Burnley Grammar School

To answer David, I think it fair to say that, thanks to the idea that men are "so brave" for "coming out, think Tom Daley and that Welsh rugby player, who was also brave enough not to tell his partner he was sadly HIV positive, there are certain types of gay men that think that gives them carte-blanche to behave as they like (think LadyBoy Eddie Izzard and his false breasts and clown make-up actually pretending to be a woman, and using women's lavatories - despite many women objecting to him so doing - to try to become an MP. Sense prevailed on Sunday and he was rejected. This is today but think back 30/40 years before Elton John became such a hero to the "Sun newspaper", and these flamboyant men had to be much more guarded,and so their interests had to be disguised. I can give an actual example. I used to work with a man in his 50s, who had been a promising footballer, for whatever reason he didn't go into teaching, but spent much of his spare time training a local under 16s team, and despite many appeals from the teams managers always refused to take on the adult team. You have to wonder why, especially when he lived at home with his mum and just hadn't found the right girl yet. Yes, I do think a minority - and it WAS a minority, of sporty gay men did deliberately go into teaching for reasons that had little to do with sport. Our PE teacher most certainly did. It does have something to do with power and domination as well- one lad I was friends with confirmed his behaviour - but only after we had left school, and he felt safe to do so, having been told several times during the later school years that "it is me [the teacher] they will believe not you".

I have always believed teachers of all subjects should have to undergo a psychiatric examination, rather than a medical one.

Bernard,
I like you did X Country shirtless as that was the school policy but we were allowed to wear training shoes. Not being allowed to wear a shirt when you get hot and sweaty on a run is no big deal but I wouldn’t have enjoyed being made to run barefoot.

I must admit I am surprised, disappointed as well, perhaps that so many people want to attack individual p.e. teachers for the lack of clothing their classes were allowed to wear.
At my grammar school all p.e. classes were conducted with the boys in exactly the same kits which did not include shirts or shoes. This was nothing to do with any particular teacher but was school policy. There were about 5 teachers involved in p.e. and games and they all treated us the same.
I had a friend in the local secondary modern school - in the first year they could choose if they wanted to wear shirts or shoes for cross country - quite a few chose not to wear one or the other with some wearing neither. In the second year that changed and all the boys were sent out exactly the same as us - no shirts or shoes. This was a new rule for the whole school - not any particular teacher. It might have even come from the local authority.
I doubt if many teachers were trying to prove a point about shirtless p.e. - it was just the way things were in those days.

Alan has his knack of firing up the debate again. Andy will be along for his twopenneth quite soon too I'm sure. To think this thread went mute for quite a few weeks not so long ago.

I was thinking about what you said Alan. Hand on heart I really don't think I'd have felt threatened by an out gay PE teacher if I'd had one, any more than a straight one. You've got a real downer on gay men haven't you. Should large swathes of professions be off limits to the anyone LGBT then Alan?

(I'm bi)

'I wasn't saying ALL P.E teachers were homosexuals or lesbians'


I think most readers understood that to be fair. But what you did seem to strongly assert was that of the teachers that were, and are gay/lesbian, all should basically be condemned as being untrustworthy voyeurs and likely abusers while overseeing youngsters in PE a same sex environment. Like TimH and Jim said, that's a repugnant slur against many thoroughly decent people and discrimination on grounds of sexuality. I don't want to throw the homophobic word at you but you feel close to it. You're taking a few bad apples and then condemning everyone else.

Like Tanya says, proportion!

Out of interest, do you actually think that physical education attracted a disproportionate amount of gay teachers for all the wrong motivations? I certainly do not. If anything, those few bad apples were likely just opportunists rather than setting out on a career path just to satisfy their sexual proclivities.

Using the word 'entertainment' in your weekend post was very poor. indeed. It's quite unhealthy to obsess about this so much.

I wasn't saying ALL P.E teachers were homosexuals or lesbians (though our male PE teacher certainly was), and Amanda's description of her female PE teacher suggests a certain tendency. Many of them were just inadequate men and women who used their domination on kids to counteract their feelings of inadequacy, probably henpecked at home, or in a poor marriage.

