Burnley Grammar School

Just try telling some younger people like family members or others nowadays that you went out in PE running around the place in January and were told to and sent out without any kind of shirt, tee-shirt, vest, jacket or whatever in a totally exposed fully bare upper torso and they will look at you as if you are having some kind of false memory syndrome. I know because I've had that reaction myself. Yet I can think of a number of January days, admittedly the more mild ones, at school in around about 1974/75 when I was 14/15 when we got put outside ready to begin running, grouped together about 35 to 40 of us, not one of us wearing a top, every single one of us barechested and off we would go. We didn't bring anything to cover up along with us hanging off our shorts just incase while we went out. We would only be in shorts, nothing longer, with thick socks and either football boots to run in or other non-football boots. PE teacher was always well dressed, surprising nobody here saying that, frequently in long sleeved track suit jacket and long bottoms. The contrast of our PE teacher compared to how we were forced into turning out was quite dramatic. Most of us would have been fairly skinny lads with no extra body fat to rely on, just a mass of white bodies as we set off before thinning out a bit. I do remember the initial chill when we went outside like that but once running it felt less bad after a few minutes.

I don't suppose any of it did us any harm physically but I didn't see why everyone had to be told to run like that, I'd have thought if you wanted to you could and if not then don't. But I've a feeling it was also as much to do with bigging up confidence as well as physical health, however misguided that might be. Take it from me I thought it was a bit rich at the time to have this adult teacher demanding we run like that with him done up snug. But he seemed quite old at the time and we were supposed to be young, energetic and fit for purpose in his eyes. I often remember him slowing up and then clapping furiously at the back of us trying to hurry us along faster as we were never allowed to break up and file into separate groups and had to keep one neat and tidy bunch close together so those of us who were faster had to artificially slow a bit to meet the pace of the slow coaches. I'm sure he once said that boys who run outside with bare torso's actually run faster but whether that was just his own self styled quackery or based on anything scientific I don't have a clue. Without fail everytime we finished these runs and as we approached home base at school and our PE block he'd shout "showers the lot of you". Every time.

Six weeks after I left school the teacher who took our school runs died unexpectedly of a heart attack at just 55 and I only heard about it through the local paper reporting it. He certainly looked fit. Even then it seemed very young. I was so shocked, I must have had my last school run barely three or four months previously with him. He'd run with all these school classes and done so much else besides in gym but his heart got him.

Cross country always started with "Right lads vests off it's a great day for a run"
It very rarely was and stripping down to run barechested during autumn and winter wasn't very appealing.

My experience of PE/Games at Secondary school was mainly positive. Yes our teachers strictly adhered to the school policy of barechested gym and cross country and also made at least half the class strip their PE vests off outside too and yes it was really cold at times. But they were happy to talk things over if you had worries about things. I learned that these people were also human with families of their own which surprised me. For me personally and it's my personal view but having to strip to the waist to exercise along with 30 other boys gradually helped me gain more confidence in me and also played a big part in overcoming my terrible shyness.

Layers are no good Graham when you're sent outside by teachers who think running a couple of miles is okay shirtless in late winter before spring has sprung. My fate so many times I lost count, often the same pair of teachers that did it with us, winter always ended early for them. They also had no concept of the windchill effect either. Layers you say, we weren't allowed any......but they were of course, one running at the front of us and another up the rear keeping us all in line and up to an acceptable run rate with no slacking off. I remember some of these school runs when I was breathing out visible breath vapour as I went along and the only layer I had was the numerous layers of my skin itself above my waistline. We all came into school with shirts we could have worn so these deliberate choices they made for us do make me wonder what they were really up to with us sometimes. In certain jobs some people do seem to get some sort of power trip over others, the police being the obvious example and petty local council officials but you could reasonably add one or two old time PE teachers to that list.

Pete.

How nice to read this, turning your own personal negative into a positive. What you say does not surprise me. That is Phys.Ed at your school doing a very good job and turning around your entire attitude. Most sensible Phys.Ed teachers (like me!) know that not everyone has aptitude and ability that comes easily but always appreciate people who try like you said yourself. What we would get fed up with would be those who had already decided they were useless and didn't want to engage properly in Phys.Ed and offered excuses for why they could not do things rather than reasons why they might be able to at least try. It's still a tiny minority. Putting in the effort always makes a big difference even if you fall short of expectations.

