Burnley Grammar School

Greg, your teacher sounded infatuated by you!

How did she react to your refusal to take your shirt off for her at the front of the class. To be honest I think I might have done the same. What did she hope to show off to them for heaven's sake? Did she choose someone else who had to do it, or even get a volunteer, I bet not a volunteer, even confident lads would probably pass on that one in many cases. They wouldn't do the same for the girls anatomy would they!

Wanting you to follow her to her new school feels almost creepy to me Greg, I'm surprised your parents went with that if you already had a school lined up that was nearer and the more obvious choice. As you say, it didn't work out. Do you think she took a bit of a shine to you, it seems like it doesn't it. Kids in class know when teachers favour others or become the teachers pet type of thing.

On one of my first ever secondary school PE lessons that was done shirtless the gym teacher we had that day actually picked up on my reticence about leaving the changing room to go down to the gym for PE in his required bare chest style kit with white shorts, no plimsolls, and told me to stop worrying myself over things that were unimportant. Well it was unimportant to him but a quite big deal to me at the time because I had never been shirtless in company for any great length of time and was a natural top wearing kind of boy, it didn't matter what kind of top, any would do, I preferred a t-shirt but a vest was fine, however a bare chest felt huge to me and I think I felt slightly intimidated by everyone else being shirtless around me too in PE gym classes at school. Like many things at school, going shirtless at my secondary for PE was compulsory, boys walking to the gym often passed the girls going to their PE as well and got seen. I was never 100% comfortable being a bare chested "skin" in PE even after five years doing so, and the same went for showers, there was a total lack of personal dignity involved in the way school operated the PE showers and demanded their use for everyone. My school years were 1985-90.

Greg 2, I went through a similar thing to you,my form teacher who was also my maths teacher,when we registered and gave our names she enquired how many boys were wearing short trousers and I put my hand up along with one other boy who we became close friends,Like you we were ordered to sit at the front of the class.Of course I was made to do simple chores and run errands for her.She was very keen on playing tennis and I with my friend were made to be ball boys.

Comment by: Russ on 1st June 2025 at 15:18



The reason I mentioned those two cases, Russ, was to disabuse David of the idea that the teaching profession is made up of Pope Leo's and David Attenborough's. I find it frankly incredible that anybody can believe the teaching profession is as pure as TCP, especially where all boys schools and boarding schools are concerned. He reminds me of all those people, not just hysterical teenagers, who refused to believe that that the late Michael Jackson was a predatory paedophile, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Nick Baines;
<I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there was a remarkably normalised and accepting attitude to a large group of men and boys on a trip of this nature, many who didn't know each other, to just mucking in and thinking nothing of communal showering and all round general naked situations with each other, and none of us were naturists as far as I knew, just normal sons and dads on a week away during the summer out of sight of the female members of our own families. It certainly gave me a confidence boost in many ways.
In many ways this was the far more healthy attitude than the more paranoid mindset some people have today.>



There's nothing wrong with fathers and sons of any age sharing in this way like you stated, and I think you accept this, despite your admitted initial teenage misgivings. I'm 62 and go regular swimming with my 31 year old son and his 7 year old, my grandson. We always go into the same changing cubicle together and get out of our clothes and into swim shorts and don't waste time towel wrapping needlessly or facing away from each other, what's the point in all that silly behaviour.

Comment by: Gary on 26th May 2025 at 02:48

‘So you played on the school football team like me Greg.’ I did Gary, in fact I’d played in the school football team since junior school, so from around 10 years old or so. I did become increasingly interested in football, which amused my two older brothers as they had no interest really. I even went through several whole seasons doing all the matches and cup games with Subbuteo from the age of 12. I’m sure the continued calculating and adjusting of all those league tables, together with monitoring who scored all the goals -since I’d put little numbers on the backs of all the players’ shirts- really helped my maths in the end!

We didn’t have showers for junior school football, thankfully, as we were unusual in being the only school in the district to have a female teacher as our football coach. No girls were in the team then. She was my last junior school teacher, and on arrival in her class she made every boy sit next to a girl, probably to quell the boys' behaviour.