As regards adult to adult interactions, in football teams etc that is a different matter, if players feel secure enough to "come out". other players should be tolerant and understanding, but it is the child and adult situation which concerns me, because the kids have no power .Only last week , for example a former "club scout" who abused boys for more than 20 years die in prison. Not long before that a former "pillar of the community", a keen scouter, went to prison for abusing two boys over a period of more than a decade. You can be sure many others never got caught, and that it still goes on, because people turn a blind eye and the perpetrators are crafty enough to get away with it.

Provided they are only into other adults, that is fine.

PE for me at one stage ended my school day on Friday's which I always thought was a good way to end the week and for quite a while we'd been allowed to just collect our stuff and go home in our PE kit if we wanted to which was great because it meant not bothering with a shower or anything like that and getting off nice and fast. Obviously some boys wanted to dress and did so and took a shower if they wanted but it was quite relaxed all round. That was until a deputy headmistress came up to me and two friends going out the school gate and called us back in asking us why we were not dressed. She hit the roof and told the headmaster who made it the rule, according to what we then got told, that everybody had to leave school at the end of the day exactly how they had arrived in the morning, in full school uniform. That was a bit of a drag, our PE teachers didn't mind but the headmaster overruled them meaning we ended Fridays having to get into full uniform and tie, which in turn meant our teachers then insisted we had to shower before we put the uniform back on, just for walking out the school gates. A great example of why some teachers could really get right up anyone's nose very easily. You should have seen the state some teachers used to arrive at school themselves, I'd have sent them back home to change into something better. The kids were frequently better dressed in uniform than them.

Earlier in the year I sprung to your defence on something I've long forgotten.

But this?

<why should boys and girls at any time have had to provide free entertainment for the many homosexual and lesbian teachers that schools employed back in the day>


Such a slur against certain people. Sorry to have to say you've lost me on this one.

That reaction from Amanda White is the reason so many PE teachers ended up total failures, sending many of their pupils out of school into adulthood with an aversion to anything physical or sporting related. Instead if they'd done their jobs well people would have had the opposite reaction surely and kept up a keenness for some kind of physical exercise rather than completely put people off it for life.

Women PE teachers knew well enough that a few girls felt a level of extreme anxiety over the arrival of time of month issues and such. It was still going strong into the mid 90's like that. I don't think girls in school did the showers as well as the boys did because girls just don't want to be like that together very easily.

There were rumours at school about one of our PE teachers and later she was seen in a pub with another woman and it was proved correct. She took me for PE but to be honest I couldn't care less about what she liked looking at and I showered in front of her a few times. She was okay.

I disagree just a teeny weeny bit Alan with your take here. It's a very dangerous broad brush attitude to take if you act like any gay, bisexual or lesbian schoolteacher cannot be trusted to act appropriately based only on what their sexual preference is. Maybe you are suggesting that all PE teachers should be straight and that if it was discovered that they are not then they should be moved aside or sacked in the same way the British army and navy used to dismiss serving soldiers and sailors if it was discovered they were gay or even bisexual until not very long ago. Forgive me for straying into this contentious jungle but aren't the majority of dodgy abusers actually straight anyway?

I'm sitting here watching the England World Cup match right now. Isn't it these attitudes that are responsible for the fact that literally no top level football player has actually come out, because of ridiculous fears that all they'd be doing in the football locker room before and after each game is checking out their team mates. Yet the women's football game at top level is stacked full of lesbian players without issues. Interesting isn't it.

At a straight level it's as bad as those feminists among us women who think all men are rapists, like hell they are.

Things are rarely as bad as they seem. Proportion is everything.

Alan:
You write:
why should boys and girls at any time have had to provide free entertainment for the many homosexual and lesbian teachers that schools employed back in the day and increasingly so now. The only difference is back then they had to be more discreet, these days with so many Tom Daley types they would probably not get away with it so easily,
I find this totally repugnant ... that is all

Quite a thoughtful piece Kevin.

