Burnley Grammar School

There has just been a very long and very costly enquiry into child abuse in schools, it went on for years. Many gave their accounts there and conclusions were drawn. Surely a man in the media would have known about it, there was enough reporting some of which was about my own school and I have to say, I did not recognise it from the account of two former pupils who gave accounts about a particular teacher who I liked and respected.

If Nicky Campbell wanted to air his issues then surely that was the right and proper place to do it. Equally, the teacher he cites is apparently still alive and living overseas. If he believes he is innocent, why should he return to the UK, face arrest, a lengthy investigation, potentially a trial and conviction if he is settled? Miscarriages of justice occur and while at any time of your life you don't want to be the victim of one, in your later years, perhaps with senses failing, you certainly don't.

Nicky Campbell has used his position to air his account, he had a better forum in which to do it in the very recent past and failed to do so. I wouldn't be in too much of a hurry to take him seriously now.

I went to a boys only grammar school in the late 1960's.

Interested in other boys experiences of cross country. We had 2 PE lessons a week, one in the gym, the other cross country - same all year.

Year 1 we had one PE teacher, kit in the gym was shorts, plimsolls, vest, same for cross country (but in the winter we were allowed rugby shirts).

At 11 it was a 2 mile course and I loved running, this all changed in year 2 !

Part way into the year our normal teacher became very ill, so we had a secondment from another school. In normal lessons we saw other classes running, and maybe we should have noticed that they all were shirtless, and in some cased barefoot. Anyway first cross country lesson we discovered the "new order" Everyone had to run stripped to the waist, no matter how cold or wet it was, No talking was allowed, and anyone considered "slow/lazy" was punished. Punishments ranged from running barefoot, to cold showers to a caning.

The new course was longer - 4 miles - and I hated it. Middle of winter, just a pair of shorts on, and the risk of the cane at the end.

Many thanks Alan for that BBC item on Nicky Campbell. Who'd have thought it, I was very surprised but I wonder if I should have been now. Since I began reading here a few months ago it opened my eyes a little and brings an extra dimension with a major radio and TV player like Nicky coming out with that. You could see the pain in his face but I've noticed how easy it is to read the pain in written words too without seeing anyones face or hearing their voice on here with one or two.

This kind of behaviour seems to overwhelmingly affect boys in school doesn't it? That's what it seems to me. I rarely if ever have heard about girls in school dealing with these kind of abusive issues but stories of boys in schooldays come along a lot.

I was a girl at school in the 90's (I left in 2000) and am so pleased I wasn't a boy at school before that time.

Directly personal attacks are unbecoming of this discussion which like Bernard quite rightly said, has improved greatly in recent months with much more thoughtful content. Let's keep it that way.

I think Bernard's closing sentence says it all.

Andy: "Alan inspired effluent"


You really area an obnoxious little man, you have to turn every comment into an insult or an accusation - I bet you were one of the most verbose of the playground bullies.

I made no comment, I just gave a link to the Nicky Campbell article, just to prove what was going on in the 1970s and later, sadly.

I don't suppose it would matter to your (or Bernard) what evidence was put in front of you, as you both seem to be in denial.

One thought occurs though - the teacher who Mr Campbell names is still alive, living overseas, but the police are aware of his identity and activities and he would be charged if he returned to the UK, but he chooses not to. If he - and his past behaviour - was so innocent, why not return and clear his name?. I would - wouldn't you?

In terms of Paul's story from the summer heatwave of 1976 about the mass cold showering of all the O level sitting students that June I rather think that Tony made the perfect comment when he said;

"Leaving the school shower / changing room open in a heatwave to allow pupils access to one to cool down in break times if they'd like to freshen up seems an eminently reasonable and forward thinking policy to me.
But mandating them to do it. No. That's not the school's business to do that when PE lessons aren't involved."


Do you not think that's fair comment Paul? I agree it would be a great idea, but it's not what you do but how you do it.