I do have some lovely memories of her final year class, but also a few moments I found slightly uncomfortable. In may ways she was a really great, if slightly radical teacher, but straight off she made me sit right at the front of the class, though next to probably the prettiest girl in the class, with our desk right in front of her desk so that it touched the back of it; somewhere I’d never have chosen in a million years. When she discovered I was quite capable at football, she made me centre forward and captain of the school team. Following this I learnt she’d also put my name forward to become a school prefect, which really surprised me. While sitting there she'd frequently ask me to the front of the class to demonstrate things, or to just clean the board, but when she ordered me to the front telling me to remove my top clothing to help display an anatomy lesson, that was the last straw and I flatly refused. There were a few other awkward moments; pulling me across her knee to playfully slap my backside as everyone in the class laughed along? But contrasting with this she'd always make sure I'd completely understood all she'd been teaching, which really helped my learning and enabled me to advance in her class from an average, mid-range, drifting kid, to attaining 5th position in class, from the final year grading exams, with this being written into my final junior school report. She then encouraged me to follow her to her new secondary school she was transferring to, even arranging that I be in her form. This school was acknowledged to be a very good school and I did go there for a short time, but it proved too far to travel each morning when still recovering from my leg injury that happened that intervening summer between the two schools.

So, I arrived even later at my 2nd choice secondary school, and school football did eventually follow, but had to wait, as did gym and games lessons, until my fractured femur had sufficiently repaired and healed. But, I can’t describe how great it made an 11 year old boy feel when I discovered that some of these new boys at the school had remembered my playing junior school football against their school teams, and so told me to get my leg better soon as they needed me in the school team!

You are quite accurate with your memory of the changing and showering and using their different facilities when visiting other schools. It was always a slightly odd experience to share all this with different boys and with their different teacher hanging around, and with all of them you'd just completed the competitive combat of school football. But boys as you'd inferred are naturally tribal, and so just like your school, we all stayed with our own when back in the changing and showering areas. But to be fair, I seem to remember we were left to our own devices quite a lot, and sometimes boys of the away school would make their own way home following the game as they obviously lived not too far away; some of us probably did the same on occasion when we'd played at our school ground, unless we were all particularly muddy...which sometimes could be the case after returning from our standard winter school football pitch!

I seem to remember on here many months ago that you were finally going to lay off this persistent narrative of yours Alan and put it to rest once and for all but you appear to have slipped back into the same cycle again.

I think most sensible people understand fully what you are saying but David G is correct, perhaps it should not surprise anyone, but we are all coloured by our own lived experiences and if you have rather poor ones when young it probably is difficult to get over the fact that most of us did not go to some of the darker places you speak of but you do appear to be very fond of revisiting this aspect of your life rather than setting it aside and aiming for something more positive going forward.

I had a teenage experience of communal showers against my will, at first, away from school in a family orientated situation with my own father who took me then aged 14 and my then aged 10 year old brother on a camping and trail walking week with a number of other fathers and sons in the mid seventies.

It was one of those boys things we did with dads and left the sisters and mums back home to give them a break from us all, and lasted a whole week away. Generally it was great fun, it took place during school holiday time in August 1974 in the Brecon Beacons.

We all went off on the same coach with each other from Bootle, I think there were about 15 dads and sons on the trip we undertook, some of us knew each other, others did not very well but we were all from the same area and a couple of boys were from my own school too but most were unfamiliar and it was a week I made a few friendships.

I remember when we arrived where we were staying being surprised at how rudimentary everything was.

The tents were not ours and were rented and very large and we had to share, something like eight persons per tent, boys wanted tents to themselves without adults but every tent had a couple of dads in it keeping eye on us overnight.

I remember our days beginning right on 7am on this trip, and everyone from that coach piling into a communal shower block on site at the same time and dads and sons all sharing openly together at the same time with each other, including teenage lads like me who got dragged there by my own dad first morning very reluctant to do that at my age I was then in dads company like that. Very embarrassed I was at first. I remember everyone on that coach every morning for the week we were there in that communal shower, fully on naked, all the boys (sons) and men (dads) side by side. The boys were aged anything from about 6 to 16 on that trip. None of the dads of 1974 seemed bothered by stripping off and darting straight into a communal shower with other men and their children sons and mixing it up like that, and my dad was like this too. My dad had come with his two sons, me and my brother, some had come with one son, others with two. I don't remember anyone sitting the communal showers out and not doing it on that trip. The kids were all told to by our dads and the dads all seemed fine with the arrangement. By the close of the week I think we had all become remarkably alright and normal with it after four of five goes at it. All the boys there over eleven were probably well versed with communal showers from our respective schools anyway, maybe some even shared with a teacher from time to time.

