck in a perpetual groundhog day without prospect of release.

If you agree with me please say, so this man finally understands.


Retired History/PE teacher, so while I am here I will clear up the incorrect assumption that those who teach PE teach nothing else because they are too stupid to. A lot like me took second subjects.

Comment by: Nicholas J on 18th May 2024 at 17:42


..."You seem to be lashing out or being very cutting to normal comments that don't require those sort of resposnse Alan. Veronica and Nathan the latest examples......."


Not at all, Nicholas. I am sorry you found it so. I was just gently pointing out to Veronica that he smart response wasn't that smart at all, and to Nathan I was encouraging him to put his money where his mouth is. He once told us that his excuse for shirtless P.E was so that he could check the muscle development of his boys - well with such a large group that Carl has - much bigger than one of his classes, he will have a field day in research.

As regards your question, the answer is quite simple - more thorough background checks before a person is employed and then constant monitoring once they are employed - and a bit of commonsense. For example, why did the N HS or the GMC not notice than an inordinate number of old ladies just happen to give up the ghost when they were in Dr. Harold Shipman's surgery?. Why did it take so long to discover that so many babies were dying when Nurse Lucy Letby was on duty. Why didn't Royal Liberty notice that a certain teacher - who "liked blonde teenage boys" locked the doors to the school swimming pool?, People are given jobs then just allowed to do as they like.

Better background checks and a willingness to dismiss bad employees, and if necessary, bring in the police is the answer - and if the unions want to waste their money by propping up useless personnel -well it is their money to waste.

In regard to the paedo nympho on Friday, I dare say the two boys enjoyed their experiences at the time - however much they now say they didn't - but at least there was no question of unnatural practices involved, as there were in the other cases I have highlighted . That doesn't excuse her appalling behaviour, however - but again people don't just suddenly become paedophiles, as they might join Weight Watchers or the local book club. The school authorities, as so often, just didn't do their homework.

You seem to be lashing out or being very cutting to normal comments that don't require those sort of resposnse Alan. Veronica and Nathan the latest examples.

On Veronica's point that you took her to task over, point still stands regardless of your correction. But lets take your corrected point then. Who precisely do you expect to work and teach alongside boys in an all boys school then? Someone has to do it, and as we have seen with the news item about that woman messing about with boys in school, even if you had an all female staff in an all boys school you'd still be having issues in some instances, maybe many more infact. So what do you suggest as your solution then that would satisfy you?

Bernard - yes, it was just the accepted thing, wasn’t it, in those far-off days of the 1960s and 70s.
As there were no such things as trainers, plimsolls were the only type of footwear available for PE and cross country, and were useless. I think most of my classmates - both boys and girls - were glad that bare feet were compulsory.

Ryan - At the time I didn’t really think about experiencing the different feelings underfoot, but I do remember that although some of the cross country course was a little rough, we soon got used to it.

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 18th May 2024 at 00:16


...."I enjoy reading your latest installments Craig as your group progresses in a positive direction.

I would take up a chance to run with such a group as yours if I was invited to do so, time permitting, ....."

Well, you have six weeks holiday coming up soon Nathan (and I believe there is another week at the end of May in most schools as there is another half term, at least in London). There is your chance. Over to you and Craig.

Stephen….

This all happened Between 1967 and 1974, and was the rule from day one at grammar school, so we didn’t query it (although my girlfriend did when we were about 15 - more about that later).

It was always a mixed lesson, like all the other lessons at the school, and for indoor P.E. in the gym or sports hall the boys just wore shorts, and I think the girls wore skirts, but it might have been shorts. The girls also wore T-shirts, but the boys were bare chested.

Outdoor P.E. was on a Wednesday afternoon, with cross country every fortnight, both winter and summer. Again, both boys and girls were compelled to run barefoot...even in winter. In the winter term, the alternate Wednesdays were given over to netball for the girls, again they had to play barefoot. For boys, it was rugby, and this was the only exception to the barefoot rule. We could wear rugby boots.

All the other terms were given over to track and field events, where both boys and girls wore shorts (skirts for girls)?and T-shirts, but again, we were barefoot, no exceptions.

Our P.E. teachers for the most part wore shoes for the lessons, but there was a strange thing with the cross country. Our P.E. teachers were quite young -- the boys' teacher (male) was late 20s, and the girls' teacher (female) was in her early 20s (but, of course, to us teenagers, that was positively ancient!). Both teachers always ran cross country with us -- the man at the front, and the woman teacher at the back. The man wore shoes, but the girls' teacher always ran barefoot -- yet she always wore shoes for all other P.E. lessons, including indoors.

