Burnley Grammar School

Regards the snippet of 1930's PE which as Nathan says looks like it could be a demonstration rather than normality, I think that is highly likely based on my own personal experience of something so very similar in the last year of my primary school when I was eleven years old.

It was in May of 1969 and annually the top year soon to leave our mixed primary school did a display strikingly similar to that clip from the 30's. Boys and girls did a separate few minutes PE display. In my year there were somewhere in the region of 40 boys the same age as me taking part. What it amounted to was shifting much of the gym apparatus we had inside the school outside onto the grass. This was because there was no way there was enough room in our school gym to fit a display in along with our families watching us, around about 200 people is a guess. My parents plus and aunt and uncle came to watch. Now PE at my primary was generally done in dark shorts and an unfussy basic white tee-shirt, no socks and just plimsolls. Every now and again we would wear no plimsolls and no tee-shirt for some reason that seemed quite random to me at the time, just for the sake of being shirtless with bare skin. On the whole we had our tee-shirts and shorts on in most PE. On the day our primary leavers year gave our PE display to our families our teachers wanted us to look our best and most certainly so did our headmaster. Our best was not to be in our white tee-shirts but in our bare chests instead and that was how we each of us had to do our own PE display, all of us completely bare chests, all the soon to be leaving boys much like in the 30's clip doing a lot of up and down jumping, arm waving, skipping ropes, bench work, handstands, piggy backs, and all kinds of everything over a 15 minute period. There was no music, just a teacher blowing whistles and instructing us through what we had learnt. We had practiced in PE in our usual attire and then did a dress rehearsal outside the day before without our tee-shirts. I remember that our headmaster at that primary used to have a huge amount of input into things like this where showing off the school was concerned. It's a hazy memory and ages ago now but that headmaster said something like he thought we needed to show our muscles and show they were working or something to that effect. He was an assertive and bossy man to staff and children alike. I won't pretend we late 60's children were as choreographed as the ones from the 1930's but we did well and got lots of applause. One of the boys parents was lucky enough to have a cine camera and took some film and a group of us ended up lucky enough to go to his house and see what he had filmed of us. What I would give to know where that few minutes of film is now and have a chance to look at it again, in colour from 53 years later as we perform for our parents looking our best in our matching bodies with each other, looking our best as they wanted us to look at that time for our families. When we had all finished we all got given an orange squash drink as a treat.

I have watch the clip recorded in the 1970's and i see that the boys are wearing white shorts which are the same type as I wore in the 1960's for pe. they were shorter than the ones that seem to be worn these days,(possibly influenced by the football shorts worn in 1966 by the English team at the world cup) and to my mind more practical.
With regards to the 1930'2 clip, to me it looks more like an organised p e demonstration than just a normal pe lesson.

Mike: Regarding the 1930s - I suspect "preparing for war" would have been the excuse , as most of those lads would have been conscripted in 1939 - most people guessed war was coming from 1933 onwards.

As regards the 1970s clip, I suspect that is a scene from a commercial film, some of the camerawork looks too intricate for Super8 - the bridge scene particularly. It looks more 16mm or 35mm and few schools could have afforded that anyway. At 37 seconds it's probably an outtake.

What do you think of this then Alan?

School PE in the 1930's. This one popped up alongside the link Ian gave for his own clip. Now this really does look somewhat military style in behaviour. Not a shirt in sight.

https://youtu.be/rcBsFt2Cz_E


The clip Ian has shared of the skins v shirts football game in the 70's caught my eye because of how public that school playground was with the bridge and footpath elevated looking down on them all. Not a very private lesson was it. Some people now would see that as an issue considering the semi stripped off half of that group.

A little reminder of the happy days of shirts and skins:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgkLe0aXxcg

One team, mixed football kit. The other team, PE shorts with football socks and boots. PE teacher tucked up warmly in his tracksuit.

We had to play skins (60s Scotland) when a team came from another school, as a "gesture of welcome and respect" for our opponents, even if their strip was different from ours. The first time we were ordered to wear PE shorts, we kept our shirts on. When we came out of the changing room in PE shorts but , our PE teacher blew his top "I said nothing about wearing shirts!" And it was freezing cold. Finally we had to let the visitors shower first, while we queued up naked. Luckily there was some warm water left.

Roy saying it as it really is there.