I remember in the warm light evenings after our day doing things in the locality and a lot of walking there was a lot of shirtlessness as we relaxed and many boys and quite a few of the dads discarded and kept tops off voluntarily, and because we'd been walking a lot we kicked our shoes and socks off and went about for an hour or two dressed down quite a bit, often in just shorts, kicking a ball about or splashing at a nearby water feature pond and stream, infact I think one or two boys even went the whole skinny dip a couple of times.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there was a remarkably normalised and accepting attitude to a large group of men and boys on a trip of this nature, many who didn't know each other, to just mucking in and thinking nothing of communal showering and all round general naked situations with each other, and none of us were naturists as far as I knew, just normal sons and dads on a week away during the summer out of sight of the female members of our own families. It certainly gave me a confidence boost in many ways.

In many ways this was the far more healthy attitude than the more paranoid mindset some people have today.

Comment by: David G on 31st May 2025 at 23:13


"Allan quote: "a bad name. It has only been in more recent years where teachers have been prosecuted, probably because parents were apparently as jejune as you seem to be."
I wonder why you always use words not in general use, such as "jejune" that most people have to look up in order to fully understand what you mean!
That says a lot about you!!"

Leaving aside your critique of my vocabulary, David (and without wishing to be pedantic I have only one "l" in my name), I find it hard to believe you are as naive as you come across here.


Are you seriously suggesting that every teacher - or priest, doctor or politician is as pure as the driven snow?. In that case perhaps you could tell us all why so many teachers, especially P.E., teachers get found guilty after a trial by jury, no matter how fervently they plead innocence to acts of indecency against pupils?. Why there are cases where such men, yet to be taken before a court, flee the country and resist attempts at deportation?. There are two eighty something old buggers at this very moment hiding in South Africa, hoping death gets them before the police ( the Nicky Campbell school case). They seem to proving their own guilt. There is a case in my own county (Essex) where a P.E. teacher got sent to prison once for 22 months for truly disgusting behaviour with whole classes of pupils (forced naked swimming , behind locked doors and sexual acts etc) then went on to commit similar crimes in another school who were daft enough to take him on. Those events took place in the last 25 years. Go back before then, and many more were hiding in plain sight.

"There is nothing sexual in naked children" - perhaps not, but those "children" are often turning into adults by the time these teachers think it is perfectly acceptable to watch them at close quarters while they shower, and getting changed. I had one just like that, and it seems many others on here did, too.

David, not all sex pests are nasty working class men in blue collar jobs, or no job at all, who get drunk and go to strip clubs and wear dirty macs - many are people in "honourable" professions who like people to think they are models of probity. I really think you need to get out more, and read local newspapers, often national newspapers, if the case is egregious enough. I cannot stand people who defend the indefensible. Naivety is something people should grow out of.

I think that is correct David G.

I am not the same Chris who placed the Dando 'Zzzzz' comment, that was someone else. I think it was interesting to note that website bang up to date from that catholic school was making it quite clear they expected PE showers to be taken in that school. Only recently I read another comment from someone else saying his own son's school website appeared to be hiding such things off the website but doing them in practice, including shirtless PE to some unknown extent. I have no issue about either.

Alan I am aware that there are 'wrong 'uns' in schools in this particular job, but that's like saying all men are rapists and all that kind of tainting everyone in a certain group with the same brush when we are only ever talking about small minorities.

The angst that many felt over being made to do their gym lessons or any other PE without their shirts on or being faced with compulsory communal showers with absolutely nothing on at all is all legitimate for debate and empathy over, without a doubt it is and I won't argue with that.

I was thinking about that comment upthread recently where someone equated being in school getting told to shower and how a workplace adult reaction might be to the same demand among colleagues. If my boss was to tell me I must communally shower with those I work with as a compulsory demand in the workplace I had to follow I think I would be quite utterly pissed off with him or the company for such a demand, but if I thought my job may be impacted by a refusal and a loss of salary I hate to admit I would probably agree to do so while remaining miffed. I was not I might add a shy schoolboy showerer or shirtless pupil in my time, I just regarded myself as middle ground feelings on it, neither enthusiastic but not concerned too much either. Would most not be in my category would others say?

Hi Chris,

'There are 2 completely different issues being discussed here.