I loved being barefoot for P.E., but my girlfriend at the time hated it. She was okay with going barefoot indoors, but not outdoors. She asked if she could wear shoes for cross country and netball, but was told definitely not: bare feet were compulsory. I remember seeing her crying while she was brushing snow, barefoot, off the netball court.

This regime moulded my whole lifestyle, as I have always gone barefoot as much as possible, ever since and love it...and I am now barefoot probably 90% of the entire time. I can't see the health and safety brigade condoning barefoot cross country at schools nowadays, either compulsory or by indivdual choice.

Comment by: Stephen on 17th May 2024 at 14:28


"I'm loathe to put this here but feel in this case it's worth it.

Just a reminder for people such as Alan that women are often far worse than men. It will be interesting to see what this piece of work, Rebecca Joynes, a school teacher, gets when sentenced after her conviction this afternoon. I noticed it says she was initially only suspended after being caught having sex with an underage pupil. A man would have been instantly dismissed from the job for the same."

I don't think we need a Dutch auction to decide which sex is worse (schoolteachers, after all, are a law unto themselves). This woman behaved appallingly, and it shows a complete disregard for morality and self control. That rare instance of a female paedo. She ought to be ashamed of herself. Personal morality is obviously no longer considered important in the field of education. I only make the point this woman wasn't a P.E. teacher. I don't think it is necessarily the case that a man would be sacked. One teacher I have mentioned on this forum was also suspended and he went on to commit a second series of offences. Teachers are treated a bit like errant police officers and politicians. However egregious their offending, they are usually suspended, often years before dismissal - that applies equally to men and women.


Comment by: Veronica on 17th May 2024 at 17:32


"Alan on 15th May, "In the case of P.E. teachers, WHY do they want to spend all their time with boys?."


That's what the job entails, teachers spending all their time with children. Who else are they supposed to be spending their working time with?"



I said "BOYS", Veronica, not children. Boys. Don't misquote me.

I was referring to men who only wish to work in single sex (boys) schools. We have seen several cases where homosexual paedophiles attach themselves to such establishments - and many of them a P.E. teachers.



Comment by: Greg2 on 16th May 2024 at 21:41



"Comment by: Rob on 16th May 2024 at 16:00
What an idiot he was. Yet another gym teacher who seemed to take great delight in dishing out humiliation and bullying on only the younger and smaller lads. Pathetic really isn’t it how often gym teachers were like this…not all I expect, but certainly many.

I believe there really is something deep and primitive going on that seems to be activated in some adults by their having complete charge and control of those young bodies, as apposed to their young brains."

I totally agree. I was one of the smaller boys (in all respects) even at 15, and I got really sick and tired of our P.E. teachers pejorative remarks and put-downs. However, every cloud has a silver lining, and though I was subject to his insults, I wasn't "big enough" for him to fancy and try his tricks on.

One of my PE teachers had his own special way of dealing with bad behaviour and disruptive pupils in our class. He sent them off to the school library instead to sit and write lines. In the PE kit, and in our school gymnasium if you were a boy anywhere from eleven to fifteen that meant you would be doing PE relieved of everything but some black shorts. Not even allowed your underpants with shorts, and they checked this. I was given just this treatment myself, sent to the library and I had to sit where I was told. The humiliation was total. But maybe not as bad as the school softy who often got picked on by pupils who was pushed out the changing room window in the nude one afternoon at the end of the school day when our teacher had left us to it after making sure we'd showered after PE. Someone put all his clothes in someone else's bag without them noticing and they went home with them and left him at school with nothing to wear but a towel and unable to go home until a kindly French teacher was found who gave him something to wear and drove him home. The culprits were never punished. School could be bloody cruel at times in the early seventies.

The last line where you mentioned your running group being quite middle class is noted by me there. My old gran used to think that the only boys who hung around the streets with their shirts off when I was a kid were those working class lads from the council estate and she saw it as something the less educated would do. But I went to a well to do grammar school and shirtless PE was a big thing there and thoroughly mandated for boys of all ages at school without fear or favour. So the posh boys go shirtless too, not just the council estate street urchins! If anything I associate regimented shirtless PE with being upper middle class and above in the top posh schools more than anything, although in reality I don't think being shirtless, wanting to go shirtless or what type of school you went to or which class you consider yourself to be to have any bearing on shirtless behaviour either in or out of school.

It's quite possible that boys that are educated privately or go to grammars might be far more confident about themselves and about the whole shirtless PE ethic.