This kind of stuff has not been completely abolished. It's just that when we were kids in school it was close to 100% of us that did these things and now it's probably a minority, well below 50% for showering for instance. But I read it on here from somebody months ago (was it Robert?) and then looked it up myself and it's true that schools have to provide showers for use even if they don't use them. Not many people seem to be aware of that. What type of showers is another matter, whether communal open things or cubicle style things. I'd be surprised to see lots of cubicles in a regular school as they are more expensive and lets be totally honest, they are not really private are they, you still have to come and go from them and be seen just the same as if you were sharing. Nothing wrong with sharing, less fussy. As far as PE kits go, I agree that there probably are not as many schools about nowadays that have an actual shirtless PE kit as the set uniform as such for each lesson but of course there are kids in PE doing stuff from time to time like that which should be thought of as absolutely normal as well.

Roy Hazell: Thanks for your reply. I was not being naive - if you read what I wrote about my own experiences with an especially repulsive PE teacher, you will have seen my problem with showers was not that my personal hygiene was poor, or I disregarded it, but the conduct of the teacher concerned. Your sons ( certainly the youngest of them) was attending school at a time when the teacher(s) concerned would have had to go through CRB checks before they gained employment.

I think it would be helpful when people contribute to this forum if, like you, they give dates and type of school they attended, because there are differences between private and state schools, and of course, the decade they attended. I still find it incredible our dirty old bar steward got away with it as late as the early 1980s. You can only imagine what it might have been like in earlier decades when pupils were more innocent.

Oh Alan don't be so naive.

I have six children who all went through the state school system here in this country, four sons and two daughters born over a 19 year period to me and my wife. We had our first when we were both 25 and her our last at 44, unexpectedly. The first started at state secondary in 1985 and the youngest finally left in 2010, so that is exactly a 25 year period for the six of them. They all went to the same school during that time in Beccles, Suffolk at Sir John Leman's.

They all had a couple of PE lessons per week, the first two might even have had three I think, when they started there in 1985 and 1989. The other four started in 1992, 1995, 1998 and lastly in 2004.

All of the boys did take showers at the school, and my first two and final two were sons, so latterly I'm specifying a date well beyond 2001 like the other contributor mentioned for himself. Only one of the girls took showers though, the one who started there 30 years ago. The other didn't. It did seem somewhat different for girls in comparison to our boys. I know they all at some point did PE classes not wearing their issued kit vest. I remember them saying so. I remember one of them telling me about the horror of his bare-chested PE lesson. They all had differing views I think on PE and showering and all that kind of thing, before you get to the actual lesson content itself. I always paid close attention to what went on in all aspects of their schooling as any parent would. I have all the literature that came with their attendances and it makes it perfectly clear that for boys in PE they are expected to shower unless told otherwise. It was clearly a compulsory element. I'd probably have been more surprised if it wasn't. That goes for the first son beginning in 1985 and the sixth starting in 2004 until 2008, although not sixth form when PE stopped up top 2010 when my last one left.

Me and my wife are both 73 now and both of us also went to the same school at the same time at the start of the 1960's. Boys and girls were treated much the same at that time. I remember having some extremely vigorous PE lessons that by today's benchmark might well be considered close to some kind of army style drill routine. Although my own school did have a set PE uniform which included various tops for inside and outside use, an great deal of our time in the school gym was spent not wearing those tops and doing things without. I'd hazard a guess and say two thirds of the time, so more often than not. This includes outside by the way where we did so quite a bit too. School had a very large climbing net that we often had to climb up and over and down the other side. We did not wear any top of footwear doing that and it was outside, not in a gym. When I showered at school in the early part of the 1960's we did it without thinking much about it and if we'd skipped and been found out I think some physical punishment would have been more than likely. Never picked up on any reluctance to do so, or to take our tops off for PE either. Quite the opposite actually.

It's an interesting debate but I wonder if this is more to do with individual lack of esteem rather than anything else.

John: I was just surprised that it went on as late as 2001, simply because most schools had stopped the compulsory no shirts caper long before that, at least by the 1990s. I only know of "ordinary" i.e. council comprehensives, I know some of the private schools took longer to catch up with the late 20th century. I very much doubt that schools enforce that kind of regime in 2022.

If you read it he said what type of school he went to Alan. It all sounded quite standard to me, I don't see why you use the term militaristic with what he said there. The usual PE showering and a bit of shirtless PE when teachers wanted it here and there was essentially it. That's not a big deal even for 2001 really is it?

Aaron 86: I am really surprised that you were subjected to the behaviour of the 1960/70s at your school. I do believe you, I am not suggesting that you are lying, but may I ask what sort of school you went to?. Was it an "ordinary" state comprehensive or a private or grammar school?.

They were very late in leaving behind the militaristic attitudes meeted out to boys of my generation for example.

There's no kidding a teacher. Nice to see you reappear again. I think you are probably articulating what most of us who browse the comments would be thinking, I agree.

Referring to the comment left by "Allen Williams" on 21st December.

