Burnley Grammar School

One thing that sets you apart in school is being born with red hair. I was called 'Carrott' at school in the 1980's. I was very ginger and met with never ending comments for years at school which peaked in secondary school. Now I've never known why people born ginger find themselves targets while other hair colours don't, it's always been a bit of a mystery to me. My PE teacher at school even wrote a report and referenced my hair colour when he put pen to paper. But even worse than the hair on my head was the piss taking I got in the showers at school for having bright ginger pubic hair when it came through at 13. I could handle myself quite well and was quite athletic and able in PE especially at gymnastics but I barely went a month without yet another comment, like everyone was surprised I wasn't just ginger on my head and always found it funny down a bit lower. Being ginger in that area seemed to give the boys I shared PE with a good excuse to openly and directly check me out in ways they didn't with others. While other boys probably worried about their actual penis size in the school shower I was conscious of the hair around it. Nobody else non-ginger ever gets that. Having that hair colour also gives many ginger people paler skin tone and that was me, and even my nipples were exceptionally light coloured to the point of almost un-noticeable and I had to put up with comments about that too, even from one of my teachers. Being ginger haired and pale skin tone didn't in itself make me self conscious at all, I was what I was and okay about it. Luckily I didn't have too much of the other likely ginger trait of excessive freckly skin, I was just mainly very white pale. Taking a shower in school was not something that caused any concern to me and neither did the times when I did PE without a shirt, but it was just the comments simply for being a certain skin and hair tone that became so tedious after a while and did get to me when I was around my mid teens. I remember asking them what was so funny about being ginger and of course there was no answer. Even now as an adult with less dazzling but still ginger hair I come across comments, but school PE was were they came the most.

Bernard - What is it with mothers and vests?

My own parents were regular vest wearers throughout their lives, Mum, in particular being keen that I followed their example even, like you, until my early secondary school days. Occasionally during my primary school years even she had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that vests were overkill on days when the mercury soared above 80C, but it was not until the summer following my tenth birthday that I went vestless from the start of the summer term until school went back in September.

Of course, when I wasn't wearing a vest during the day, it didn't make sense to wear one under my PJ top at night, as I had done up until then, so I didn't, but omitted to broadcast the fact. So when July produced a heatwave, and Mum told me to leave off my PJ top, expecting me to be wearing a vest underneath, she inadvertently introduced me to sleeping topless, although she didn't realise this for a week or so. She and Dad saw the funny side of this, and nothing more was said until school restarted, when she insisted that I needed a vest again. I reluctantly acquiesced for day-time, but surprisingly, neither Mum nor Dad batted an eyelid when I didn't go back to wearing vests and PJ tops to bed.

Full liberation came when topless PE was introduced during my 2nd or 3rd year in secondary school, the unintended consequence of this being that I, along with most of my class, soon stopped wearing vests altogther. Although Dad thought the topless PE bit was a good idea, Mum wasn't quite so sure, although she did see the benefit of not having to buy me vests any more.

Some guys with too much self liking do I think love peacocking in gym situations.

Joe.

Well done for noticing my comment on 26th May there.

So you did that there, magnificent.

We have something very much in common. A good looking cheeky chappie. The exact similarity to my own memory I told last month is uncanny down to the precise detail isn't it. I was a bit younger though. As I said last month, I didn't think I was alone having what was known as a "cool down" and seeing it being given in a programme drawing on the ways of the 1950's proves my commented opinion correct that I wasn't alone in receiving such discipline.

There was just no tolerance at all of any backchat 65 years ago in school. Sometimes it didn't even have to be words but simple demeanour that got you in trouble. You were very similar to me. The shame is that there was this desire to try and remove a lot of personal individuality at school in those days and that didn't suit me. We should want to let all our unique individual qualities flourish in our youth don't you think, not suppress them.

That looked like fun. I see there are other parts to watch. I shall enjoy seeing how it went in the follow up episodes I can see are also available.