So if you were doing O levels you were at the end of the old style 5th form as we used to know it. By the time these exams came along many of the classes had effectively ended and you were barely at school full time on a daily basis by June and if you were actually leaving school you probably had more or less left barring going to those exams, after all 5th formers didn't run up the school year until late July and then go off.

So bearing all that in mind many might have already been off school and at home before showing up for an afternoon exam. I speak from experience and many others will relate to that here too.

Now taking that situation you described and placing myself there, if it had been something there to use if I wished to do so for a cool down and freshen up then I'd very possibly have been tempted even if I had to share with a few dozen others at once. But if I'd been "told to" as you put it, then I'd have in those circumstances felt seriously pissed off about it. I'd have semi left school at that stage, why the hell would I be letting some PE teacher who I'd just got rid of off my back dictate to me well after my 16th birthday that I "had to" do such a thing just because it was hot.

In your post you used the term "told to" which suggests no free choice, therefore mandated, essentially forced into it, which is what you said. I'm not aware that any PE teacher would have had any authority to act in such a way well beyond their own subject remit and paramters. They would have been overstepping the mark in a big way acting like that, where you suggest they even had lists and ticked people off to make sure everyone did so.

I'm trying in good faith to make sense of what you've written in the way you wrote it.

We have had a while of sensible discussion on this thread with some interesting contributions. Let's not get back to the situation we had before when some were quick to attack those who recounted experiences which were quite different from theirs.
When I read Paul's contribution my first thought was how sensible of the school. The showering facilities at my school might have struggled a bit to cope with 200 boys in a short space of time but it is conceivable that there were schools whose facilities were geared up to cope with larger numbers. "Forcing" would not have been considered an appropriate word - there was a time when boys were told to do something and they did it - I'm sure most of them would have appreciated being able to cool down.
Andy - you make some good points but we must remember that people like Nicky Campbell would not have received such an enthusiastic audience decades ago. Whilst there is no doubt that stories that he and Ivan tell are of dreadful abuse society these days seems to want to hear these stories in a way that it didn't in days gone by. We are even getting to the stage where it is almost fashionable to have been a victim of something or some-one.

At my secondary school in the 70's we would regularly complain to our PE teachers about the temperature of the showers they sent us into, especially over the colder months coming in from the rain and wind. One day one of these teachers finally flipped about the issue and told us that he wouldn't ask us to do anything he wouldn't do and said he was happy with the temperature they were set at and proceeded to strip down to his underwear and walk into them with some of us still in there just to prove a point and shut some of us up. The water was never hot, never more than barely lukewarm to me. On doing this someone said something along the lines of 'Sir, why are you wearing pants in the shower if we can't', as he'd already told us he wouldn't ask us to do anything he wouldn't. On hearing this he ended up as good as his word and without hesitating took them off in front of us, a sight nobody really expected to see. He stepped back out and put them back on within a handful of seconds. He was quite a young PE teacher, not sure an older one would have done that. Suffice to say that I don't think anyone much complained about the water temperature again although it never got much warmer either. If you had a proper hot shower at school consider yourself rather fortunate. Sharing school showers with your mates is a good old teenage rite of passage that leaves me with some amusing memories. Seeing many of your mates naked for the first time is quite an event isn't it.

Oh dear, I do hope that with the return of Alan we are not getting back to believing that every encounter that anyone had with an adult during their school days was abuse of one sort or another.

There has been some adult discussion here in recent weeks rather than the Alan inspired effluent that had been current for so long supported by the 'Alan handles'.

While Nicky Campbell may have a point he perhaps should have dealt with his issues decades ago. Equally, if you read Stiff Upper Lip by Alex Renton you will see that many of those who now complain of abuse will acknowledge that at the time they knew exactly what they were doing and what they were party to. It's quite eye opening.

You are all absolutely free to doubt away at my account of the summer of 1976 and my 'O' levels. I was there, you were not and I know what happened and you don't. All the faux outrage won't change what happened and I thought by now enough had been said that makes it clear that back then we were living in a different age to now however all I will say is be happy in your doubts. It makes no odds to me at all.

