Burnley Grammar School

Steve - Yes barefoot and stripped to the waist. We thought it a bit odd to start with but appreciated it after the first heavy rain. Our route had several sections which became very muddy after heavy rain. Plimsolls were the alternative and these would soon have become detached from the feet they were meant to be on. It was really a sensible kit - we didn't have to stop a number of times to retrieve filthy plimsolls. In addition, muddy feet were a lot easier to clean than mud-encased plimsolls.
It was not uncommon to fall over and get very dirty so it was practical to only have a pair of shorts that needed cleaning - my mother certainly appreciated that!
I was very fortunate in that my school tended not to do things on a whim - there was usually a good reason even when the rules might have seemed strange to start with.

Matt, seems a sensible arrangement.

Bernard

Did you have to run cross country barefoot as well as stripped to the waist ?

If so, how did boys/parents react to that.

Thanks

Though I in no way condone violence towards or against anybody, did anybody else see this story?:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11954249/More-one-10-teachers-physically-assaulted-pupil-year-survey-finds.html


I wonder what percentage of pupils were assaulted by teachers for no good reason when they were allowed to use corporal punishment? - and it is not that many years ago, either.

Hi Claire, thanks for your interest. We were all told which form we were going into before we started and that remained fixed and each class had it's own colour. My class wore green shorts and the other colours were red, blue and yellow.

Matt - were shorts colours allocated permanently. In house colours or similar, or did you have several pairs in different colours to choose from?

Matt - we were stripped to the waist like you, inside and out, all year round and wore different colour shorts to distinguish teams outside as well as being barefoot. It meant we had little kit to remember and no-one was made to wear a shirt. I think this was fairer than playing shirts and skins.
Cross country in the middle of winter could be a bit challenging but you got used to the cold after the first five or ten minutes. No-one seemed particularly bothered by our basic kit and I certainly wouldn't have changed it. This was in the 60s and applied to the whole school.

I had an older brother who went to the same (grammar) school - he was 3 years older than me, and we shared a bedroom.

So I more or less knew what to expected, namely indoor pe in only shorts, cross country bare backed and so on.

He was caned a few times, and I saw the results - clearly much worse once he was in the 4th year and got the heavier cane.

What I didn't expect was the association of surnames by one of the PE teachers, who immediately picked up he was my brother - thus I was "trouble" By the 2nd cross country run he had me down as "lazy" and pretty soon I was in gym detention and slippered for "now trying" in his lessons. My first caning soon followed !

Joe, yes that took me by surprise. Like you we were stripped to the waist regardless of activity or weather. We wore different coloured shorts to distinguish between teams.

John, It's not just at senior school level though. From the moment I began at middle school we did PE in the hall without tops (and took showers) as boys and many of the PE lessons were combined and basically just the everyday full normal class together under the supervison of both male and female teachers at the time. We also did parents day PE showcase annually, twice in my case where we did a gymnastics display and much more. I did not much like parental performances of any kind especially like that but the choice was never ours to make. My dad thought we were doing something special when he saw it and didn't realise that was how we did normal PE in middle school and I think he was a bit surprised.

I'm going back to 1969/70 with this when I'm not sure if there was any national set standard for determining how one school or another conducted PE lessons with regards to what we did and what we wore or if we must shower or not. It's one of those mysteries to me about who made these actual decisions and I've had a flick back through quite a lot of pages here and nobody else seems to have any ideas I've stumbled across yet.

Replying to Nathan,

Like you my experience of PE was very similar and having to be PE stripped to the waist at Senior School was no shock because I knew that was the kit rule that my older brother had.

I think if lads had been prepared what to expect it wouldn’t have been a big deal for them having to do PE bare chested. Most lads at my school preferred it to having to wear a hot sweaty top.

Comment by: Terry on 6th April 2023 at 20:39

Saw that live myself. You beat me to it.

Check out Stuart Agnew here tonight on the GB News Channel, a farmer and former MEP who went to Gordonstoun with then Prince (now King) Charles in what must have been the start of the 60's. He speaks of a tough regime where boys were actually woken first thing in the morning before 7am to get going for cross country running. At one point he dismisses a scene from the Crown where it was suggested Charles was able to avoid cross country running, saying if he had done that for real then nobody would have forgotten it for the next few years.

I've read about this school before in the press and our now King's hatred of it. I think it was notorious for cold showers too. It sounds less like a school more like a juvenile prison camp to me. Awful sounding place.

https://youtu.be/tn44St6Ha9w?t=89

Check out Stuart Agnew here tonight on the GB News Channel, a farmer and former MEP who went to Gordonstoun with then Prince (now King) Charles in what must have been the start of the 60's. He speaks of a tough regime where boys were actually woken first thing in the morning before 7am to get going for cross country running. At one point he dismisses a scene from the Crown where it was suggested Charles was able to avoid cross country running, saying if he had done that for real then nobody would have forgotten it for the next few years.

I've read about this school before in the press and our now King's hatred of it. I think it was notorious for cold showers too. It sounds less like a school more like a juvenile prison camp to me. Awful sounding place.