1) Humiliation/embarrassment that a child feels having to shower with their classmates. This is a valid debate.'

Well said. You have made an extremely important point here.

'There is nothing sexual about naked children and anybody who sees this interaction in a sexual light like Alan can't stop doing is the one with the problem.'

That's just not true, is it? In fact, that is a very naive thing to state given recent history.

We have all been hearing for decades now about all the CSA in the catholic church across numerous countries. There is also the English public school system where abuse of all sorts was traditionally spun as 'character-building'.

Alan's problem is he was once a victim. It's the same problem I have myself and presumably the reason we get accused of being the same person (although in my case it was the typical callousness of 70s school teachers, nothing that happened to me was ever sexual). You are confusing the issue to suggest that Alan etc are the only ones with a problem.

'There is no need for the teacher to see a child naked in the school setting'

Ha ha! How I wish I could hold you to that! My teachers right the way through seemed to think it was essential. We were made to strip naked for intrusive medical exams that were held to be 'essential' - only to discover at secondary school that other children from other local primary schools had never suffered them. I have already said everything I want to about the illogic of communal showers for pre-teen children. Even the Christmas play seemed to necessitate removing most of your clothes. Teachers should never have the right to order a child out of their clothes unless for health reasons and they are literally dying at that moment.

'but if a teacher is present when children are getting dressed/changed/showering for PE some nudity is inevitable. This doesn't make it in any way, shape or form sexual.'

I agree with you but it doesn't mean that teacher isn't indulging in a little power trip, like the woman teacher Greg2 referred to who habitually passed through the boys' changing room while the boys were undressed.

I meant to say Allan can't disassociate himself from his experiences

Allan quote: "a bad name. It has only been in more recent years where teachers have been prosecuted, probably because parents were apparently as jejune as you seem to be."
I wonder why you always use words not in general use, such as "jejune" that most people have to look up in order to fully understand what you mean!
That says a lot about you!!

Comment by: Chris on 30th May 2025 at 22:51

....."There is nothing sexual about naked children and anybody who sees this interaction in a sexual light like Alan can't stop doing is the one with the problem. There is no need for the teacher to see a child naked in the school setting but if a teacher is present when children are getting dressed/changed/showering for PE some nudity is inevitable. This doesn't make it in any way, shape or form sexual........"

I think Chris is correct with his views .I don't Allan can't disassociate himself from his own experiences.

Comment by: Chris on 30th May 2025 at 22:51

....."There is nothing sexual about naked children and anybody who sees this interaction in a sexual light like Alan can't stop doing is the one with the problem. There is no need for the teacher to see a child naked in the school setting but if a teacher is present when children are getting dressed/changed/showering for PE some nudity is inevitable. This doesn't make it in any way, shape or form sexual........"

Chris you are being truly ingenuous. What about paedophile teachers, and if you don't believe there are any, I can point you to several court cases where this is the motive, and the culprit has been found guilty as charged. In other cases, though it was known at the time by pupils and other teachers alike, they were brushed under the carpet to save getting the school a bad name. It has only been in more recent years where teachers have been prosecuted, probably because parents were apparently as jejune as you seem to be.

Oh dear - someone has woken Dando up. Zzzzzzzz!

I found it embarrassing when we had an audience when we were participating at PE,especially as I didn't consider that we had appropriate kit.Of course we were topless and just wore our shorts to which we had become accustomed as even older boys were dressed accordingly.As we were all dressed the same for our usual activities and weren't seen by anyone except the teachers who took us I didn't find it embarrassing.
Same as at home ,as I was expected to strip off in front of my parents.

There are 2 completely different issues being discussed here.

1) Humiliation/embarrassment that a child feels having to shower with their classmates. This is a valid debate.

and

2) There is something terribly wrong with a teacher seeing a child naked.

There is nothing sexual about naked children and anybody who sees this interaction in a sexual light like Alan can't stop doing is the one with the problem. There is no need for the teacher to see a child naked in the school setting but if a teacher is present when children are getting dressed/changed/showering for PE some nudity is inevitable. This doesn't make it in any way, shape or form sexual.

So every kid has a get out clause.. if they're asked to do something they don't feel comfortable with they can be excluded? Would a child ever learn anything in life with that approach?

I know I'm making a bit of a jump here but sometimes it's the uncomfortable things we're made to do as children that teach us sometimes things aren't as bad as they seem in our heads.