Nigel
I think that you have made a valid point when you in the sense of overall attitude to our bodies and the different generations. I also used to attend a small gym , and the changing facilities were rather confined. Like you I would undress get changed for the gym and afterwards change into trunks for the swimming pool. Over time I observed that when the younger generation entered the room
when they saw someone else changing they would go into the toilet cubicle and change in there. Also when using the showers I am wearing nothing and there have been other people present.
Never though have I had anyone make a comment to me such as you received, and I understand that you were offended.
I to have now changed to another Gym because it is £20 per month cheaper. The facilities are larger and the changing rooms much bigger.
There is more provision for those who wish to to change in private which suits the men who prefer to do so.

Enjoyable viewing thanks for sharing that Joe. I watched the whole episode.

I'm not so sure how the cold shower was much of a punishment that year if that was summer 2003, which was a phenomenal record breaker for heat that many will remember. Cold showers would have been a treat to cool off with and relief in those conditions, not a punishment. What a silly headmaster. I liked the reaction afterwards.

I see they were going for total 50s authenticity there but commentary stated corporal punishment had finally been made illegal in the late 90s. I always thought it was mid 80s, but anyway even if it had still been legal only 20 years ago I very much doubt they would have gone that far with authenticity and started dishing out corporal punishment and caning modern kids 50s style, not with any real force anyway.

That matron was just awful!

Chris - unfortunately it was several years after that that I managed to persuade my mother that I didn't need to wear a vest and haven't worn one since. The vestless boys at primary school had no effect on me other than making me somewhat jealous. We had to wear our underwear, however much or little that may be. Just because a couple of other boys never wore vests didn't mean that I or any other vest wearer could remove that item for p.e. - it seemed totally illogical but that was the way it was.

Comment by: Dennis on 26th May 2023 at 17:07

Take a look here Dennis. Something identical to what you described happening to you in your school took place in this retrospective TV programme That'll Teach 'Em shown twenty years ago when kids in school around the millennium went back to the 1950s for a bit.

I should know - it's me! I'm now nearly 37, time flies. I was in school 1998-2003, this was just after our GCSE exams, this was our summer holiday that year.

View 37 minutes in but there's a lot more other stuff. I failed the challenge. There's a load more stuff you can find out there about it.

Cheers.

https://youtu.be/vv_V5Sh27nc?t=2241

Interesting discussion.

Taking it away from school for my comments which I feel are valid in the sense of the overall attitude to our bodies and the different generations.

I'm a regular gym goer and have been a member of three over the past twenty years or so, Fitness First and also David Lloyds. But a few years ago in 2012 between those two I was also a member of a slightly smaller gym closer to home not on the scale of those two. That gym had an old style shower area for anyone who wished to use it afterwards, which I would do sometimes, I was paying for the facilities so made full use of them.

After work one evening I did my usual evening session like I'd do once or twice a week and afterwards decided to take a quick shower. There was nobody else using the area at the moment I began using it. I was completely minding my own business using my shower gel with my eyes closed just going through the usual routine and thinking about my day at work when I found some guy suddenly talking to me a bit abruptly and accusing me of not being very discreet. I begged his pardon and he told me I knew what he meant. He'd come into the shower area in his shorts while I had nothing at all on. That was his problem unbelievably. I'd done the same many times before and although some people did come in wearing shorts, mostly much younger guys, the majority over thirty took the gym shower in the manner you'd expect in such a place, wearing nothing. I was mid forties at the time and my accuser was no more than late twenties at most.

I was incredibly offended anyone dared say something to me as if I was some kind of dirty old man just because he'd seen my whole body as he walked in and made my opinion of his comment very clear to him and before I left also did so with the management who even apologised. There was no signage to say anything about wearing anything and management confirmed I had done absolutely nothing incorrect in taking a shower in their gym naked. I wasn't walking around in any other area like that. It would never even occur to me to keep shorts on to shower.

When my membership came up for renewal I didn't bother and went off elsewhere.