Introduce boys to shirtless PE as soon as possible and they will probably end up far more confident in the long term. I'd say begin with it the moment you start school and keep at it. What happens though is that many boys went to school until they were twelve having never done a days shirtless PE in their lives and had quite easy going PE lessons and then are suddenly hit with it and react badly in many cases.

I'm not suggesting this should happen but just making a point - suppose it was compulsory for all boys at all schools from the age of 5 until 18 to be drilled into bare chests for PE when it was taken inside a building like a gym or sports hall, I think there would be a lot more body confidence and all round confidence throughout the male population into later life as well as through childhood.

Comment by: Craig on 17th May 2024 at 22:39
'It would be quite a catch to gain a few teachers, maybe even PE ones, on our bareskin group and see how they like it, especially if we could get any, such as Nathan Hind who teaches, to do so when he's taking regular bare chested PE lessons with boys still.'



I enjoy reading your latest installments Craig as your group progresses in a positive direction.

I would take up a chance to run with such a group as yours if I was invited to do so, time permitting, this would not be a problem for me. I don't doubt that a lot of boys I teach would probably also give it a go if the chance was offered. Many enjoy running. Not that I am proposing any such bareskin running option for school anytime soon.

Hi.

We've got another three new recruits onto our bareskin running whatsapp group. One each in their 30's, 40's and 50's. All by word of mouth and grapevine through those who we already have. That's 38 members. I've been out on a bareskin run with two of them and just me and another guy tonight for a short run. They both said they enjoyed the first experience of running in bare chests immensely. We finished at dusk, so it was bright daylight while we ran and we passed quite a few people tonight as well. Quite a warm night and possibly humid as I was dripping sweat when I finished.

One of the new guys who tried it out tonight is actually a giant of a chap, he said he was 6' 5" tall and was incredibly thin and long limbed. He's quite different from almost all the rest of us on account of his height. As we were running, and he's 43, he was telling us how he was always getting teased for his height and what he looked like, not just in school thirty years ago but even at work. He said he'd done "quite a lot" of shirtless PE when at school as a teenager when he was already well over six feet tall at the time and never enjoyed it. So I asked him why he had chosen to give it a go, and it was because he was doing things on his terms and not somebody else's, which I found really quite interesting. He more or less said he didn't like being told what to do. If you don't like taking your shirt off and get told to do it, like at school, it obviously grates on some people quite a bit.

The other new guy to our group had a well maintained body that he clearly looks after. He was 32, a graphic designer. He'd never done much shirtless gym at school other than the skins and shirts usual thing. I asked if he'd ever run bareskin before by himself and he said no, he couldn't do it by himself but it appealed doing so in a group.

So we are well on track to meet our 50 members by Christmas if this keeps up.

Just take heart those of you on this thread who were fearful and shy at school of the shirtless PE lesson. We have guys in this group now who admit much the same as schoolboys and even as adults but have found a way to confront this. I found the attitude of the six and a half footer ten stone latest member quite brilliant considering he looks a bit outside the normal range and yet he's gone for it. If he can do it, anyone can. We shook hands before we said our goodbye's and he said "I'll be back" when he could easily have said it wasn't for him.

I think this group could help out even the shyest guys. The psychological benefits of bareskin running continue to prove themselves to me.

Tomorrow night at 11pm a group of ten will be doing an 8 mile "round midnight" bareskin run locally, and the only thing most of us will be wearing above the waist will be one of those LED head lights to see the way through some unlit locations away from street lighting. Running at night with those on your head when going to unlit areas helps lots. We will probably finish up about 1am! Many of our group favour these late night bareskin runs more than the daylight ones.


I was reading what you said about barefoot running Bernard. Maybe someone could start up a barefoot running whatsapp group for those who take to that. I know such people exist. I'm not sure whether I could do that outside for long runs though, I think just shirtless as bareskins is enough at once. Although if anyone came on our bareskin running group and wanted to set off barefoot as well who is anyone to stop them.

It would be quite a catch to gain a few teachers, maybe even PE ones, on our bareskin group and see how they like it, especially if we could get any, such as Nathan Hind who teaches, to do so when he's taking regular bare chested PE lessons with boys still.

Our bareskin running group is quite middle class if that means anything at all.

Comment by: Ryan on 15th May 2024 at 01:35
Wasn't there a certain satisfaction being able to check out exactly what all your classmates looked like and being surprised in one or two cases, and wondering what they might be thinking of what you packed, you know it's true gentlemen even if you won't admit it.