I preferred doing a lot of PE without a top on and being bare chested. I was always quite keen to take a shower afterwards too. I was completely comfortable with the whole arrangement which all seemed sensible.

I don't see the problem with the audience participation events either. If you were someone who already did gym at school without a top on all year long wouldn't it seem odd that the teacher might change tack and suddenly require shirts or vests on boys upper bodies just because of an audience which is only their family anyway. You have an audience in PE anyway, the others in class and the teachers. Nobody was bothered to strip off in front of their own family were they, removing their top, surely? In most cases they are probably admiring how good you all look.

I always thought myself and the boys in PE looked great doing it all shirtless baring our upper bodies and getting them some fresh air, both in or out. I often chose to run cross country without my top on and either carried it in my hand or tucked it in my shorts. Some boys copied me, although nobody was forced to do so but our teachers didn't mind one bit.

Hi Deborah,

'the method in the PE kit for the boys at our primary school was that it was what most boys liked and it was also unfussy and easy to deal with, and so we took the boys into PE indoors without tops on almost always'

It amazes me how many former teachers on here have decided that the correct method for determining PE kit was to decide based on their own personal presumption or that the boys all looked nice and smart with their tops off or whatever, instead of actually, y'know . . . asking the kids themselves what they preferred?

As you say that rule was established before your time and as a school employee it was your duty to observe the rules and not to question them. But how did you know the boys preferred PE that way? Did any member of the teaching staff actually ask them? It is important not to mistake lack of dissent as assent. Children learn as they go through the school system that certain things are inescapable (just look back at some of the recent anecdotes on here concerning boys who found the idea of communal showering abhorrent and the fates that befell them). I was badly bullied at secondary school but rarely told any of it to my parents. This emphatically did not mean I was happy. It concerns me how many times here I have now read the argument, "Oh well, the boys never complained so they must have been okay with it." advanced by present or former teachers, who of all people, should know better than that.

There is also the fact that people, even primary school age children, are different. It is a mistake to generalise. Most boys, then as now, seemed deliriously happy chasing a ball up and down the field at breaktimes. I hated it, finding it mind-numbing at best and at worst, when I was made to play it, nothing short of tyranny. I refused to join in with the breaktime kickabouts and at home would leave the room if football came on the TV. People are different. You can't extrapolate from a few happy individuals that everyone else is fine with it too.

As for being unfussy and easy to deal with, well, up to the age of puberty the same rule would have been just as appropriate for the girls, would it not, especially if as you say younger children are less likely to suffer inhibitions? Let me guess, though . . .

My primary school had no changing rooms, we changed in our classrooms. There were two classes in each school year and the girls went off into the other classroom while we boys stayed in ours. I honestly can't remember whether our class teachers stayed to supervise us changing or not, so it can't have been a big deal even to me. I think they used to exit and leave us to it (health and safety violation?) but honestly I can't now remember, which suggests I didn't find it too unpleasant.

It was no big deal, you stripped down to underwear then put on your t-shirt and shorts. Generally we were allowed to wear plimsolls too, even indoors.

Our primary school had swimming classes in third-year juniors, which I was dreading. On the last day of term in second year before we broke up for the summer it was announced that the swimming lessons had been scrapped due to funding cuts - this was the early 80s after all. There was a chorus of groans from other disappointed boys but I was quietly relieved. Until reading your post it never occurred to me in my life to speculate whether we would have been supervised changing by a woman teacher.

Mark,going shirtless for PE and games was not optional,but mandatory.It always amazed me how it could be achieved and to make hundreds of boys that attended our school from the ages 11 to 16 go shirtless for their games.When I mentioned it to my parents they told me not to be silly and said that I looked good just wearing my shorts.

Appreciated reading your honest post Deborah. You are the second primary school female teacher in recent months on here to say something along these lines.

Alex and James, I'm pleased I was never placed in that situation, especially yours Alex. It was bad enough running briefly down a suburban street in cross country with my shirt off and that was only for a few moments until we reached 'safety' of the course area our school used to do such things, although it was still fully public but with not many people around. What gives with these kind of expectations, I mean would you expect to go on holiday to Great Yarmouth and be told by the council there that you had to go shirtless on the beach whether you wanted to or not, and have council enforcement officers coming at you for non compliance!