Bernard

Did your transition from vest/pants to just shorts at the top of Primary School have any influence on your vest-wearing habit generally?
Equally, did the example of the vest-refusers in your class ever inspire you to emulate their example,either in PE lessons or in everyday life?

In my case, the introduction of full topless PE in my 2nd or 3rd year of secondary school resulted in me and all of my vest-wearing classmates, which back in those days was most of the class, giving up underwear vests completely within a very short space of time.

Bernard, back in the 70's my mother used to insist I always went out to play with a nice fresh t-shirt during the summertime and actually told me not to be like some of the other boys around who went without on days like ones we've just had. She kept hold of this view as I got older and even went so far as to tell me she didn't think boys who went outside were very classy! She could be a bit of a snob at times and I told her that over the years. I remember sometimes when I went out to play around the ages of 8 to 14 when I would meet up with friends and if one or two of them were shirtless, as sometimes they would be, I'd wait until I was out of range of home and also then take my t-shirt off as well and just hang it around my waist. One day I didn't do this and left it on the floor near a tree where we were hanging out at about the age of 13, but forgot about it as we moved elsewhere only to find my top had vanished and was no longer there when I went back to find it. This meant trouble and I knew it as I had to walk home shirtless with a couple of friends and explain myself. I got a clout for being so stupid and my friends got a dressing down for essentially encouraging me to take my shirt off! But after that she relented and just let me do my own thing. We have laughed about it since. It's a wonder I didn't have the shirtless fear indoctrinated into me by such a parent.

When it came to PE at school, shirtless PE was a thing for me both in primary around about half the time while I was there, and in my comprehensive the gym was primarily shirtless based, plus outside summer athletics often done the same way. My mother didn't think it wasn't classy to do that at school, she was fine with her little cherub showing up and going full skins in the PE lessons without thinking it lacked class. Although the shirtless PE was not a problem to me, doing it definitely felt different to hanging about voluntarily with my pals and a slight self consciousness could creep in now and again that I was aware of in some PE situations, such as when we did summer sports afternoon with parental involvement.

I also remember talking to my mother about having showers in school when I first began doing them and she was enthusiastic about me doing that, pleased that we were being taught good hygiene and always sent me to school with a bar of Shield soap wrapped up inside my PE towel. Two bars would last the whole school academic year from September to the following July, lasting me what must have been goodness knows how many showers at two each week, something close to eighty I'd imagine. I used to use the fact I'd showered in school as an excuse not to bother taking baths at home because school let us shower properly when we had PE last period. I liked that because we could take as long as we liked but others in class hated the fact they still had to go in the showers after PE rather than just go straight home. A common complaint elsewhere I bet for last period PE lessons.

Another reply to Dan - I too was happy enough wearing just a pair of shorts for p.e. both inside and out.

Recent comments have brought to mind a conversation I had with two other boys in my class a few weeks into the second year at Grammar School. I was about two thirds down the list in terms of ability in p.e; J was a little lower than me and G was right at the bottom, being rather un-coordinated. J had come from a different primary school; G had been at the same primary school as me where we had to do such p.e. as we did in our underwear. For most boys, including G and myself, this meant vest and pants except for two boys in the class who never wore vests so they did p.e. in just their pants. I remember thinking how grown up they were as they were not required to wear a top whereas the rest of us had to keep our vests on. In the last year we had a proper p.e. kit of a pair of black shorts which we wore without tops - this was to prepare us for secondary school. I was much happier with this arrangement but G was not as he had a slight deformity of the chest which only became apparent when he was topless - he got teased quite a bit over this. However, by the time of the conversation G was no longer the least bit bothered by shirtless p.e. - apparently it was mainly the girls who had teased him and the teasing had stopped completely when we got to our boys only secondary school.
At J's primary school boys could choose to wear a top or not to. J was a fairly timid boy and had never plucked up the courage to go without a top though he was envious of the more capable boys both in terms of their ability and also because it was largely those boys who were confident enough to discard their tops for p.e. J was much happier about p.e. kit at Grammar School as he had no choice - even if he was no better at p.e. at least he was dressed the same as the more capable boys.