Not a scintilla of truth. None of that happened. That you have tried to pass that post off on here with the expectation that even semi-intelligent sentient men and women might find it believable is in itself amusing.

As Jim said, and I agree, it belongs in the fiction section. No more real than Santa Claus.

Referring to the comment left by "Allen Williams" on 21st December.

Not a scintilla of truth. None of that happened. That you have tried to pass that post off on here with the expectation that even semi-intelligent sentient men and women might find it believable is in itself amusing.

Please ignore it.

Sitting here working on Christmas morning, my turn this year. One year when I was in school I was so bored one Christmas Day evening all the family and visitors flaked out, filled up and half dead to the world as lunch and drink caught up with them that I went off upstairs and did my geography homework. When I handed it in back after the holidays the young geography teacher saw I'd dated my work 25th December and asked why I'd been doing it that day and didn't I have a nice Christmas. Hilarious.

Simon says something about 'normal PE teachers'. It got me wondering just what one of them actually looks like and what 'normal' even means in the first place. I think there might be many differing opinions on what constitutes a normal teacher. Boring probably, and uninspiring maybe. I used to like the teachers in school who had something different about them. They are the ones I remember. Happy Christmas all.

Fascinating comments here.

Took note of yours Christian. Interesting and new point not seen made before about individual body types being more suited to certain sports, and that should apply in school. Trying to make lanky six and a half footers play rugby is like square pegs in round holes. It's because school forced everyone to do the same old stuff week after week and few other options were regularly considered that so many probably left school not wishing to continue with anything physical, and that is in my book a massive failure. PE in particular should aim to set youngsters up to keep up exercise and remain physically active long after school leaving age.

My secondary school days were more recent than some here, I left in 2002 when I was 16. My school at that time still had compulsory communal showers, yes in 2002, and I had to take them like everyone did until the final year when we stopped having to, so probably took my last sometime in summer 2001 but it was much as others here describe their own from the earlier decades like the 60s/70s/80s periods. Doing PE without wearing shirts for the boys was still commonplace in my own classes regular as clockwork until I left, again it was always at a teacher's discretion. Not a problem for me but did see one or two boys start making an issue of it and turning it into a big deal and openly try to defy it without much luck, same with showers. My own view was if the rest of us were doing it why should one or two others be allowed to be different. If you want to be a PE teacher you need to put up with endless excuses from those who don't want to do things, it must get incredibly tedious for them. Perhaps that is one difference from my era to the older guys on here who say everyone just took what got thrown their way on the chin. Isn't that what used to be called having a stiff upper lip or something, knuckling down and getting on with things without complaining too much. If you've been to school ansd the only genuine thing you can find to complain about at your school is that your teacher told you to shower and take your shirt off to work out in PE then I'd say you went to a good school because in the list of issues I'd put those way down my own list.

That was a remarkably personal answer Alan and more than answered my questions to you. I thank you very much for opening up like that. I was able to place myself in your shoes and try and gain an understanding from you.

At the first school I attended that used showering as part of PE it began by being surprisingly casual to say the least. I can remember that first term very well. They seemed to break us into the whole thing rather slowly and gently over time, or that's how it seemed. I'll explain. We would come back to our changing room, the showers were available and seemed to be a choice. Nobody was actually ordered to use them. Our teacher would stick it on and leave it running and some boys would strip off and go in and come back out and others just got dressed and didn't bother. Nobody minded and nothing was said. It carried on like this for what must have been a couple of months at least and I thought that was how it would remain. I chose most times to get dressed and not bother but did use them a couple of times, my choice, nobody told me I had to. It seemed to work well like that and most lessons we had there would be some showering and not others, the same boys each time mainly. As I said, all very casual and if I'm honest about it, unexpected. Maybe we were being tested by our teachers in some way. Then I suddenly remember coming back from a PE lesson one morning and it all changing and actively being told that I had to use the showers, and so it stayed that way going forward. I'd chosen to anyway a couple of times so wasn't too bothered by it but I did wonder why they had such a casual attitude for so long and then suddenly changed it. The teachers were the same. At no point had we been told that our school's showers were to be a must take until way into term time after a lots of lessons.

Generally speaking I got on remarkably well with my teachers in most subjects, PE included. I suppose it does help when you feel at least a bit competent in some of the curriculum sports we did and are also reasonably alright in your own skin, although I had my off days even so. I never went through any of these so called dreads about not wearing shirts or taking all my clothes off, but some days in PE I do know I could feel far more confident than on other days, despite being the same person, same me. But what I will say is even with myself I can vouch for the difference between teachers having a subtle impact on self belief and worth.