Watching Birth of a Nation it shows how different criteria applied throughout schools when having P E lessons. At my all boys school which was secondary modern that I attended 1961 to 1966 indoors P E was always no top no socks no pants and we wore plimsolls.
With regards to the location we did not have a gym P E took place in the one and only school hall which was also used for morning assemblies and other big gatherings. I expect like many schools at that time the wall bars were locked to the side of the wall and swung out for use and the climbing ropes came out on a gantry.
With regards to the teacher instructions were shouted out which in turn echoed in the hall along with the noise of the activities. In addition to the shouting by the teacher he also had a whistle which was used to draw our attention to him.
As far as discipline his voice was usually sufficient to maintain control.
With regards to not wearing a top this was no problem for me because I knew it was the regime because my elder brother was already a pupil at the school and I knew that P E was shirtless and pant less. Furthermore when my father at6tended a parents evening before the term started when uniform was discussed it was sated there and then what would or would not be worn during P E . In addition parents were informed that all classes would be having swimming lessons at the local municipal swimming pool and whereas as there was no stipulation to colour, it was explained that swimming trunks (which now are now colloquially as Speedos) would be worn. This was announced because swimming shorts were just beginning to become available.
Before our first P E lesson commenced the teacher assembled us all in the hall and reiterated that we would be changing into shorts and no tops or pants. He also introduced us to "his Friend" a size 10 plimsolls which he placed on the stage in the hall which he said was his "Enforcer". Any misdemeanour and he would introduce his friend to our backside!!!!
The plimsolls was vary rarely used.
The threat was enough.

Birth Of A Nation did not make comfortable viewing. The gym teacher shown in it resembled one from the mid seventies I had called Mr Bristow who didn't need a bat to clout you with, he just used his foot. The date he did this to me is still scarred on my consciousness - it was a Friday second period on 1st February in 1974 and without warning that sod chose to kick me up the backside very hard indeed in the centre of the school gym for being too slow. He missed his target and kicked me just above the bottom and more at the lower back and it hurt like hell and left me in a lot of pain all day long and further discomfort for a week afterwards sitting down. I do recall wanting to cry so much but I think I went into a state of shock and could barely speak afterwards, and I was 15 and a half at the time as well, the same size as the teacher, almost 6ft tall. He wasn't sorry. I wasn't the kind of kid to muck about in school, that made it worse. We only wore elasticated white shorts in school gym on Fridays, no shirts, vests, trainers, plimsolls or socks was standard turn out and he was fond of sticking a finger or two inside the elastic holding our shorts up and pinging it or pulling you into place by your shorts. Once he'd decided he disliked you that was it. I had three years of this Mr Bristow sod and I never said a word about it to anyone outside of the school. When we were showering afterwards I was trying to see if there was a mark discreetly and got a follow up verbal assault when he knew what I was doing. I couldn't see anything but hours later quite the bruise came through, although it faded within three or four days although the aching remained. I'm of the view that what happened was a clear case of GBH and the fact it happened in a school is no defence. I've had lower back issues most of my life in phases in the place I was kicked and it forever makes me think they stem from that sod in gym who was a quite young teacher. I'm 65 later this summer and he'd be a 75 year old I'd happily return my now older foot to for him to feel even though I'm actually a very placid and peaceable man.

Peter, I saw that being discussed on the news tonight. Someone said you used to need a raincoat to be a flasher, now you get a TV show. Couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. Is the commissioning editor on that channel yet to leave school themselves and about 14 or something.

Bill I don't know how old you are but am sympathetic to how you have felt on a personal level in school but anyone with half a brain cell knows what Channel 4 are all about with that kind of garbage they peddle under some high minded guise. That show was just more purile and childish titilation nothing more. As yourself why school age youngsters aged 14 to 16 even need to be shown adult naked bodies in the first place. They don't, there's nothing they don't already know about and have seen. Pathetic actually, the show that is, not yourself.

Tanya 2nd April 2023 at 15.48.

There was a show on Channel 4 tonight, 4th April, before the watershed which involved adults showing their naked bodies to school age children and trying to normalise how we see each other. I wish Naked Education, the name of the show, had been around when I was younger. I grew up hating my body, and I still do, and I don't know how not to. This began at school where I could never stop judging myself alongside others because I was forced to do so in physical education and always felt others judging me too throughout my young teenage years.
Especially in the gay community where body type is the most important thing (apparently) and if you're not skinny or muscled then you're invisible.

Quoting something you said Ryan - "It suddenly occurred to me that making us boys strip to the waist was about control and discipline and that in other schools PE masters where more easy-going. In any case, I left school in 1988 without ever having had the privilege to wear a PE top."


I left school ten years before you did. Our PE kits included tops with a small embossed school name and logo on them on the front right hand side, not identical but quite similar to the one on the school blazer itself.

Your description of "privilege" hit home with me. A couple of PE teachers threw this line at us about it being a privilege to wear the school top with the logo on it, not a right, and that it was a privilege they could withdraw at any time if they wished. And they did.

For any doubters out there who think it's a figment of the imagination it wasn't. Our privileges were always getting withdrawn on false pretexts time after time. They do use removing shirts in PE as a form of telling off. I strongly associate being shirtless as a form of PE punishment from being at school. But if so many boys aren't bothered by it why did they do it.