Comment by: Paul on 19th July 2022 at 14:10
I remember the summer of 1976, I was doing my 'O' levels so there was no possibility of any let up from being at school. I remember we were allowed to take off our ties and roll up our sleeves and before the afternoon session started each day we all had to report to the changing room and take a cold shower which was very welcome and probably did something to reduce the smell of about 200 sweaty boys in the exam hall which didn't have great ventilation.

There was no choice about that, one of the PE masters had a list and you name was ticked off as you came out. I don't think it was a problem getting lads to comply, more getting us out once we were in.




Why do you think so many people have trouble taking this account at face value Paul?

I'd quite like our couple of teacher writers on here to pass comment on this. It's the militaristic conscripted style of what you describe happening that gets me most of all. Add my name to the doubters.

Good for Nicky Campbell at the age of 61 deciding to use his available platform to call out his teachers like that. It's never too late.

Incredible post by Ivan a few days ago and then Nicky comes out with his own similar memory in thge national domain.

Massive kudos to you on a very well timed return with that article Alan.

When I read the piece by Ivan last week and he wrote about a teacher effectively sexually assaulting somebody I was anticipating some deniers on here or imagining some would outright disbelieve such a claim. That's before you even get to the other lower level physical goings on such as throwing about. I thought the follow up from Laura was pitched very well in reply.

There is one quote in the Nicky Campbell story that sticks out and is worth highlighting here;

"Those were different times and that has stayed with me all my life."

The "different times" argument is often used by those who seek to excuse certain ways from the past. Well it's not an excuse for a lot of activity is it, especially where physical actions have taken place in whatever manner. I'll separate general nudity attitudes out from that in this instance. Throwing kids about or grabbing their balls was as unacceptable 50 years ago as it is now. As Ivan wrote last week, the only difference is that these people did get away with it and some of them were extremely crafty and clever. Nicky says it has stayed with him all his life, of course it has. Why would anyone just forget the moment they left school. This actual forum proves that decades pass and people have incredibly vivid and detailed memories of what they enjoyed and endured in their school, especially surrounding PE and all that it threw at them.

When Nicky said "Being in a changing room at 10 years old - after rugby - seeing a teacher abuse my friend. I cannot describe it here and I can never un-see it." that was literally the same as what Ivan told us last week when he wrote about seeing the teacher grab a member of his class by his penis and testicles wasn't it. The sadness is that none of them ever told as the article says. You have to wonder if what Ivan wrote on this history forum last week was the first time he had ever told that after so much time.

There will be a few people who might not like the discussion turning to this kind of thing again but I do think it is perfectly legitimate and for my own part I've found recent months on here to be a far more interesting read with some fresher input.

Howard. your comments are interesting. At least when i started Secondary school 1961, I was following my brother who was already attending there. So I more or less knew the arrangements for P e. Nevertheless, my father attended a parents evening a few weeks prior to the start of the school year and when he came home he explained to me all about uniform , lessons etc, which as I say I was aware of. He did explain pe would be done in shirts only( no underwear) and no top when indoors and plimsolls without socks. so I was prepared for this. Parents did not not question the schools rules.
I expect you did find it disconcerting at first to find out that on that first day pe was in pants only. Most unusual. Still as you say you were all the same, and in that era I think the only underwear worn was white briefs.
showers were available to us but not compulsory and only a few lads used them.

Here is the experience of somebody quite famous, who names names and this happened in the 1970s:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62308621

Did anyone arrive at their upper school without realising they'd have to start going in the showers after P.E?

We got stuck straight in at the deep end with it. On my first day back in September we spent the morning with all the introductions and writing out timetables and the first afternoon was a P.E class on our timetable that day, already halfway through the week. Because we had no P.E kit with us that day we didn't expect much that first afternoon.