I've seen the story of the school coat and Phys.Ed. Keeping warm outside in freezing weather in Phys.Ed is quite simple really. It's not about wearing coats, how foolish, it's about first and foremost keeping active and moving and wearing a couple of thin layers or more to trap the body heat. Obviously this does not work if you have no layers at all but cold in itself should not be a problem as long as there is continued movement.

There was a comment left here a month ago by Allen on 21st Dec. Ignore it. Although it related to a period sixty years ago what he described would have been an arrestable offence for anyone who made those in their Phy.Ed class do those things. I won't even repeat the claims. A thoroughly despicable fantasist smearing the profession.

William ' But isn't a stoic who copes happier than a snowflake who whines?'

What a great comment this is. Very much agree.

My own PE teachers across the four years from '78 onwards knew I wasn't a natural at much sport, if any, but knew I gave things a fair go. They knew I probably wanted to be anywhere but their lessons but I didn't bunk off or act hard done by. I didn't like showering with no clothes on or doing PE without my top but got on with it when it was needed. I saw so many others moaning and trying to cry off lessons and bunk the showers or say they had a cold and couldn't go to gym without a top, every lesson seemed like someone was at it when I was about thirteen. Kits were always in the wash with someone who wanted to sit out the lesson, sometimes four or five were doing that in one go. The sick notes came thick and fast at one point. Those kinds of kids with me got little respect out of PE teachers but I gained their appreciation in a number of ways and became aware that they would respond very positively to you as long as you got on with things without complaining and at least looking as if you were trying whatever we did in our PE class even if you fell flat on your face in the process of making valiant attempts. I considered myself near to the bottom of many of my PE classes so was overcome when one day one of my PE teachers announced he had recommended me to my head for a commendation badge for being one of his best pupils for most dramatic improvement in ability and confidence. That alone gave me an enormous boost.

I was definitely a stoic who coped in what I though of as a hostile environment of sports I hated, gym I couldn't do, group showers I was embarrassed about with a body I disliked a lot but had to show off all the time in large groups. But confidence breeds more confidence and is infectious and I did become happier with my lot, actually started to like PE far more after getting the badge of commendation and things started to fall into place and something I'd been quite fearful of when I was twelve I was incredibly at ease with three years later.

John, I remember my hands being so numb with cold after winter games at school that it was impossible to do up shirt buttons. We were expected by school and parents to cope with things such as cold, strict discipline, communal showers etc, and on the whole we did. Expectations were different then. But isn't a stoic who copes happier than a snowflake who whines?

Replying to Jeff with the paper story all I can say to that is;

Some Daughters Do 'Ave 'Em.

One word for that story, laughable.

The child must have gone home whingeing to her mother knowing she was one of those types certain to play up herself with the school and then pick the phone up to a newsdesk as well, resulting in this complete non story.

Many times I could have run home and wailed with self pity about things in school I didn't like that we did, many of them in PE but I didn't.

Talk about the snowflake generation. Who wears a coat in a PE lesson?

This is news in a national newspaper today, the poor little darling wasn't allowed to do her PE lesson in her COAT outside. Only allowed a t-shirt! That's called your PE kit to me.

She should try reading here and count her blessings when countless men have come on here and spoken of going out barechested in very cold conditions as boys in school from the 50's to 90's.

None of our parents even complained to the school, never mind the media about going outside in the cold completely stripped bare on top. It's truly pathetic.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11670727/Furious-mother-claimed-daughter-told-teachers-remove-coat-outdoor-PE.html

I never actually shared any PE lessons with girls from our class, we were always kept apart for that kind of thing in our secondary modern school. But the boys and the girls changing rooms were adjacent to each other with the PE office in between them both, so at the beginning or ending of classes we would be mingling amongst each other or hanging around sometimes outside in the walkway and I know because I used to deliberately do this myself that a lot of boys would already have their PE tops off before they walked in the changing room door, pulling them over our heads in the walkway knowing that one or two girls would get a quick look at you before disappearing to our changing room.

Mike, our school would have been a dump even if Princess Diana had taught there. It was a run-down inner city school, long past its due demolition date, and as a consequence we had the dregs of the teaching profession working there - old men, who had long given up dreams of advancement, with drink and other problems, who did little to conceal their seediness. Not that many years after I left it was torn down to make way for a supermarket, and it is a sobering thought that where the lavatory paper is now stacked is probably where the deputy headmaster had his office, dreaming up his detention routines.