There's a line in all that - " I wonder what our PE teachers were trying to prove to us by it." when you wrote of your experience of cross country PE whilst shirtless.

Do you know what, that's quite a thought provoking question in many ways and I certainly don't know the answer to it.

Whether anyone liked it or not, most of the ages that come on here had to be in their school gym for PE stripped to the waist at some point or in some places virtually all the time. You can get that without needing to analyse too hard on it for too long.

When it comes to going outside it does seem different. I did a few athletics PE lessons over summertime on the grass in class with some or all our tops coming off, but that's all and it wasn't a huge amount. I would have found no benefit from going out on cross country without shirts. I did loads of times, out and around school, always multi layered on the very cold runs we did. We didn't even have to wear shorts but could bring in something longer if we were well prepared, but I was never a fan of soft flimsy baggy feeling jogging trousers and always went out in shorts even in the freezing cold. But what I'm saying is we had a choice if we wished to do that or be almost overdressed and layered for PE.

So what were some trying to prove is indeed a valid question I think, in your case Kevin. Wearing shirts does not impact cross country running in any way at all and you said it happened at all points in the school calendar so I take it from that, that you mean any time of year, any season, in all temperatures. When you start getting asked to run around in public like that it smacks of a bit of control freakery to me, along the lines of I can, so I will attitude, of teachers.

So trying my best to answer that question you posed on here, my best effort would be to say maybe your teachers, and others who did the same, not only felt that they had to get guys fitter but had to indulge in some kind of "toughening up" process as well. Perhaps a few PE teachers were infact failed wannabe army drill instructors or something. Shirtless cross country running reminds me of a royal marine training course or something more than a simple PE lesson in a school.

Quite a thoughtful piece Kevin.

There's a line in all that - " I wonder what our PE teachers were trying to prove to us by it." when you wrote of your experience of cross country PE whilst shirtless.

Do you know what, that's quite a thought provoking question in many ways and I certainly don't know the answer to it.

Whether anyone liked it or not, most of the ages that come on here had to be in their school gym for PE stripped to the waist at some point or in some places virtually all the time. You can get that without needing to analyse too hard on it for too long.

When it comes to going outside it does seem different. I did a few athletics PE lessons over summertime on the grass in class with some or all our tops coming off, but that's all and it wasn't a huge amount. I would have found no benefit from going out on cross country without shirts. I did loads of times, out and around school, always multi layered on the very cold runs we did. We didn't even have to wear shorts but could bring in something longer if we were well prepared, but I was never a fan of soft flimsy baggy feeling jogging trousers and always went out in shorts even in the freezing cold. But what I'm saying is we had a choice if we wished to do that or be almost overdressed and layered for PE.

So what were some trying to prove is indeed a valid question I think, in your case Kevin. Wearing shirts does not impact cross country running in any way at all and you said it happened at all points in the school calendar so I take it from that, that you mean any time of year, any season, in all temperatures. When you start getting asked to run around in public like that it smacks of a bit of control freakery to me, along the lines of I can, so I will attitude.

So trying my best to answer that question you posed on here, my best effort would be to say maybe your teachers, and others who did the same, not only felt that they had to get guys fitter but had to indulge in some kind of "toughening up" process as well. Perhaps a few PE teachers were infact failed wannabe army drill instructors or something. Shirtless cross country running reminds me of a royal marine training course or something more than a simple PE lesson in a school.

I totally agree with what Amanda wrote - why should boys and girls at any time have had to provide free entertainment for the many homosexual and lesbian teachers that schools employed back in the day and increasingly so now. The only difference is back then they had to be more discreet, these days with so many Tom Daley types they would probably not get away with it so easily, perhaps why schools are more conservative now in the matter of clothing and showers.

As to the poster (sorry forgotten your name) who thinks it looks so tidy and uniform just to have boys in shorts only they would look just as tidy and uniform if they all wore the same sort of tee shirts - they would all still look alike. Bare chests and bare feet demands always seem so fetishistic.