Alright so PE teachers wanted shirtless in their gyms, but doing things for an audience should surely have given a bit more leeway about sensitivities. Many boys like you say would have been anxious about just doing gym with people watching them without the added shirtless angle thrown in too. This isn't a new point though, it's been made before.

I've been one of those teachers back in time who made these kind of asks of children Alex in primary school I taught at in the 1980s and 90s. I'm not a dedicated PE teacher as primary teachers take all subjects but the method in the PE kit for the boys at our primary school was that it was what most boys liked and it was also unfussy and easy to deal with, and so we took the boys into PE indoors without tops on almost always. Sometimes the children did little performances for their parents and the boys did not have tops on. I have mixed feeling about that now. These were laid down primary school rules in place long before my arrival and still in place when I left.

Would I be right in asserting that younger children, those in primary school are less self conscious about themselves than the older children of secondary age? I do not remember many boys responding badly to being top free in PE class, but I do remember a couple of children who responded unfavourably to being in bare feet, which was obviously a common choice for primary school PE lessons and how we generally took it in those days.


Our primary school wasn't large, we had 200 pupils in eight classes,but had proper PE changing rooms for boys and girls and there was a notice beside both doors that I remember saying: private - no unauthorised admittance. I remember having a chat about this and was told it didn't relate to any of the adult teaching staff at school who had automatic admittance when necessary at all times and was instead aimed at the children keeping out when they shouldn't be in them, like at lunchtime.

Our primary school did not use showering but female staff such as me did supervise the boys changing room properly while changing was taking place, and when they were taken for swimming I had to supervise boys changing for that too, simply because there were not many male staff around who did these jobs, in our school the most we had at one point was four and much of the time just two, one of which was a deputy head teacher who didn't have his own permanent class to take anyway. We often wondered what he spent much of the day doing.

I think younger boys are much more accepting of these things though. I always enjoyed teaching this age group up to the age of twelve.

I had one child, a son, who grew up and went to school in those years too, and am happy with all the arrangement that were made for him at his own primary and secondary school where he would have often been top free for PE and told to shower when older, and although we spoke of many things school related and I took a keen interest because of my own job, he rarely complained about his lot in PE lessons and we did speak about showering in his secondary school I remember that.

Johnny,I wore shorts for school,so my mother thought it was appropriate to wear shorts at home.

@ James, did you mean to say that your mother kept you in shorts only and shirtless at home?

Following on, with this long running debate,

I have just been listening to a programme on Radio 4 called Gap Finders (tx 1204-1230 29 May 2025), in which they were talking to a dermatologist about skin cancer and sun creams, and he was saying that people should not go out of doors between 11 and 2 in the afternoon without a shirt on. P.E teachers who still insist on doing that should take a listen:

https:bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002cqql

Comment by: James on 29th May 2025 at 08:23

I sometimes think parents, especially mothers, forget just how much bullying and unpleasantness goes on in schools. I can't find any excuse for it. I think where women are concerned it is sometimes due to vanity. To allow their little boys to group up into adults is to admit they are getting older themselves.


Comment by: Alex on 29th May 2025 at 02:20



....."I know what this feels like James. I had to perform to an audience in comprehensive school doing gym once when I was twelve and did so shirtless just like many of our PE lessons were in the school gym. Our PE teacher at the time thought all the boys would look better and more presentable if we all did it in our bare chests and flat out refused to let anyone perform in front of our school family audience and teachers any other way......."


You honestly have to question the motives of teachers like that. If I had been a parent I would have questioned it.

No male should ever be forced to take a pe lesson shirtless or with barefeet. Even today there are still schools who force pupils to submit to a mandatory school shower. It is time for Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to end this barbaric practice or risk the ire of voters in the 2029 general election. Here is an offending institution. https://www.castlehill.stockport.sch.uk/Information/Uniforms/ Students are required to shower after PE and should bring a towel. On Wednesdays, at certain times of the year, Year 7 students will need to bring a swimming kit for swimming lessons.

Alex,thank you for your reply,yes,it was rather daunting to take our PE lessons when shirtless and bare foot especially in front of a large audience when my parents attended.
At the secondary school that I attended being bare without tops was part of the uniform requirement and was compulsory for boys from 11 to 16. Of course we had to comply with this statutory requirement and my parents thought it was quite sensible and that I looked quite attractive being bare chested.This prompted my mother to to keep me dressed entirely in shorts at home,which I strongly objected to,but to no avail.