After lunch we were told by our new form teacher to shuffle along to the gym as we were in our full and fresh new uniforms and black leather shoes and bags. Once there we all stood about rather awkwardly wondering how we were going to spend the next hour or so. Some more introductions to our four P.E teachers and suddenly it was a case of one of them saying follow me to the changing rooms where we found a space and got told we could do the lesson with what we had on us that day, pants and a vest if we wore one, if not then no top and no shoes and socks, it all came off. Most of us didn't wear vests so it was a pants only lesson. Quite a surprise on a first day. We all more or less looked the same so what was there to really complain about. I do remember feeling more or less naked like that but it was kind of exciting and fun whilst also being a touch intimidating in a strange kind of way if that doesn''t sound completely contradictory in itself.

I can remember it being quite a passive lesson with very minimal expectations, a lot of stuff to do with balancing and coordination that didn't raise the heartrate too dramatically. At the end when we got back to the changing room and sat down to change back again our P.E teacher said we'd start as we mean to go on and take a shower, so we all dropped our pants and went into what I thought was an okay experience. None of us had a towel that first day so we had to stand around and drip and shake dry for a few moments but that was okay because it was only water anyway. Thinking about showering in school before ever doing it was actually the worst part of all, the doing it was no problem to me even though I'd never seen another naked boy before because I had no brothers and suddenly I was surrounded by a lot just the same as me. That's what I remember thinking, oh they are all just the same as me.

Now that was in 1968. I now have a grandson who will take his place at the very same school as me 54 years ago when he starts there in a few weeks time after the holidays. I very much doubt his first day will turn out anything like mine did but when school cropped up in conversation earlier this summer and I explained a few of my memories to him he initially refused to believe anyone went to school, did P.E and had to shower with their class with no clothes on. Even the concept of a lesson without a top on seemed to surprise him. He took quite some persuading. I don't know why he would have found it all so unlikely. If he ended up thrown in at the deep end from day one like I was then I do wonder just what the outcome would be.

Responding to - Paul J on 24th June 2022 at 14:59
I've just watched the Good Health video which I remember from years ago, I'm amazed it's still around.

https://youtu.be/NRRw-k7cGJs

Wow that's a memory brought back there. Our primary school class saw this in school, we must have been around 9. I thought it was unfair the girls got to see all those naked boys but we couldn't see the girls doing the same. Class got in trouble for sniggering, the girls mainly, I don't blame them seeing that again. After it ended class had to talk about what we had just seen and answer and ask questions it raised. Our primary had a shower area one side of the changing room which was never touched but within days of seeing this programme it must have sparked our teachers into action because they started turning the showers on and telling us to walk into them after PE lessons and suddenly we kept hearing about sweat and the term B/O became a big obsessive thing out of the blue. I blame this damned programme for that and for the fact that we started occasionally doing some of our lessons with a bare chest which we had never done up to that point either. It all felt a bit shit at the time. Obviously our teachers were in need of educating on personal hygiene issues and took the advice on this programme quite literally and implemented it on us.

I missed this one where Baxter the head of PE admits that PE teachers "have a bad enough reputation as it is" when things get sorted and they get shot of the bullying teacher.

https://youtu.be/lE8utnACiig

We never got to know what exactly became of Hicks but I suppose back then those kind of people just went on to another school and maybe began the same behaviour all over again instead of being drummed out of the profession entirely or face investigation and potential assualt charges.

Re: Laura & Ivan comments.

Those of us a certain age might well remember this storyline of a PE teacher called Mr Hicks who singled out and bullied a boy in his class which was shown on Grange Hill on BBC1 in January 1981.