I had no problems not having girls there, and if you ever get on a bus during afternoon school runs and hear the loud-mouthed vulgarity from some of the girls, I think it might be a better idea to have more single sex schools now.

Who knew boys worried so much, or should I say that men worry so much about what they did as boys. Time is obviously not the great healer when it comes to our schooldays. Getting over a bereavement seems like it's easier than getting over school times, the best days of our lives they tell us.

Many a time I took part in generalised mixed gym class with boys who took class dressed in shorts alone, with us in the late 1960's era. The embarrassment could sometimes be with the girls you know, being so near to boys like that in large numbers, especially if like some of my friends they didn't have any brothers at home and so this was the way they first got to know just what boys looked like under their clothing in reality rather than in some illustrated girls book. I'm not sure the boys had exclusive rights to being uncomfortable in the gym class of old that I remember sharing.

Unlike the other comment we did not have any rules against touching each other and there were many physical gym games we played in pairs, threesomes or foursomes which involved contact as well as general gym. My school never took any swimming lessons so I have never learnt to swim and it's too late now. That would have been nice and enjoyable and I envy those who were able to do so from an early age. I think sharing some school swimming classes and actually learning to swim properly would have been far more enjoyable and useful than the games we did in our school.

I remember going to school with a lot of very good looking boys but never plucking up the courage to ask any of them to go out with me. I did admire boys in gym games who could do things very well.

Alan, do you think your school would have been less of a dump if you'd not been to an all boys and shared your education with girls? In your case PE would have been even more problematic if you'd been stripping off shirtless alongside the opposite sex if you've been so unhappy alongside just boys. But I could be wrong.

Dean - 'School nudity was just so normal then'

Indeed. But like so many other things, smoking in the office for instance, what was normal then is considered very differently now and unacceptable.

Tanya and Rachel. I was lucky and went to an all boys dump, but (and I am not prepared to trail back over countless, very similar posts), several females and a few body confident men, have said in terms that they enjoyed seeing boys thus attired.

Just go back over the pages if you have the time and inclination and you will see for yourself - admittedly not the same volume as "discipline" and "jock strap" fetishists but enough to suggest a trend in that direction

I remember the awkward group naked shuffle together into the dry school showers after PE and the wait we had for a few moments until our PE teachers would turn them on around the back somewhere in a room we never saw. Very awkward. Then when the water began coming out it was stone cold for a few seconds until it warmed up. I'm sure they did that to us deliberately. We always reacted to that cold start up every time. Then whoever took us would watch us at the only entrance, blocking it before going back to turn the water off. Only when the water was back off could we come out. Some PE teachers left it on for longer than others. Everyone in class could fit in at the same time, about twenty five, but it was a very up close and personal thing to do and we sure got to know each other rather well in all departments.

I had one teacher who seemed big on drying properly and calling out anybody he thought hadn't done so and tried to dress too quickly while still a bit damp and had a habit of coming up to you and saying - turn around let's have a look at you - before we dressed with nothing on and making us twirl 360 degrees to check we were fully dry if he suspected we were not. We all had long hair at the time (mid 70s) which always got wet through and took ages to dry even with a vigorous towel rub. We always had to bring a comb and couldn't leave until our hair was combed and looked tidy, by 70s standards.

School nudity was just so normal then, it was something that happened more than once a week to us. Anybody who kicked up a fuss about not wanting to go in the showers at school would have been seen as a bit abnormal I think but we had our avoiders and excuses ready types among us.

What I don't understand here is the complaints about doing PE completely shirtless. My school did this regularly to me. I've seen some comments from people who complain about it in their own ways but I never understand why the issue with it because even if you had never done shirtless PE in the 60s, 70s, 80s and likely the 90s you would have ended your lesson being sent to the showers with nothing on at all which I would think must be pure torture for anyone who hated just taking a top off. But the shirtless complainers don't sometimes also complain about showering which I find contradictory.

Chris G, my dad controlled everything, my mum, my sisters and I, my mum had no say, it was always his way. Sleeping without a vest took a couple of weeks to get used to but really helped when I started secondary school where we were regularly made to strip off our PE vests outdoors as well as the gym. I think I was kind of used to the temperatures by then.

Just think about this regards naked school showers and changing rooms past at 11 to 18.