Starting comprehensive in '82 I just knew we wouldn't get to wear tops in PE, it came with the territory of schools at that age at that time, you almost didn't need to be told. And so it was, barechested for PE. No surprise, I'd resigned myself to it long in advance but was surprised just how much we did it like that. I'm not joking when I say I could probably have identified anyone in class just by their nipples/chests alone we got so familiar with each others appearance on that score.

But what did catch me off guard completely unawares and I didn't see coming, something Bernard mentioned. The first time we all got sent out to do a cross country, some forty of us, we were told to get outside without any shirt, not even allowed to bring one along and tuck it into our shorts incase we needed to wear it. I remember looking directly into the eyes of one or two others and I think there was a bit of disbelief, you could read it on a few faces.

But that wasn't the end of the matter. Although it was called a cross country the school fields were quite an expanse and I anticipated we'd simply be running regular distances around on actual school property. I didn't consider myself naive but that was a naive expectation of mine.

As we assembled in this large group outside on the edge of the playing fields with a couple of PE teachers we were told he was going to show us the regular route the school cross country took and that we were all to begin gently jogging/running behind and follow the lead. That alone made me think, hang on a minute, laps of the school are easy and within seconds the full scale crap, excuse my language, of where we were going kicked in as this pair of teachers led the lot of us straight out the side entrance of the school adjacent to the playing fields and off down the street, with me and probably 39 other lads labouring behind, not a stitch on above our waistlines, and off we went, this mass of young lads clumped in a tight group with each other at first, until we thinned out into a long single file at one stage, street after street, into a local parkland area, more streets, another green area, yet more streets and then returning some 45 minutes later. We must have looked a right pretty picture to any observers, our bodies jogging along fully displayed. I remember both teachers in joggy bottoms and zip up tracky tops.

I didn't live near the school but soon found out that in the 70's and 80's it was common to see large groups of shirtless PE boys running together from the school in the vicinity at almost any time in the school calendar. Looking back I'm astonished at the kind of weather we got sent outside to run like that in.

I'm now fascinated by what turned out this preoccupation with condemning boys at school, at least at mine anyway, to being dragged out and about in some quite inclement conditions barechested like that. I wonder what our PE teachers were trying to prove to us by it. Of course there was never a peep out of anyone and like anything back then it was complete and total compliance at anything you got told to do. If I'm honest it felt barely legal but I'm only saying that retrospectively, I wasn't thinking like that when I was doing it.

All boys had to shower, again no surprise there. One big oblong room, very claustrophobic with everyone packed like cattle, stripped naked, very little room and no personal space very much, not great when none of you had a stitch on. It was an effort not to accidentally brush part of yourself against someone's protruding genitals and and effort to try and make sure your own didn't touch anyone, certainly on the bum. I do remember many jokes about bending over in the showers and the term 'bummer' which just shows the throwaway homophobia among school ages then at fairly young ages. I saw one or two unkind shower incidents of a personal nature from the class fools. The showers were on the ceiling directly above our heads, not on the side walls. But they did at least give us some decent hot water and we were encouraged to bring a soap in any form but that bit wasn't a hard and fast rule, some did others didn't and doing so meant you'd likely be longer. Nearly all my PE lessons ended with a follow on lunch hour or a break time so there was no instant pressure to get off to the next lesson, that was one positive but I think the whole scenario should have been far better and it doesn't surprise me that so many schools have decided to give such things a miss nowadays. When we all went in the school minibus for swimming in my first comprehensive year, using one of the timetabled PE slots now and then, we'd shower after coming from the pool but the whole thing was so much more civilised because there were shower cubicles for most of us to share between pairs or even individually, a real luxury that felt and quite ahead of the times in early to mid 80's possibly.

Not sure if it's being magnified too much but I get the feeling that many men and women who did school in the 70's and 80's and are now hitting a certain age and looking around at what the world has now become are now comparing their experiences unfavourably and with an element of resentment having seen some earlier comments on here and in one or two other places I've dipped into on this subject.