Two clips here, one shows the bullying in the lesson and even a boy getting hit by a plimsoll, sound only of that before he emerges in just a towel from showers. What a miserable excuse of a PE lesson that would have been for real.

https://youtu.be/bUDzmI8hbpg

At least he got found out and dealt with by his colleague, Mr Baxter who delivered some karma rather nicely to Hicks here. I probably cheered when I saw the following;

https://youtu.be/4ny46fm5JfY

What you wrote Ivan reminded me immediately all over again of this episode, which as someone comments underneath the clip and I agree with, is long ingrained in the consciousness of us children who watched at the time even 41 year later, as I was a boy about the same age as the bullied class at that time. Luckily I never had anyone like the Hicks bullying character but did have one similar to the Baxter character and looking back he really was the perfect kind of PE teacher in my book and portrayed very well. But it is very interesting that the show chose to highlight an actual PE teacher bully like that and the reason is obvious, because they did exist in far too many schools than is acceptable at the time.

Whenever I saw the actor Paul Jerricho in anything after this I took against him for seeing him in this episode doing this at my young impressionable age. Even now I look and think of him as the PE bully despite all the work he's done since.

A description of the episode from a fandom site;

"Mr. Hicks was a strict and bullying physical education teacher in the series Grange Hill, who appeared in the fourth series episode "Slip on the Wet Floor, Did You?".

He is played by Paul Jerricho.

History
Mr. Hicks appears as a strict and thuggish PE teacher at Grange Hill. After the kids in his class muck around in the swimming pool, Mr. Hicks begins questioning one of the boys Christopher Stewart in the changing rooms, but pushes him over causing him to hit his head. Mr. Hicks then claims that he slipped, and when his mother is informed he stands by his claims and the matter is ultimately dropped.

Mr. Hicks begins to bully Christopher in his class, making him do extra working out than the other students which causes him to grow tired and weak. He keeps both Christopher and his friend Duane Orpington to put away the equipment.

Another teacher Miss Lexington becomes concerned and goes to talk to other sports teacher Mr. Bullet Baxter about it, although he feels that Mr. Hicks is simply disciplining them and that it isn't as worse as Christopher is making out. But when Baxter looks in on one of Mr. Hicks' lessons, he catches him shouting at a student and throwing him to the floor. Baxter calls out Hicks, and punches and knocks him to the ground, then mockingly saying "slip on the Wet Floor, Did You?"

Hicks was later disciplined from the school and never seen again."

Most adult overweight adults walking around today are not that way because they hated PE in school I'm confident about that. If it is any factor I'd stick it a bit down the list for reasons.

One factor might actually be because there appears to be a lot less PE in school nowadays and what they do is not so strenuous as it once was and the teachers are far softer in what they demand when they actually get them anywhere near a gym or sports field.

The fitness ethic and bodily self responsibility is what is NOT being
promoted like it once was.

I was rather moved reading your account last night Ivan and saddened by the way you described your feelings on leaving school as akin to a prison. You are not alone. I have in my job over the years spoken with many people from all walks of life, male and female of varying ages young to elderly whose adult issues could be traced back to their early life, often in school. When we hear about bullying in school it is nearly always in terms of other pupils doing it to each other but there is a far more insidious and lesser spoken of bullying that almost dare not speak its name and that is of teacher and authority figure deliberate bullying, something perhaps not so common now with greater awareness but took place in the past and often disguised under the veneer of discipline and order. Your own description reminded me of a gentleman I spoke with a few years ago in his 70's talking about being in school around about 1950 and the one thing that he told me was that he was worried nobody would believe him, and his own parents didn't. Without going into private details there was an assault element involved over a period of time. Many of the people such as the teacher you described did those kind of things not just because they thought they would get away with it but because they knew they would get away with it, even if a complaint might be made.

Now I'm fully aware that the overwhelming majority of us were treated correctly even if we didn't like what we were told, that includes me. But the minority is not insignificant and for the handful of people I've spoken with over the years who have related stories to me about their schooldays even before the 1950's, there are probably ten times that who simply kept their troubles and thoughts to themselves.

One of the most disturbing things I spoke with a man in his early 60's around about 15 years ago was how if he was given corporal punishment at school his own father would repeat the same when he got home on him so he was doubly punished. The kind of thiings he told me he would receive this for were not what anybody would consider misbehaviour of any kind but failure to produce work up to a certain standard leading to a number of belts across both hands. He lived iin fear from a young age of both his teachers and his parents. Is it any wonder you'd grow up with lasting effects and never forget. I never forget some of what I hear and it didn't happen to me, I'm just listening for the most part.