Replying to Dan,
Like you I was perfectly happy being stripped off and just wearing shorts for PE.

I've not heard that one before Jeremy, striking a blow to the stomach with a plimsoll, surely that could be dangerous you might think. As you say, it was 1968 and looking at how things now are I think there have been massive changes in attitude since only 2008, never mind 1968. Some of these memories are becoming ever increasingly hard to imagine aren't they.

I was wondering why they couldn't just leave the doors open instead of actually removing them, it sounds ridiculous to me that.

Agree that PE teachers tended to prefer confident boys who were good at sport more than the reluctant non sporty types.

In answer to Dan;

Kids (and many adults) just don't like being told what to do very much. When you're talking about PE I think it magnifies it quite a bit, especially if you're asking, oh no I mean telling don't I, kids to remove clothing and go into showers with each other with nothing on or jump around the gym in only a pair of shorts, sometimes facing sarcastic ridicule.

When I was in comprehensive school (1968 - 1972) they had some really grotty communal showers covered in black mould around a window when I first started. Yes, there was a actually a window in the school showers! Only just above waist height too. Not even frosted. We were on the first floor, so that was the reason I guess.

The local education authority finally found some cash down the back of the sofa and decided to spend some of it on building us a new shower room fit for purpose which was a hell of a lot better actually. The great thing was the new communal shower actually had some privacy built into it for us. A pair of door on the front so we were not viewable to the wider changing room as we took our showers after PE, fully naked what else.

Were we supposed to be learning a life lesson with ordered communal nakedness of this kind? Even in 1968 so many boys hated it and it was always worse if you had an angry prat of a teacher on your case at the same time treating you like the local magistrate had just sent you down for a juvenile crime.

We used this school shower for about two weeks and compared to what we had been using it was a big improvement but then suddenly one day we came along and both the hinged doors on the front of our shower had been removed and taken away, so we were back on open view just like before, and it was all down to the PE teachers who wanted to be able to see us all clearly as we showered. They didn't even trust us to be the other side of a couple of closed doors in our shower room at school where they were easily able to see that everybody had gone through. Shirking showers never allowed of course. So the manufacturer/installer of the thing had done something for a small bit of showering privacy and the teachers took it away again.

Another thing I remember was when we went out on a cold day in our white shirts and shorts in the middle of an unseasonable cold snap and people in class were complaining that we were too cold with what we'd been sent out in. Those who complained ended up being told to get their white shirts off and throw them aside. When they kept complaining the rest of us had to do so, in order to appreciate what feeling cold actually felt like instead of just imagining it. I kid ye not. The main complainant then had the teacher approach him close up face to face invading his personal space and with both hands pinched and twisted both his nipples at the same time while saying in a quietly menacing voice 'when I tell you to do something boy, you do it'. That gentlemen, and ladies, is my definition of a complete and utter bas***d. He was the same PE chap who had our door removed for a better view in the school shower room.

I actually loved PE but just didn't like one or two of the teachers who took it. One was forever goading for reaction and I swear was disappointed when he didn't get it.

I remember being ridiculed by the one teacher I mentioned time and time again for nothing really. I could kick myself now for never once actually answering back with something worthwhile and letting him get away with it so much, but then to do so invited a swift and loud sounding swipe to the body from a plimsoll for even mild backchat. Our PE teacher was partial to doing this straight into the stomach. I remember this happening a lot in 1968 and 1969 but stopping after 1970.

The word abuse never existed in the vocabulary at that time.

Isn't school about having different experiences? I was very regularly told by the PE teachers to strip off both indoors and outside and it never really bothered or affected me one bit. I wasn't that sporty but always put the effort in. Surely I'm not the only one who didn't mind being stripped off??

To those who saw PE minus this and that as a big anxiety inducer I just want to ask if it was because of a particular imperfection about yourselves that caused the issue, such as being told not to wear a top in a PE lesson, or is it the general principle of the whole thing?