I did my own fair share of PE in my bare chest but one thing I do not have a great memory about is doing the much mentioned skins versus shirts for team games. I'll explain. Basketball for instance, we would come to PE in tops and if it was decided that we were doing basketball that day we would then be asked to remove our tops and set them aside and all of us would have to get a small coloured bib to wear, often yellow or green, team dependant. The bibs were quite small, just about covered back and front and left you exposed at the side apart from a tassle you could tie if you wanted. No one sides team was ever left as a shirtless skin without a bib, although I suppose we could have been if they wanted. Often after the basketball we would take the bibs off and do a quarter hour of fitness tests, sit ups, press ups, in pairs around the floor, in our bare chests. I actually quite liked these fitness tests as I was quite competitive and could do one or two of them rather efficiently.

One morning one of my parents actually appeared through the door into my actual PE lesson while I was doing one of these fitness tests and caught me while I was having some bench steps timed. So mum actually saw me in a live PE lesson, with my shirt off. Now I was embarrassed by that quite a bit, as I had to walk off with her like that and go and get dressed while she waited for me. The reason was I'd forgotten about a dental appointment to get a brace fitted and was meant to leave the PE lesson early and got so stuck into it that I forgot completely along with the fact that none of us were ever allowed to wear chains, jewellery or watches on our wrists so I had no idea of the time. I wouldn't recommend your parent turning up during a PE lesson to drag you away in a sweaty bare chested state because it doesn't do your street cred much good among class. On the subject of teeth and teenage braces, that very brace I got fitted for a few months actually enabled me to swerve doing high impact team games and I was able to choose something else rather than rugby until it came off, not my choice but my actual PE teacher decided that one without anyone asking for it.

I enjoyed rugby as a game and the physical aspect of it. We often seemed to play it after a week or two of daily rain on water logged grassy school fields and I must admit I took great delight in diving and throwing myself about on those fields and ending up a right state at the end. So much infact that I got a telling off one day for being far too muddy and doing it deliberately. It was great coming back and washing so much mud off. Not something I could do at home. I was always getting into trouble at home for blocking the kitchen sink plug with mud from my school boots. That's after all of us standing around outside being told to take them off and smack them together to shake off as much as we could. The courtyard paving slabs outside our changing room were often covered in mud from boys boots that had been bashed together. It never looked clean like it should have.

Tying into what you said Alan about your height, and rugby, school had a boy in my PE class who was well over 6 foot tall when he was only 15. Possibly he was 6 foot 5 inches even, unusually tall for the age, and he stood out. I never saw his height mocked but did see one of the smaller boys for his age take a few swipes for his height. But that overly tall boy among us always looked ridiculous doing rugby and so out of place and wasn't very good. Certain body types suit certain sports and some are just completely unsuitable but school PE didn't allow for those kind of differences. One size fits all. If I was to make one negative point it would be that one.

Happy Christmas.

I've been wondering if I'm one of the few who seemed to have normal PE teachers. We were barechested both in the gym and for athletics and ran cross country usually as skins vs vests or were all barechested from time to time. There was never any mocking anyone's physique when they were picked as skins from either the teachers or us, we'd been warned against making any comments in the first lesson. There were two other lads and I that were picked to strip to the waist more often than not, but at no time did I or others ever had reason to doubt the integrity of either teacher. Both always stayed outside the changing room when we were in at all times and waited in the corridor for us but it never took long to change or pop a vest on anyway. The lessons weren't utopia, you were expected to put the effort in but as long as you did there wasn't a problem and it was common to sweat either doing gym work or basketball or to see lads leaving the gym with sweat on their tops and legging it back to the changing room at the end. Both teachers recognised the effort regardless if you were gifted with sports ability and yes it was hard being stripped to the waist outside in winter but that's how it was. No rose tinted glasses, just how it was.