I admit it. I quite liked looking at the types of tackle we all possessed when we began showering at secondary school. I also noticed that the shape and size of my classmates bore no relation to their lower down developement, and that was the surprise I remember thinking. Big tall boys were late developers and short small lads could be early. The school showers made us all face up to these things about each other with no hiding place. I guess that's why some people think of them as cruel and unnecessary. I was comfortable with how I looked physically at that age and how I was growing so none of it bothered me. Sympathies to those who found it an ordeal obviously.

Alan on 15th May, "In the case of P.E. teachers, WHY do they want to spend all their time with boys?."


That's what the job entails, teachers spending all their time with children. Who else are they supposed to be spending their working time with?

I'm loathe to put this here but feel in this case it's worth it.

Just a reminder for people such as Alan that women are often far worse than men. It will be interesting to see what this piece of work, Rebecca Joynes, a school teacher, gets when sentenced after her conviction this afternoon. I noticed it says she was initially only suspended after being caught having sex with an underage pupil. A man would have been instantly dismissed from the job for the same.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-69026069

Comment by: Rob on 16th May 2024 at 16:00
What an idiot he was. Yet another gym teacher who seemed to take great delight in dishing out humiliation and bullying on only the younger and smaller lads. Pathetic really isn’t it how often gym teachers were like this…not all I expect, but certainly many.

I believe there really is something deep and primitive going on that seems to be activated in some adults by their having complete charge and control of those young bodies, as apposed to their young brains.

One firm (and quite painful) memory I've got about a PE teacher (1970s) is how he used to be handy with his fists in class with boys constantly. I don't mean punching anyone, but I wonder if anyone else had someone that clenched their hand into a fist and would then crack the top of boys heads very hard with the middle knuckle of his hand, and it could really hurt when done effectively on the crown area. It would even be done when counting out boys into teams or such like, going along the lines of us cracking his knuckle over heads as he went. I noticed how it stopped when we grew up a bit and became almost as tall as him. One of those types you came across in school who seemed to have little respect for his pupils or for his own position in authority over us. He pulled me and someone else from the school PE lesson one day to go with him to the main school staff room and collect some boxes of PE equipment that were quite heavy to bring back into the gym. He made us do this in our gym kit, bare chest and feet. The eyes of various teachers around the staff room turned onto us almost in sympathy and I felt like I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Then we had to struggle back with a huge box each while he held nothing at all. I always wanted to crack my middle knuckle over his head.

Ryan on 15th May 2024 at 01:35 and Neil on 15th May 2024 at 23:06

The first school showering experiences are probably always educational! It’s the first time you’ve been amongst others all of your age while you see how you compare. I was not quite 12 by the time i joined them all in there, and still very much a boy. I did have to sit with them for weeks before I was able to do gym and to join them and have my first shower. I remember it being quite an unexpected experience for the innocent little kid I still was at that age.

I do remember one boy who I’d already noticed was several inches taller than the majority of us, seeming more muscular too. He turned out to be the first person I’d ever seen completely undressed who looked very much more grown up than the majority of us. His maturity made him look about 16 to me, not 12! Another boy, who left the school at the end of that first year, looked just the same as the majority of us at that age with his clothes on, but something had already happened to him that certainly hadn’t yet happened to me. I remember that being unexpected and surprising to me!

Nature is very contrasting in its depiction of how we all are while growing up, even at the same ages.

Comment by: Ryan on 15th May 2024 at 01:35
'Wasn't there a certain satisfaction being able to check out exactly what all your classmates looked like and being surprised in one or two cases, and wondering what they might be thinking of what you packed, you know it's true gentlemen even if you won't admit it.'



Of course there was. I always laugh when I see comments that make out people aren't paying attention to anyone else in a communal shower situation. Of course they are, we all are. The one clear take out I have from sharing the showers at school when I must have been about 14 was how there was one lad in my class who packed something that looked like it was from my dad and another who had something that looked like my eight year old brother. Most of us were something in between. I don't think there's anything much wrong with boys in class the same age checking each other out or even openly looking, and we had some who used to comment about what they saw in the school showers quite openly. I think that's fine, perhaps even healthy, I don't know. But what we got from the other boys I wouldn't expect from the PE teachers, that would not be quite right. Being able or having to mix with a large group of other naked boys in school could be a reassurance in many ways.

Ryan - yes it really did feel good being able to experience so many different surfaces beneath our feet though some were better than others. We could and did kick mud up further than our legs - often on to our shorts and sometimes even up to our backs but it all came off in the showers except that on our shorts of course - that had to wait until later. There was a feeling of being close to nature running whilst so scantily clad. It was important to us that we were all dressed the same - no one was being treated differently to any-one else. Lack of shirts and shoes was just normal for us - not being used as a punishment or for any-one's gratification.