Antony your bit about associating barechested PE with less confident boys rings true to me. When I think of the must do barechested PE that we did lots in secondary school in particular, it reminds me mainly about lack of confidence, and not confident boys.

Doesn't your own figure of 5 from 22 speak an attitude in itself. When asked who wanted to go barechested in your PE class not even a quarter of that class readily chose it - in 1983, not 2023 when maybe that might not surprise anyone perhaps.

In a normal everyday school situation with a range of regular everyday normal lads, most were quietly reluctant to do PE barechested and only a minority chose to actively do so without hesitation with the confidence to do so. Your numbers kind of prove it to any doubters.

I so agree with you John. My definite memory is that my PE teachers liked boys such as the five I mentioned in my last post who took the lead and did as asked without thinking much about it and absolutely had little time for boys who made a bit of a deal out of removing shirts for their skins "caper" or generally in PE. I rather liked that word you used Alan, it was a bit of a caper when you think back to it.

When you actually think about it, skins vs shirts is actually a very strange thing to do in order to set two teams apart from one another. My question to any PE teachers reading this is did they teach skins vs shirts as a thing at training college or something because the practice looks to have been going on in literally every school. In the schools where going skins for PE was the rule across the board presumably team games meant one side had to actually re-shirt themselves.

I didn't just do skins vs shirts, something quite odd used to happen at my school. We would sometimes get a different teacher from the one we usually had and when this happened that teacher would take us down and have all boys going shirtless in the gym doing the very same things we did the previous week with our regular teacher but wearing shirts - by shirts I mean either a basic tee-shirt or a vest. This happened with a couple of non regular teachers. I've mentioned teacher training and there was an even odder day when our normal PE teacher who only did the skins vs shirts PE now and again and never took the whole class shirtless at any point, had an unknown young male trainee join us and on that day it was the one and only time he told the whole PE class to go down to the gym shirtless, as if he was impressing this trainee PE teacher in some way.

When that lesson ended and we went back to change and freshen up our regular PE teacher actually told the trainee who had been in the lesson with him and us that he could jump in the showers with the rest of us, and he did, full naked standing among our lot of 15 year olds and chatting away like he was our mate. None of our proper staff PE teachers ever did such a thing.

Thanks Simon, yes your own ways sound quite similar to mine too don't they. There was one thing about stripping off like that in PE and spending time shirtless and I'd often suddenly become very conscious about my actual arms and where to place them, odd as it sounds. When you are deprived of anything on top it does change your body language I think. Some can pull off a confident approach but I strongly associate it with memories of not so confident boys in school.

One thing in school we always did shirtless was the trampoline. This may have been incase someone caught fabric on the springs on the edge. But trampoline lessons were a lot of standing around the thing having to watch and not a lot of doing anything until it was your turn. The gym had just the one. Sometimes we went in pairs onto it.

You were not allowed on our gym floor in dark soled footwear. Trainers were allowed but very often nothing was worn at all by the majority.

Simon,
Sorry for misunderstanding you. I agree that it was unfair to single you and other lads out when you’d done nothing wrong. The lads who volunteered to take their tops off had most likely been to a Primary School where they’d been used to doing PE shirtless.
We never wore a top for PE so when we played basketball the PE teacher gave each team different coloured armbands to wear.
For football outdoors we often played shirts vs skins and I quickly realized that you were treated better by PE teachers if you took your top off and volunteered to be on the skins team.

John, sorry if I wasn't clear... he didn't have everyone doing PE shirtless. It was still vests against skins but he'd told the boys like me who were skins it'd be same again for the next lesson. So we were already in our kit, ie: shorts and no tops, when it turned out we weren't doing basketball after all. It would have been fairer with every boy in skins, to be honest - it just didn't seem right that some of us basically had a different kit to others.

Re Simon and Anthony's posts today, it really does make you question why teachers made the decision to force boys to take part against their wills in these "shirt and skins" capers, and I suspect in the majority of cases, it was just because they could - power goes to a teachers head almost as much as it does to mediocre MPs who become ministers. You can only hope their motives would be more closely examined today.