To Christian - Yes I remember my first session - even the date. Our term started on a Tuesday (they always did!), and our first PE lesson was on the Friday. Most of us had been to the same sort of junior school - in a fairly built up area of London, where PE had been really playing with bats balls and skipping ropes in the playground, in everything except our jackets, usually by a bored English or Geography teacher (I don't think we even had a designated PE teacher). To go from that relaxed set-up in July to a shouting, sarcastic ex-Army bully in September was a culture shock, where surnames had replaced first names and all the teachers talked to us as though we were in a borstal. Of course at 11 we were as green as grass and we didn't understand the man or his "interests". It was a shock to everyone when we were told that we could only wear shorts, and everyone was uncomfortable for weeks. However, a bit like prisoners who make themselves feel "better" than other inmates because they feel their crimes were lesser, so there. Thus bigger boys would make fun of smaller ones like myself (I was at the time the shortest lad in my class), and as I stayed on the small size (I shot up only after leaving school).I was extremely skinny and the PE teacher invented a name for me "tin ribs" which the boys who wished to ingratiate themselves with him also used. Like the boys this teacher , if he had no interest in you (personal or professional), delighted in insults and belittling. It was only when we got to 13/14 we realised that the man was probably (forgive the word but it was the one in general currency - "queer"). But back then an ex army rugby playing, no-nonsense disciplinarian couldn't possibly be, could he?. I suspect that at least one other teacher knew or suspected his proclivities, but they stick together. Teachers, I mean. At that age the PE teacher would come into the shower room and changing area and virtually stare. It was brazen and demeaning, but as he always boasted if anyone complained or said anything in his hearing "you're a troublemaker, but if there is any trouble they will believe me, not you, and don't forget it". He was never personally interested in me - as I got older I think my genuine contempt for him was clear, but lads that did "interest" him got special treatment and even lessons outside school hours - always in the name of sport of course. One lad I became friends with told me a year or two after we had left school that the teacher had indeed forced his attentions on him. Even at that age (18/19) he still felt nervous about him and was afraid his parents would find out. They would call it grooming now, and he would probably be in prison or on the Sex Offenders Register. Giving "sports massage" after school hours to a 16 year old would not be encouraged especially when the pupil didn't want one, and that was what happened to my mate.

In many ways I am glad I wasn't one of that teachers tall, muscular, sports mad acolytes as I only had to endure his insults and put-downs, but the price is, when you start out adolescence and early adulthood being unfavourably compared, and insulted about your physique. it affects you for life, and you are very reluctant to put yourself in the same situation again, though of course it is much less likely amongst adults. To this day, however hot the day (and we had some scorchers this year) you will always find me in trousers and at least a polo shirt.

When people have said on this site that they always seemed to be the ones picked out to be a skin, and the nude swimming jazz, I often wonder if they were in a similar situation themselves and didn't question it - or if, like one or two of the bigger lads in our school, they secretly enjoyed the admiration, but was disgusted at the same time. There is no doubt one or two of our more narcissistic lads enjoyed showing off to him.

I have no problem with homosexual teachers in subjects where they are not in a position to see the pupils naked, but back then it seems to me many sports teachers with those proclivities did find an extra reason to gravitate to single sex schools. The fact that these days, they don't get the opportunity to indulge their interests is a good thing. If they tried it on like our teacher (we only had one teacher for each subject) he would soon find himself in trouble. That said, I wonder how many "football coaches", talent scouts etc, other than the famous ones we all know about ended up in court and/or prison.

I am honestly glad boys these days (and girls come to that), are not forced to shower, or take everything off, and treated with more respect and understanding, and don't go through what I and many others went through.

This has been quite a personal post but to this day I can remember how I felt even though it is around forty years ago now.

It seems to me incredible, even back then, that a man of that sort could get employment in an all boys school. Of course there were no CRB checks back then.

Alan. What ratio of your own PE lessons did teachers make you get shirtless and did you ever pick up on anyone else around you with the same attitude you had? Do you remember the first lesson like that you ever had? What about your first ever school shower, how was it for you and did you pick up on anyone else's unease? Try and put me in your own shoes to understand your own experience, I am genuinely interested, I hope you don't mind the questions, and thankyou for your previous reply.

Isn't it a shame that schools didn't do yoga for PE. I've done this lots of times in small groups of about a dozen people near my home, sitting on a mat in just my shorts among other men and women of varying ages and often feel I come away very positive, breathing correctly, stretching and moving while wearing very little. Yoga like that should be given out on prescription for those who deal with body and self image issues. It really does work and I took a sceptical friend along who was won over by the benefits and kept coming along.

The grammar school I attended, in a relatively low income area of the north west of England, had a large box, (I seem to recall the size of a tea chest), in the gym stock room. This contained a wide variety of lost and used uniform items, including PE kit.

These clothing items had been carelessly dropped and left behind in the boys'/girls' changing rooms, and picked up at the end of the day by the cleaners. Over time, it was surprising how many items of school uniform were recovered, but never subsequently claimed. Hence, this large box was usually full, or nearly so.

Any boy or girl who forgot or lost an item of PE kit could quickly go to this "found items" box. With seconds ticking before the beginning of the session, they would hope to find something, anything, that would not be too smelly, and possibly even a reasonable fit.

It was worth having a really good look, because lack of kit was punished, and never accepted as a valid excuse to miss the PE session.

The first paragraph of the post written at 4.19am today, and some of the rest, stretched credibility to breaking point and well beyond. I prefer non-fiction.