PE teachers got to see the development through puberty of all their pupils from start to finish in the past in ways that even most of our parents never saw of us.

It's really odd when you realise that.

Tanya, I can't believe any boy would have thought we'd be starstruck at the mere sight of them topless. Most girls respected that boys had to it strip off and at ours it was normal to see the boys outside with their PE shirts and vests off (both were on the uniform list) as it was in the gym/sports hall. I did tell my first boyfriend he suited exercising stripped off and he sheepishly said "thanks" I certainly can't remember any teasing or mocking them having hair on their chests though.

Nobody seriously believes that boys got sent into PE alongside girls without their shirts in part for the benefit of letting girls drool over their bodies do they? That disrespects both the girls and the boys in various ways to say that. If you want to go there with that kind of thinking I'd say girls would often admire the legs of certain boys when in shorts anyway and nobody ever thinks or talks about showing a bit of leg in PE do they. I remember making a flattering and perfectly genuine comment to a boy at school about his legs and it was clear he thought I was teasing him but I wasn't. I thought it was alright to say that but I very much doubt I would have said anything direct to a boy about his actual body if and when I'd seen it in PE.

I would be lying through my teeth if I said there were not some boys in my own school that I saw in PE who caught my eye physically, I wasn't blind after all. Some looked good in shorts and generally wore PE kits quite well and yes even in the mid 90's you shared and saw boys in PE going bare up top by teacher diktat but we were not allowed direct physical contact games with them at my school on some kind of weird health grounds that I cannot now understand.

Stephen, I can relate to some of the girls poking fun. For me it happened in the lower 6th form. We were lined up ready to go into the gym when as usual the teacher shouted out "right lads, get those vests off!" and the girls could see hair on my chest for the first time as they headed up the corridor. That was a little uncomfortable at first.

Stephen, what would the girls say or do to embarrass boys? How were they crazy or nasty? What sort of sports were you made to do shirtless around girls? How long would such lessons last? Did parents know and approve? Did any boy try protesting or refusing to strip? Were there any overweight or underweight boys who had it particularly difficult?

Guy picking out the crucial word that first glance looked insignificant in Sara's comment - could.

Like Guy says and I fully endorse it, there was no - could - about it.

I'm 56 now and so much of my indoors PE at school from 12 upwards was done without a top half of kit. A not insignificant amount outside was done the same, especially over summer and even Indian summers after we went back into the new academic year.

There was no could about it.

We were TOLD to do it. There was no discussion whether we would like to decide to do it. Quite simply MADE to. ALL of us.

It didn't matter a jot who you were, what you looked like or how you felt. I was 6 foot 1 inch tall by the age of 14 and towered over a number of PE teachers. This rapid height gain too quickly made for being naturally clumsy at that age, or useless as one PE teacher had the charm to say to me. The overweight or the weedy lads, from the shyest to the brashest. The sportiest to the nerdiest. Where to end. All just thrown into the same pot and expected to come out feeling the same. Choice didn't come in to it Sara, there was no could about it. Boys at that age are incredibly sensitive and touchy about what they look like physically but another thing boys tend to do at that age is to remain quiet and keep things to themselves as well. But I always thought you could read the body language with some quite easily and tell their comfort level with it.

If I was to give marks out of 10 with a 10 being a loved it and showing my body off and 0 being totally detested it to utter embarrassment I myself would rate myself a generous 2 or 3 probably. I reckon your average kid of the past would be about a 5 or 6 maybe.

The thing for me about being MADE to do barechested PE was that it was nearly always not genuinely required in order to do a proper PE lesson in the first place. Getting caught up with others or in equipment is such a red herring. Someone on here has written about gymnasts training barechested, that's as may be but no one is telling them to and when it comes to competition itself when did you last see a male gymnast actually on the rings, the parallel bars, the trampoline or the floor doing so barechested? Never.

Thinking back over my school years it is worthy of re-evaluation just why my school, many of your schools on here and others had such a strong desire to MAKE us go barechested for so many PE lessons across the board.

I didn't feel lucky Sara, baring all for PE gave me many anxious schooldays but this morning is the first time I have ever really made anything of it and said how I feel.

Sara - with all due respect, just because some women would be happy disporting themselves topless for their social media pictures, not all would, and just because some boys and men like to wear minimal clothing doesn't mean that all do.