Simon,
Replying to your post. After your PE teacher decided that you would all do PE stripped to the waist how did you differentiate between teams when you played basketball?.

Antony, thank you for your post - it rang so many bells with me. I was that same age in 1989 and like you, I'd never even heard the term 'skins' until we did basketball in PE! Although our teacher didn't even ask for volunteers, he just went ahead and split the class into teams and announced one team would be skins. What did that even mean, I wondered naively? The penny dropped when some of the boys on that team - which didn't include me that first time - started pulling their PE vests over their heads. Some were standing around with that shifty look you described, clearly self conscious about having to play with their tops off.
I remember feeling relieved at not being among them, but that feeling gave way to dread the next time we assembled in the gym for basketball and once again the teacher started picking out boys to be skins. My luck didn't hold this time though and I felt a sinking sensation as he tapped me on the head and said 'skin'. With my vest off I felt really exposed and struggled to focus on the game. Initially, relief when the lesson was over, but that quickly changed as the teacher announced 'we'll have the same teams next time!' Which really emphasised the sense of haves and have-nots when we got changed for our next PE lesson. It felt strange when I took off my school shirt and had no vest to put on in its place. To me it seemed unfair that half the class were putting on full kit while others, like me, had to do the lesson in skins. Then as it turned out, the teacher decided to make it general PE in the gym instead of basketball! Maybe he did that on purpose, I don't know, but like Antony I felt a sense of injustice at having to do the lesson without my vest for no apparent reason.

This thread takes me back to a time when I was first confronted with a basketball lesson in PE when for the first time I heard our teacher use the term 'skins' against shirts after I joined senior school in 1983. There were 22 boys in our class and he wanted 11 volunteers to be skins. I recall him doing the head count in order to determine how many shirtless skins he needed. I remember maybe 5 boys in that class just taking their shirts off without giving it much thought, thus volunteering by doing it, but just 5 out of 22, the other remaining ones all looking around shiftily trying to avoid committing themselves to being a skin and having to do PE in a shirtless exposed state.

I can remember this reluctance really annoying our teacher and him volunteering another half dozen among the remainder himself tapping us on the head to choose. It was an awkward few moments for a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds. I was chosen and my heart somewhat sank at the prospect that lay ahead. I didn't really understand the need for the anger over it, were these teachers that stupid to not think from the viewpoint of those they taught. Because the six he had chosen to volunteer to be skins himself had not volunteered ourselves he outrageously made an example of the fact and dictated that the six of us, I think it was definitely six, would be the skins for the entire term going forward in future lessons, so I saw it as being punished for something I hadn't even done and the other 11 boys who had also not volunteered but didn't get chosen by our PE teacher got off scott free. If nothing else it served to teach me about the total unfairness of life sometimes.

Well I thought he was meaning we'd be skins only during the basketball games in gym but for some reason the six of us ended up shirtless in general gym PE for the few weeks until term ended while the other remaining ones in class, some 16 of them still did PE with tops much of the time.

It comes as no surprise that shirtless PE fires up a lot of debate. I bet most men have a similar story if they're old enough.

Mr Dando returns. Maybe you will actually answer a question yourself for once. What happened to you personally in school on the issue you campaign about here? There's a guy here who admits he simply refused to take school showers, took a quick plimsoll smacking for it and then got away with it. So what did you do then as you're so opposed? What's your own story, tell us for once.

The problem with a so called fast fitness PE lesson going for a quick 15 minutes is that by the time you've changed out of and back into your clothes, plus of course showered, well that's probably close to 10 minutes or more in itself if my own school is anything to go by. But the general idea is not a bad one in itself. If we all get fitter at school and keep fitter and healthier then maybe a knock on effect is the NHS might also feel a benefit from fewer chronic conditions.