Like Kenny, I had a not too different conversation with a grandson of mine before he was sent to his new school when he was eleven in 2017. Myself and his grandad were talking about his expectations and what he would be doing at his new school when his grandad asked him what type of sports the school would be doing, which led to a talk about my older husband's time as one of the final national servicemen in the late fifties, ablutions and then onto schools that did the same once you reached the certain age around about eleven or so. The grandson also expressed surprise that schools widely, almost all of them, operated a compulsory communal showering P.E requirement for everybody. When he went to his school he did say there was a shower in one end of the changing room but it was never being used in his first year, although among his item list it did ask to bring a small hand towel. It must have been about a year later and one evening when he called me he told me one of his P.E teachers had finally switched that shower on and sent them all into it. I remember chuckling down the phone and saying, told you so. He told me he and some others tried to do so wearing their shorts but had to take them off. I told him he'd been rather silly to do that and he agreed. He's not even a shy young man! I don't think the use of the shower was a common occurrence though. He did tell me that all mobile phones and devices were strictly banned from the school changing room and anyone seen with one in them would be in serious trouble. That's understandable when these things can now take such clear and perfect pictures with little effort and almost undetected. Perhaps technology has a part to play in why there has been a change.

If I take myself back to my time in school the only thing I ever really enjoyed was hockey or netball. The gym apparatus was a nightmare. I've seen some comments about how the men did things for the boys but the women that took us often screeched loudly and the words 'come on' were always ringing in our ears. The women never let us leave their class without a shower and we had one who quite frankly degraded us to the point she would sometimes spin us around to make sure we'd had a proper shower and got wet enough and would even place her hand on our heads or feel if our hair was wet enough. If not we got sent back in for another go, and like another entry wrote not so long ago on here, I agree wholeheartedly that young girls just do not engage with the close up communal showers naked with each other in close proximity in the same way that teenage boys largely accept as something they're expected to do.

Allen Williams "I don't think boys have evolved into different creatures in the past 50 years. I learned at school that social nudity is actually not an imposition, it is genuine, and entirely non-sexual fun, giving a feeling of freedom, confidence, and empowerment."

It might have been for you, Allen, but not everybody is the same.

As regards nudity during exercise I can only repeat the advice offered about dancing in the nude. Not a good idea, because not everything stops when the music does.

From 1960 to 1963 I was at a (mixed) state-maintained primary school in north-west Surrey. PE was done in the school hall. off which the classrooms led. The process was that the class would strip down to underpants/knickers in the classroom, then go to the hall for the lesson, then trot back and get dressed again. Some children came from very poor families, and, while the girls got underwear, boys did not, two boys in my class falling into this category. They had the choice of sitting out the lesson, or doing it in the nude, and they both chose the latter. So did boys whose underwear would not stay up during exercise without the support of the waistband of their shorts (including me). When I did get replacement pants, they were of the “string” variety, which concealed nothing, and were restrictive, so I stuck to not wearing anything. Some of the girls said they had the same problem, so went naked as well. I suspect it was more that they were more embarrassed to display their old-fashioned baggy knickers than what was underneath them. We also had swimming (at another school's pool). Neither of the two boys without pants had swimsuits either, and both wanted to swim, so they were permitted to do so in the nude. Boys who had not brought swimming costumes for any reason were given the same choice, and, then, of course, some of the girls claimed the same privilege. Effectively, either a boy or a girl had the same option to sit out a PE or swimming lesson or do it in the nude if they wanted to. At any lesson, about 20% to 30% of the participants were naked.

At my (boys) private secondary school in Croydon, from 1963 to 1970, the official PE kit was white cotton T-shirt, brief, but loose-fitting elasticated white cotton shorts, white cotton socks and white gym shoes, and absolutely nothing else. However, turning up wearing nothing but the shorts was acceptable. No kit meant you got punished. There came one occasion on which one boy did this, but he had borrowed the shorts, and the elastic was gone. Once he took away his hand holding them up, they fell down, so he took them off and did the rest of the lesson in the gym naked, without sustained objection from the teacher once the circumstances had been explained. Having established the precedent, boys who had forgotten their kit asked permission to do the lesson in the nude rather than get punished, and this was usually granted. Nobody objected or was offended by this. We all saw, and were seen by, each other naked most days anyway (in showers and changing rooms); we were in and out of changing rooms and showers six or seven times per week, so this sort of social nudity was entirely normal in any event. It was part of the curriculum almost. As far as swimming (in the school's own pool) was concerned, the rule was simple: “boys may swim in the nude, but if a costume is worn, it must be of the approved school pattern”. That is, the uniform trunks, of the right style, colour, size, and intact (not damaged or deficient in any way). It did not matter if it was your fault or not, if you did not comply with this when directed to go swimming, you had to swim in the nude. Swimming was compulsory, wearing a costume wasn't. Again, nobody objected or was offended. Embarrassed initially, yes. Anxious beforehand, yes. As the result of the rule, almost everybody did swim in the nude sometimes, often because the school arranged swimming at the last minute when some other thing was unexpectedly cancelled. They could always do this, because a boy could always go swimming: he could do it naked and did not need any kit. I got caught out like this when I was 12 and discovered that I thought I had hated swimming, but in fact it was wearing the costume that I hated: swimming in the nude felt wonderful! Everybody actually agreed with me. I know, I made a point of asking everybody subsequently whom I knew had done so, whether they preferred going naked or wearing trunks, Not one person expressed a preference for clothing, although they continued to use it, solely because a large majority did so. I continued to do so frequently, and, a year later, when I grew out of my costume, I decided this was a silly reason, and did not replace it.