Anthony - I agree completely - that photo of the class all in the same shorts with no tops and no shoes does look really discilplined as you say and with a good work ethic.
At my school we all wore identical white shorts with no tops or footwear for gym but we were only about 30 in each class so might not have looked so good. Again, we looked the same and were treated the same - we were lucky enough to have had generally keen teachers who were happy to encourage the less capable and keep us all moving as much as possible. When we had to keep still to listen to instructions we stood - there was no sitting down in our lessons!
We wore the same kit for cross country so, hopefully we created a good impression for any members of the public who saw us out and about. There would have been up to 90 of us out running so it must have been quite a sight, especially in winter.

Communal showers at my school in the 70s. All forced through with the PE teacher watching. It was totally humiliating not least because of developmental issues - I was the last to grow boobs and start my periods and I shall never forget how unhappy and inadequate it made me feel.

We all had to go through completely naked and the PE teacher watched to check that we did. She had a manly haircut, huge legs, wore lace up brogues and tweed suits when not in PE kit.

Looking back it fills me with utter disgust and I find it difficult to believe that neither parents nor girls complained. Today I think she would have been dismissed for gross misconduct. She was an utter bully too.

The day I finished by O'Levels and left the school I vowed that nobody would ever again make me hit, throw or catch another ball and to this day I have never used communal changing room - although I don't they exist either now.

My brother felt much the same in the boys class too.

In response to Julie, just who are all the reactionaries nowadays who seem to be the minority but lord it over the vast majority with their overbearing diktats on how things should be. Your last paragraph is well said.

Society has never been more sexualised at all ages, even a recent advertising campaign used young children in a sexualied way with bondage gear, it was in the news. Balenciago was their name. But schools are now too scared to let kids strip off naked for a few minutes to shower and get sniffy about daring to do PE with no top on at the same time. It's all very contradictory and confusing.

But perhaps I've answered my own question in a way.

So my two kids at their academy have a huge list posted online of what to bring into school and have to heave it about with them all day long.

On the PE section they stipulate down to bringing a mouth guard for rugby. The website stipulates some things as optional, others as compulsory. Bringing a towel is compulsory for example. So you might think that means they shower, but that's not the case, it's just to wipe sweat straight off or any other dirt picked up. The academy does have showers available to be used but nobody touches them says my son even though they could if they asked. My lad wouldn't mind doing so if really necessary but said there is no way he would be the only one to do so as they would look on him as if he was mad even if he went and did so with shorts, never mind without anything.

What a strange set of affairs a such a drastic change in just one generation. I don't mind one bit and I don't believe most parents nowadays would either, so quite where this sudden generational change has come from is anyone's guess.

Looking at the link Yee has posted, does anyone else agree with me that to see the whole PE class bonded together with the same shorts and not wearing a top or trainers actually looks very good. Schools that adopt that way of doing things just seem far more disciplined with a better work ethic to me.

My own school gym was much the same in Chesterfield back in 1974 when I was just 12 years old. All the boys had to turn out for the school gym in PE in the very same issue navy shorts that could be bought from a local co-op at the time. (which sold clothes and toys back then as well as food) If we did ever wear any kind of PE top in that gym at the time I simply cannot remember doing so, school PE rule was we didn't wear tops of any kind doing PE in the gym, basically mandatory shirtless. We kept our feet bare as well. When we changed we used to have to wait in a line along the side of a corridor for our teacher to come along and allow us to go into the gym, even though it was open and we could have just gone straight in. Sometimes whoever was taking us would be late and take ages to show up and we'd be shivering and crossing our arms to keep warm in the corridor shuffling around getting restless. It was one of those moments when I just wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere.

Once we finally got into the gym we'd be immediately into a big warm up running rapidly from one side to the other at breakneck speed to the point of total breathlessness and panting and bending over trying to catch breath again. We all looked the same and we were all treated the same and it seemed a very tight and disciplined lesson.

I wasn't so keen at the time as I am thinking back. But as a visual spectacle I think we must have looked good like we had to turn out in the gym for PE.