Regarding the black and white Pathe film Robbie left here, agreed all those boys looked incredibly well conditioned but I don't suppose they started off like that. It was a propaganda piece remember, so what didn't we get to see at that school. What about the naturally slightly built 7 stone weaklings out there in a school like that, there will be some. What that film showed was not as easy as it looked and would have taken a lot of effort to reach those levels, never mind maintain them.

But when you've got a school looking that well physically you'd want them parading around showing themselves off barechested like that wouldn't you, not hiding behind some cloth. It was a good advert for that school's ethic even if it wasn't widespread elsewhere, and of course an absolute nightmare if you were not a PE lover and knew you'd be going there and facing that.

Actually the Castlehill School that Mr Dando appears to name and shame looks to me to have a very relaxed attitude to the PE kit itself, not over stipulating exact items according to their website, so just judging them for the laid back attitude to PE kits kind of makes it interesting that they are one of the schools currently that goes for requiring PE showers. But there are very many of them, indeed my own former school website (I'm not sharing links here though like Dando has with schools he was never even at) mentions showering currently too. Requiring is just the polite and softer way of saying compulsory. My own school years ago used the word required, and they were compulsory for everyone, and of any religion too I might add. Had a muslim boy and a sikh in my class who both had to shower just like all the christian or atheist un-religious boys, religion played no part in such a requirement or what you wore in PE or the taking off of shirts in gym or any of those sensibilities. They didn't get out of anything based on citing their religion or ethnicity, and to be fair didn't ask to be either.

I liked the idea that Paul mentioned of a "fast fitness session" lasting just quarter of an hour in the style of the boys from the sixties. I'd have quite liked that at school. I know a lot of people hated PE and everything it brought with it but there is nobody who actually wishes to be unfit and out of shape is there, surely.

This discussion is always top heavy with boys PE, but where are the women in this because look around now and just see how unfit and quite frankly fat and obese rather too many young women seem to be nowadays in their 20s and 30s, many born since the mid 1980s. Why are they like this, it was less common to see women this age overweight or obese just 20 or 30 years back and in the 60s and 70s almost none seemed to be. Being significantly overweight is nothing to embrace at any age, and most certainly not when young but we're not supposed to say that out loud nowadays are we. Well I am.

Yes, I was in the services for a short period in my teens and twenties when I left school for a period during the 80's, and did a stint on the Falklands in 1987-88 just five or six years after the war there as a regular army private still not even 20 at the time. The physical training we did mainly involved wearing vests, not so much bare chests, and I came from a school which constantly insisted on bare chests for boys gym PE, so looking back it's definitely one to wonder why the schools went big on the bare chest style of doing gym for so many boys of school age when the services like I joined didn't go with that way of doing it very much at all in actual training, although you get no privacy generally and are seeing everyone's full glory and tackle day in day out in the army and there's a lot of personal banter you take on the chin and a lot of other general hanging around bodies out testosterone flowing.

In the video of the American boys in 1962 was that not the year the Vietnam war got going, a lot of those boys might have been trying to dodge getting shunted over there not long afterwards. It does make you wonder why the need for such intense fitness in school, it was definitely very services in content, yet they were just regular schoolboys. The average age of the combat soldier in that conflict was only 19. Shocking, and I say that as someone who served at that age and from 16, but never in anger, only in peace and of course most importantly as a volunteer. I firmly believe it should always be that way.

Paul, earlier today - that looks far too militaristic - frankly it looks like something Leni Riefenstahl might have directed for the Hitler Youth Movement. I think like a lot of politicians, John Kennedy hid a rather dubious, grubby private life behind this sort of "good clean fun" persona. I doubt he was much interest in that sort of physical exercise in the 1960s, from what I read about him.

If SOME lads wanted to do this sort of extreme PE then by all means let them, in after schools clubs, but don't force it on everybody. Not everyone wants to join the USMC. or the Royal Marines - and why would it be necessary to use such minimal kit?. A film on TV I saw recently made in the late 50s or early 60s showed Army PT - and the emn were wearing singlets as well as shorts -and not wilting from the extreme heat!