Agreed Tom F.

Unusual. Unlikely more like.

Thanks for replying Paul, did you have the Guinness Book Of Records record for the biggest school showers in the UK, or the world or something? A shower with 150 showerheads!

Tell me you're on a wind up Paul.

I can't help but agree with the others here who followed my own comment up and your answer. What you said, not just about the size of your facilities but the reason for using them just seems outright weird.

Let me get this straight. You are telling us that at your school prior to taking exams back in that glorious summer of 1976 the teachers actually forced all of you to take a cold shower together before you took an O level in the afternoon and were so strict about it that they effectively registered you in and out to make sure everyone did so. Virtual school leavers we are talking about here.

My memory of exam days was that teachers were all busy enough without creating extra work. If I'd been about to take my maths O level and my PE teacher had appeared on the scene in a way I'd not expected and then as I was getting my head in place revising and mentally gearing up for an important exam he suddenly told me to get myself off to the PE block and get showered I think I'd have looked at him as if he was a comedian. I very much doubt I'd have complied to such a generalised order even if the thought of cooling off was rather nice.

Subject to further info I'm struggling with this if I'm perfectly honest. I've never heard anything close to like it before.

Children are brought up with parents ramming home about stranger danger and not to let people touch or see parts of the body that they don't want others too see. Then they are sent too school and are expected to strip naked in front of everyone.
When I was at school the showers were cold or freezing and had no privacy and quite often your clothes were hidden or put in the corridor.

When you get up in the morning, you have a shower & a wash, come home from school, have a shower & a wash - how smelly can you get? and if you ARE smelly - who does it hurt? I travelled to school fifty years ago on buses full of people wearing wool clothes, smoking, who only bathed once a week ( if they HAD access to a bath) and I never came down with cholera. And I've no allergy problems....

I remember dreading games because of the compulsory communal showers at around eleven to fifteen years old, we all did. Twenty or thirty naked bodies in a confined space at once like sardines. We barely got wet or could move enough to bend over and wash properly. It was just going through the motions for the sake of it. I know it was a significant contributory factor in my avoidance of all team sports since. I don't know why my school had to make physical activity such a torture. I was often in agony with muscles or even bruised. As far as I'm concerned the sadists they employed as Games teachers in the 70s and 80s are responsible for today's obesity crisis. I lost count of the amount of lads I saw being shamed about their physical bodily appearances (inside we were not allowed shirts 90% of the time) or even sometimes physically hit. I was witness to an actual assault one day in our locker room when one regularly mouthy lad used a selection of four letter words at one of these sadists who then physically grabbed and squeezed his whole penis and testicles in his one hand for about five seconds before letting go. He actually got away with that. I've often googled the name of that teacher to see if he ever appeared in some historical come uppance, no luck on that. Don't go telling me someone did that as a one off that I just happened to see. Another one often enjoyed roughly pushing some of us to the floor or ground unexpectedly under some dubious pretence. That's being a fifteen year old in a 1979 fee paying private school for you. When I left the place it was like being given parole after doing my time.

Leaving the school shower / changing room open in a heatwave to allow pupils access to one to cool down in break times if they'd like to freshen up seems an eminently reasonable and forward thinking policy to me.

But mandating them to do it. No. That's not the school's business to do that when PE lessons aren't involved.

Can you throw a bit more detail about how all this worked Paul.

Paul you said - 'we all had to report to the changing room and take a cold shower'.

So it was compulsory was it? Halfway through the school day a bunch of 16 year olds to go along and line up for a cold shower at O level age when many were about to leave school. Come off it! Sorry Paul. My class associates and everyone I know would have laughed in their face if they'd tried that one on us lot at that age, even after years of twice weekly PE showering. If it was a purely voluntary side option to be taken up that's another matter entirely.