I'm sure our class lasted longer than an hour, possibly an hour and a quarter, one of two in the week. I don't remember much sitting down on the gym floor like in the Yee photo, we were always on our feet quite active, apart from some brief standing aside I suppose.

We used to have a race who could climb ropes the quickest and get back down fastest. Good fun if you were good at it but not much so if it wasn't your thing but we all had to do it and try, a fear of heights didn't get anyone an opt out on the ropes. I think there were a few rope burns doing that and I know I misjudged the height in my hurry to get off and was lucky not to badly twist an ankle or worse.

The worst bit about gym was ending up the designated lackey, often two of the class, who had to stay behind and collect mats and equipment up and stick it away again meaning an extra rush to catch up with the others.

We often knew the PE lesson was over when we heard the two words bellowed- "right, showers". Some people hate school showers, some don't much mind but did anyone actually like or enjoy taking them? I think the fear of school showers was largely irrational myself and actually think it did some good to be able to see what others looked like. I certainly don't see how such things can hurt anyone's self esteem, and would say the same for PE lessons like Yee's photo and the ones I did that were similar.

A nice post Craig.

I had a childhood friend whose parents pushed him to take an entrance exam for a "posh" school, although unable to remember if it was actually private or not, but anyway he didn't do well enough in the exam to get entry and instead came to the same school as me. The whole experience changed him from a lovely friend into someone who became endlessly aggrieved that he was only at the school he was with me and everyone else and it just never left him and he got more and more insufferable so that by the time he left and we were in young adulthood this close friend I could barely stand anymore for his sense of superiority he felt and bitterness he'd had to mix it with his lessers in his mind. I'd rarely seen such a change in anyone and reached a point where I didn't want to see him again, and never did to this day. Look back on it with a sense of sadness and bemusement and wonder what his parents must have fed his mind with.

Not the same Mike as the Yee questioner, I'm the regular one. (That's not a question I'd ask by the way). I do wish this site could make it so people with the same name can be differentiated from each other in some way. Too many repeat exact same names causing confusion. No blame attached to the posters here for that, we can't check everything. I probably wasn't the first Mike either.

Mike

I have hosted an image the way you suggested. The pic is a typical P.E lesson in my ex-middle school.

https://imgbox.com/KHTGm0tw

I have just noticed some earlier posts on here mentioning primary school PE that came with the shower attached afterwards. This was me. This hit my primary class without any warning at all not too long after beginning a (boys only) school. The whole thing came as an enormous surprise. I don't even think my parents knew beforehand either. I'd never even heard of such a thing as a shower at school until the very moment I was told to do it. That was a very quick learning curve on that one. I remember we all had to stand around afterwards and shake ourselves and literally drip dry, we didn't have anything to dry off with at first. Not sure why something like that would have been sprung on us without any notice but it definitely was. I do remember we all got issued with what can best be described as a hotel style complementary tiny bar of plain white soap to use, this was something I used to keep in my pencil box and get out when wanted. Even though it was very small it seemed to last, possibly because I tried to keep its use to the bare minimum I could get away with, just a couple of quick rubs across the chest, legs and behind and that was that, could never do my back, nobody did and nobody was going to ask anyone to do it for them. Until I came across this site this evening I'd not heard of anyone else doing this at age eight, nine, ten. Unlike what others said, there were as many men teaching at my primary as women, the head and his deputy were both men too. We had to take the showers but the surprise and the anxiety soon wore off and boys do what boys do at that early age, often muck about where some water is concerned and make the best of it.

Primary PE was always in full kit, never without a top whatever we did, always wearing trainers too, with socks, not allowed without.

Going off to the local secondary modern (I failed the entrance exam for an all boys placement elsewhere) was when I actually started to turn away from liking doing PE which I'd enjoyed until that point. Probably because in just the second lesson I made the record speed for a newcomer into the school accident book when I lost my balance on a trampoline in the gymnasium and went off the side, smashed my elbow onto the hard floor and broke my right arm. Not a single mat around the trampoline to save me. That soon changed. My arm in a cast for at least two months and no PE for me, which began getting my PE teachers frustrated with my lack of participation, like I wanted a broken arm in a cast. This whole incident seemed to set the tone for how I got on with PE teachers, which wasn't exactly great. Clumsy was a word they seemed to use a lot at some with less than average ability. I did not consider myself clumsy for falling off a trampoline, I considered it an accident not helped by forgetting to put safety mats beside it. Their clumsy, not mine.