As to how frequent the practice of nude swimming for boys was in other schools, there are two points: one, when we had our first swimming lesson at the school, half the boys turned up with trunks, the other half walked into the pool area naked. The nudists had all gone to private preparatory schools, at every one of which boys were obliged to swim in the nude. The other half had gone to state-maintained primary schools where either no swimming was done, or where the wearing of a suit was compulsory, or expected. Each half had simply done what they thought was normal. I conclude that at private “prep” schools, at least in the north-west Surrey area, boys always swam in the nude, at least to the 1960s. The second point is that, when visiting other private schools in London, Surrey, and Sussex, as part of our fencing team for away matches, I asked them about the policy there on swimming. Nowhere was it banned, and at some it was either compulsory or de rigueur. We were once shown to the side of a small training pool at Dulwich College and were told there were no showers, but we could use the pool to freshen up afterwards. On being told we obviously had no swimming costumes, the senior boy guiding us said “We never wear them, and I don't see why you should have to, either.”, and left us to it. We all used the pool in the nude. It was bloody cold, though. I conclude that, well into the 1970s, most boys-only private schools in the region either allowed or generally adopted nude swimming, too.

I don't think boys have evolved into different creatures in the past 50 years. I learned at school that social nudity is actually not an imposition, it is genuine, and entirely non-sexual fun, giving a feeling of freedom, confidence, and empowerment. That these days it is drummed into them that it is a terrible perversion, and they should be ashamed of revealing their naked bodies to anyone, is a monstrous disservice to them, and to the truth.

While I'm at it, don't call this a reversion to Victorian standards. They were certainly guilty of dual standards for boys and girls, but they never objected to boys being naked together, or, indeed, in public places where male nudity was known to occur. Ladies' modesty could be protected quite sufficiently by their not frequenting such places. No: the “New Prudery” is far, far, worse than that, and it ought to be stamped out vigorously.

To the person who wrote about the disbelief about his time learning to swim in school, beat this - my teenage son took a lot of persuading that his dad, me, who is now late fifties, once had to take regular weekly showers in school with the rest of the class totally starkers all flesh and no fabric showing his bits and pieces. He didn't believe a word of it when I first told him and kept refusing to believe it until I told him to go away and look it up somewhere. It was a hard sell getting him to finally believe me that such things were the expected norm and the mundane day-to-day part of school life back in the day.

Nobody seemed to forget their swimming stuff and sit it out when I was in school, but lots used to do so in general PE. It might have had something to do with being told forget to bring your stuff and you'll go in without, but that was only a crafty bluff anyway but as young children you could never quite tell for sure and didn't want to test it and find out. In the lower schools it was in your pants if you didn't come with your stuff for PE, in the older school it was doing lines on paper sitting crossed leg on the floor which was quite uncomfortable actually crouching over to write direct on the floor where the paper was.

Calvin - I suppose in 2022 what you say does sound astonishing and unlikely but of course that was not the case in 1972 yet its hard for some people to put themselves back in time that far, especially if they are too young. In 1972 what you said would possibly have gone largely unremarked about whereas in 2022 it would cause a sensation. At times I wonder if we really have progressed in the past 40 or 50 years or whether we are going backwards at a rate of knots. Everybody has to see something sinister or problematic in every little thing nowadays, nothing can be genuine or innocent anymore. How sad is that. I hope the tide turns again the other way someday soon.

Me and my brothers all used to get taken down to a very shallow river area in around about 1972/1973 by our mum along with her friends and their children with us and we dipped in the river with each other completely naked in what was a quite open public area with plenty of comings and goings. We'd come out and dry off on the paved area and grass at the bank edge as if we'd come out the bath at home. The parents didn't seem to care, and neither did we, although we were a bit younger than you, around about 3 to 7 years old when we did this.