O would put it to you that if girls had been made to do PE topless, there would have been outrage from some of them, and their parents, and I am sure some teachers as well. You can be sure Yvette Cooper, Stella Creasey and Jess Phillips would be on radio and TV every day complaing.

Some boys, for various reasons outlined by many on this site have explained why they felt uncomfortable. I won't rehearse those arguments here.

One other point which annoys me considerably is the implication that boys were made to go through Co-Ed classes with minimal kit for the delectation of female pupils. Again, just reverse that idea and we have girls exposed just for the entertainment of boys. There would be outrage. PE lessons should not have been a meat market for girl pupils or teachers. Thank goodness this practice now belongs firmly in the past. As Stephen 1979 point out, it wasn't a choice for us - you make it sound as if it were.

Sara, you seem to be saying that boys were lucky because we 'could' do PE barechested at school.
That implies we were given the option. I can't speak for anyone else on here but I don't recall my PE teacher (also 1990s) asking me or any other boy if we preferred to do the class with or without a top.
He only had one word on the matter. Either 'vest' or 'skin', nothing more to be said and definitely nothing to be gained from complaining if you were a skin and didn't like it.

Comment by: Sara on 19th January 2023 at 18:19

I don't doubt for one minute that if girls had gone to school and been made to go full on "barebreasted" as you put it, in gym classes, then there would be more than enough women now telling their stories of how they felt about it, many not enjoying it and feeling self conscious. They would have a right to say whether they liked it or disliked it. Not sure how old you are but the tone of your paragraph sounds like you yourself might have shared some gym with boys barechested to me. I remember girls at school who loved making boys feel embarrassed when presented in front of them in gym without shirts knowing there was nothing they could do about it. Some of the craziest and nastiest people I've met over the course of my life were teenage girls in school with me and I'm not exaggerating. That's in the early 1990's for you when boys and girls from ages 11 to 13 shared one of the PE lessons a week in my school where we often had to go barechested for the duration of the whole lesson with them for gym based sports. We sometimes had a female teacher as well. Where did anyone ever get the idea that boys don't care about this sort of thing if they're made to do it, especially alongside girls at that age.

There has been a chat on TalkRadio/TV this evening just before 6pm with Vanessa Feltz on the free the nipple campaign with women wanting to be able to show themselves barebreasted on Facebook and Instagram in the same way men can show themselves barechested on both.

Boys, stop complaining about your lot in schooldays, you were lucky you could do PE baring all.

Just wanted to reply to Tobie's comment on the 16th regarding shorts only PE in primany school preparing you for the same in middle school. With me that wasn't the case. My memory of primary PE isn't that good but I know we were made to do it in just shorts both indoors and outdoors when it was warm enough. I remember changing with the girls in a portocabin type building before going out onto the school playing field barefoot. I guess I was 9 at the time. At ten I transfered to a larger more modern middle school which had vest and shorts as indoor kit but as seemed normal in the 70's we lost the vest for part of each lesson, usually as the result of getting caught in one of the activity games or shirts and skins indoor football. I don't think I was a shy kid but I hated being made to remove the vest. I think many boys 10-12 are naturally sensitive, probable even more so than girls that age.

Another rather amusing take on this whole barechested at school thing.

Not the pupils in school shirtless, but their parents, the dads!

Is this really a thing, surely not.

This article appeared last summer and I just happened to catch it by chance. We have school receptionists complaining in 2022 of dads picking up the children stripped off. Well I live close to a school run and have never seen such a thing in my life, not even last summer in the last week of the school year when it famously hit 40 degrees mid July.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/19248938/i-work-in-school-gift-hate-getting-from-students/

From the Sun article;

'At this time of year, the office staff always get the special treat of seeing what some parents feel is appropriate clothing for the playground, especially when we get some nice weather.

Dads, you may think that we want to see your bare chest but this is not Marbella beach, and it’s just odd to pick your child up shirtless.

And mums, this is not the time that the phrase, ‘less is more’ is appropriate – please, put more clothes on, or at least some longer ones.

Makes us long for a good ol’ British summer with some nice blustery drizzle. And possibly hail.'


I agree there is a time and a place to remove your top half. Someone should have told a number of my 1978-83 PE teachers that a big bunch of scrawny white teenage lads darting through our High Street and through our Parish Church grounds near school en route with the cross country shirtless wasn't the place either even if it was in school time in PE.