Unless you were half decent at football or the occasional rugby some PE teachers looked down on you as lower class. We played some tennis on tarmac courts but as a boy quite liking it on the rare lesson I could do it, teachers were not keen to encourage. I don't know why.

Like others here, I also did my fair share of shirtless PE, not always, but fairly regular. Generally in the gymnasium and most summers outside in May/June and July. I also know of PE outside that we did doing javelin, shot putting and long jumping where some of us voluntarily removed our top and others left them on just rather casually, whereas most of the time if a teacher told you to do something you just did it and did not question it. By the time I was 14 and 15 I'd started getting some significant zits on my chest, back and shoulders that could be made worse by sweating. It was bad enough to need treatment and didn't look too good either. I had to put a peroxide cream on my skin and leave it to work its magic but if I wore a top and then sweated heavily it discoloured my PE top, and a few non PE tops too. Perhaps the most idiotic thing I got was when a teacher looked over me in one of my PE lessons one time, I was shirtless this time, and asked me what I was doing to myself to make my skin look like it did. Of course I wasn't doing anything. PE showers at this time were a real pain because it meant washing the peroxide off my upper body and I had no time to reapply any more again and so had to go hours without it until I got home. That stressed me out. The ignorance of some of these teachers was remarkable. Two of them thought my skin was how it was through a lack of proper regular personal hygiene. It was nothing of the sort. The moment I left school it all cleared up with impeccable bad, or should that be good, timing.

My most hated sound from schooldays is the sound of a whistle in PE, echoing around the gymnasium.

Adam,. Our gym had full length reinforced glass running the length of the gym and girls walking through the corridor couldn't help but see a row of discarded white vests and all boys barechested and they never seemed to rush by either! The school expected at boys to enter the gym in vests and wait for the teacher to say "Vests off, strip" The gym was simply called by "The Fridge"by all. Whilst it was light it was always cold and it was commonplace to hear gasps as vests came off and the cool air hit. The highlight of each year was during the last full week before Christmas and all year groups were expected to play a best of 3 hour long basketball games against the girls. Obviously with no vests and at very close quarters they'd see us sweat too. Outdoor "fitness lessons" on the school yard or field were visible from the classrooms and mostly done as teams of skins vs vests.

To Adam, my dad was an English teacher at the secondary school I went to. Luckily we were kept apart and he never taught me English. But school PE had a set up where other teachers in other subjects could sometimes stand in for a PE teacher if needed or simply come along as an assistant in certain circumstances. At various times my geography and history teachers did this, and so did an English teacher, my damned father. Take it from me Adam, it was a real pain having a father on the teaching role at the school you went to and when that father plays sidekick for an afternoon filling in as per the rota and ends up standing in your PE changing room as you change and shower as a boy of 13 you really do want the ground to swallow you up rather rapidly. Plus he gave me a deliberately hard time in the lesson trying to overcompensate for being who he was and not looking like he was favouring me. Then there was the crap from classmates about it.

Replying to Adam,
Our male PE teachers often took their tops off whilst taking lessons in the gym and whilst supervising and refereeing games outdoors. The mandatory barechested PE rule was brought in by many Education Authorities following accidents involving lads wearing vests whilst using wall bars and other apparatus. It was considered a sensible policy to keep lads safe. Most lads got used to the new shirtless rule very quickly.

At my grammar school way back in 1965 when I was a mere 12 years of age our main gym master had a rather unique manner of making sure we showed up with the correct clothing. If two boys came to gym without the exact gym outfits they would have to do the lesson in its entirety minus their vests, and if the two boys threshold like that was met then because of those two boys the rest of us got the same punishment for their lack of care in coming dressed correctly, so we all discarded our vests. It was designed to get us all into line and turn out properly with what we were supposed to and for peer pressure to work against each other to make sure we did so. That was the theory. I seem to recall it fell apart quite quickly when some boys decided they liked doing gym without a vest and deliberately came with non conforming clothing. Our gym master cottoned on after a while that his little ploy wasn't working and gave up on it. We ended up no longer doing gym in vests at all.