I do agree with your end point and wonder why some of you ended up in your pool wearing nothing while others did. I can't answer that I'm afraid or even give a good guess.

Interested in what Gerry Stein says here.

I was down the pub a few years ago when a conversation started up on old school times. I told a story that people thought I was pulling their leg with but I wasn't.

50 years ago in 1972 the Surrey based middle school I was at had one of those funny looking starter pools that can be erected quite simply. The lower year used it, it wasn't huge but it did a good job of introducing kids to water and gaining their confidence and I was one of those kids. The teacher never came in with us and always stood at the side instructing us although she never had any obvious swimming or PE qualifications I would think. I was aged 8 when I began learning to swim in this starter pool as I think they were known. The were just a really cheap, compared to a proper sunken pool, way of allowing easy access to swim at school. It was open air. But here's the thing, I remember being in this pool having lessons with quite a few kids naked, and the starter pool lesson had boys and girls in it with each other. Only a few boys would be naked though. I think maybe it could have been about 7 or 8 out of a starter class of approximately 20-25, half boys, half girls roughly. Now I was accused of mis-remembering this by someone I spoke to but I absolutely did not do so, it's just not something you are going to forget. I was beginning to doubt myself and my memory of it when I bumped into somebody I was in middle school with in the same class about 12 years ago and mentioned it and they confirmed that I wasn't having some kind of false memory syndrome and that it was true enough.

Perhaps what is as interesting as the fact that I did swim naked in a starter pool at 8 years old in school is why I did so, and some others did while others (boys) did not. That remains the mystery. Because it was certainly not something we were told we had to do in the way that Gerry describes, I feel sure about that, otherwise we would all have done the same. I don't even think it had anything to do with not coming along with some swimwear. I did about 20 lessons in the starter pool and most seemed the same as I've described.

Does anybody have anything comparable from that time or can anyone shed a light on the mystery of why some of us would do that and not others. I suppose it really was down to what we keep hearing of simpler times, an innocence, with less judgement and fear of these things.

This current UK freeze reminds me of years gone by at school. Turning up through the gates after the first decent fall of winter and having someone I couldn't stand come up to me and proceed to not just throw a snowball at me but pull the collar on my shirt back behind the neck and stuff that snowball down my bare back and all the cold and wet that felt. A fate probably suffered by kids across the land inside school and to and from in the regular snowfalls of 60's, 70's and 80's Britain.

Never a truer word has been said than the chilly school gym. It's so right. My schools seemed to have an old style plastic mercury thermometer hanging in every classroom and areas we worked, in the larger areas like the school hall and our gymnasium building which was a separate build completely to the main school. I too remember the goosebumps of the winter months, I'm another who did PE mainly without a top, nine times out of ten we went barechested on the say so of any given PE teacher on that day. For me it's the coldness of the floor on our bare feet that sits in the mind to this day, and also the cold floor on our bare backs as well, as we often had to lie down on our back sometimes to begin an exercise, without a mat more often than not as well. I'd liken the sensation to having a cold stethoscope put on your chest.

I think our gym had a thermometer next to the fire alarm. I never looked at it and can just imagine what might have been said if someone had done so and said "sir, it's way below sixty in here". I've no doubt it was many times over. There were so few, if any complaints about anything when we were in these lessons. We accepted what we got told and where we did it and how we had to turn out. You would not openly confront a teacher even over something rather trivial or inoffensive such as feeling cold in PE. Well let's put it this way, I wouldn't have done so and I probably speak for most. It was our PE teachers who you were least likely to go giving any backchat to, but it didn't take much to end up on the floor doing instant press ups or such like. I got my hand trodden on once doing this and was always convinced that PE teacher did it accidentally on purpose.

It was extremely rare to end a PE lesson even in a chill gym and still feel cold. Even in such circumstances I found it easy to work up some dripping sweat eventually.

Changing rooms in school are worth the mention. I have memories of mould in various corners and mine being less a than hygienic feeling place that could have done with a deep clean itself and spruce up. Muddy water all over the floor in the wet weather after being outdoors, trailing all over the place and having to walk in it and lukewarm showering and almost cold sometimes. Yet again, never heard any direct complaining about this.

We put up with a lot years ago didn't we. I'm pleased the younger generation don't take everything lying down nowadays. But I still think those of us at school in the last third of the 20th century were more all rounded people and able to withstand what life threw at us far more, even when we didn't like what was getting thrown. A lesson best learnt at school rather than later on in my view.