Another thing. Those of us who performed and made a decent effort got rewarded with a lovely hot shower. Those who underperformed had to wait and take a very cool or cold one. Incentives and all that. But nobody is good at everything, all have strengths and weaknesses. I got one of these cold showers a few times but rather took to them. The last thing the gym master wanted was someone who could tolerate and enjoy a chilly shower. I still take cold showers today and believe in their health benefits. My gym master accidentally led me onto a lifestyle choice for decades to come.

I'll be 70 in January and still jog lightly, take long walks, ride a bike many miles each week, swim and use a small local gym a couple of times each month for an hour or two. I like to think I have the appearance of somebody 20 years my junior.

I think the old ways were the best for both physical and mental wellbeing even if they were tougher. How many more times are we going to hear about the obesity crisis while at the same time gym is so badly neglected in school now with less and less time for it and what they do offering less and less real effort.

I think shirtless gym is a good healthy discipline to expect if you are serious about giving a proper physical education.

Roger.

John, your point is well made and my place did things like that back in '83. Quite often we did indoor barefoot-football in the school sports hall and none of us wore any tops while doing it (we were not allowed to) but simply had a blue or red armband or wristband to set us apart.

There were no skins versus actual shirts.

I think I must have been at one of those tough love kind of places that did the get your shirts off and show off your bare chests at most available opportunities.

Every now and again the girls class would mix in with us and we'd do some teamwork versus each other and the lesson would be double headed by our male and their female teacher. One of the girls in my class at the time told me she looked forward to these joined up PE games close up with boys, because she could see us moving about shirts off. At least she was honest. Of course it felt bloody awkward at that age, raging hormones and all that, talking 13-15 here.

I think boys fit into three categories with this. You get the ultra confident, peacock strutting ones who love how they look and enjoy it or think absolutely nothing any different between shirt or no shirt. Then there are those in the middle who are somewhat indifferent either way, not bothered too much but not over keen either. Then the third lot who it affects quietly and feel dreadfully self conscious but try to hide it but outward subconscious body language seeps out. I sat in the middle group.

I'm not sure I truly get why there was so much deliberate emphasis on boys doing their PE and demanding mandatory bare chests all round for everyone. Peak shirtless PE seems to be around about the 1970s and 1980s from what I can ascertain, so my era. Can't think why these same teachers didn't want to take theirs off in our PE. They sure didn't practice what they constantly preached to us.

Don't even get me going about the mandatory school communal large group showers of the time. I didn't mind sharing those with the boys and my mates, kind of fun checking each other out initially but having your PE teachers standing so close and watching you all as you lather and rinse yourself off together was the bit I could have done without.





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Very interesting comment on this site which I completely agree with. I am extremely grateful to have had teachers who always insisted on bare chests in PE.

I am often critiscised for boys working on characters who may be shirtless, as in Lord of The Flies, and indeed many schools now would avoid such dress, in the same way as shirtless team sides and gym PE would unlike the past exclude it.
But the purpose of such roles and characters is to help produce a confident self aware young actor and child, not burdened with self doubt and shyness.
And the important thing is it works.
https://act4wardworking2018.act4ward.uk/Play-acting/

Replying to Alex 1968,
I think the problem with shirts vs skins situations is that to many lads it seems unfair when they get picked by the PE teacher to be on the skins team and have to take their top off. It’s much fairer certainly for indoor PE to have all lads shirtless and give lads coloured armbands or sashes to distinguish teams, that’s what our PE teachers did. Indoor PE was always strictly shirtless and no lad ever got out of this rule.

Hello Yee! You can actually post a picture here but you have to host the picture on another site. I would love to see how P.E is done in Taiwan.