Comment by: Neil on 4th April 2023 at 17:20
Yes, back then you would hear stories of 5000 people chasing one job. Just last week I heard of an employer with a job who couldn't get anyone to even apply for it. Both probably a media exaggeration.



I know this isn't a politics forum but the Chancellor installed in 1983 was the newly late Nigel Lawson who died yesterday and by the time he quit at the end of the decade unemployment had halved.

Just to clear up, I wasn't trying to scoff at you Alan but just making what I think was a fair point in response to your previous comment beforehand.

Yes, back then you would hear stories of 5000 people chasing one job. Just last week I heard of an employer with a job who couldn't get anyone to even apply for it. Both probably a media exaggeration.

I don't wish to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't yet watched Birth Of A Nation and intends to do so - thanks Ryan for sharing it by the way. But I found the ending spoilt it and was extreme, although obviously ramming home a point of sorts, I guess about pupil frustrations at schools like that boiling over. Have there ever been any examples of that in the real world I thought to myself.

I didn't quite get the point that was being made by the PE teacher looking at a soft porn magazine picture hung up inside his locker as he changed with nothing on below the waist. The point being what there, anyone any idea on that?

The no hope attitude so much youth and school leavers had at the start of the 1980s now looks to have been far too pessimistic and things were not that bleak in the end for nearly all of us. Does anyone remember ITV's News At Ten on Friday night ending the week with a totting up of all the job losses across the country every week for what seemed like forever.

I went to school at a similar time to the film, and certainly Joe's comments/experience 100% apply to me.

We had very strict PE lessons, mostly circuit training type activities, positions changed on the teachers whistle. No stopping or talking was allowed and we were shouted at with surnames always used. Additionally we were punished with the slipper and even caning (which was rare but did happen in PE).

Kit inside was bare feet, no shirts, no pants; kit for cross country was shorts and plimsolls, stripped to the waist even in winter. There were no exceptions to this kit, so no matter how cold it was, thus if it was a cross country day we all ran shirtless.

Always showers afterwards, again no exceptions

Regards Birth Of A Nation - Matthew I agree on the casual use of the paddle or bat that was used to hit the boy in the PE lesson a couple of times. It was the casual use of it that really struck me (excuse the pun). Never saw anything like it at my school from anybody, and I'm sure there were some deserving provocations at times. If I had been that boy I'd have been home and told my parents the first time it happened and I can assure you they'd both have been up the school first thing next day demanding answers. Quite rightly. Why did so many decent boys quietly accept being treated so unfairly if this was, and I agree it was, a fair representation of some schools at the time.

There is a huge distinction between that kind of discipline/punishment on what in essence looked like it was given to a boy who probably was a generally decent pupil in truth and hadn't really done anything much wrong, and the other older boy who was demanding money with menaces with a knife and threatening to cut the c*ck off the younger boy before getting caught and given what for in the headmasters office, deservedly I thought in that case. Although was the way he was held down by all the stuff actually even lawful, it didn't look like it could have been even for about 1983. It was at least something good to see that there was no tolerance of bullying of that type. A small positive from an otherwise negative dramatisation.

In the PE lessson, just to say Ryan I don't think being told to take his shirt off was meant to be the punishment, that was the couple of hits he took. The shirt he had on looked like he'd shown up to PE in his normal all day school white long sleeved shirt so clearly he would not be allowed to do PE in that by most teachers you'd think. Everyone else was in a white short sleeved t-shirt type top after all.

But how demeaning is it to be bent over so casually like that in front of your class and given those hits on the backside like that, one given after his shirt was off too. This is definitely the kind of behaviour that absolutely kills some kids self esteem if they are prone to it. This drama worked very well as I immediately disliked the PE teacher. I can't say any PE teacher ever openly swore at us one to one or as a group and found the boxing gloves and w*nking comment to that other boy nothing I ever came across. I hope nobody else here did either.

The old lady in the office reminded me of the woman who was librarian in our school who didn't actually seem to like the fact that anyone who was a pupil at our school could come into the library to read, get books out or study and treated us all as an inconvenience to her despite that being her reason for employment in the school. I don't know what else she ever thought she was there for.

You described your school recently Alan and when I'd finished with the drama I thought it sounded like the kind of school you described on here. No wonder you have such bitter memories.

Thank you, Ryan, for linking this excellent film, which really took me back to my PE classes in the 80ies. The whistle, the barking, the whole environment, which you never really forget. The PE teacher in his strictness and unforgiveness quite resembled my own, in a certain way they all seemed to be similarly unpleasant and demeaning. In my comprehensive they were very strict on PE kit, which actually meant they were extremely draconian on imposing a shirtless regime on us boys without any exceptions. We were shirtless not only in the gym but also for cross-country, for athletics and sports such as badminton or table-tennis where there was absolutely no need for it. Very surprising to see the boys in the film are actually required to wear a top for PE.

The PE scenes in the "Birth of a Nation" film were strange to me

Certain at my school (state grammar - mid 70's), boys were slippered, but not chased around the gym. We certainly didn't wear full kit, in fact indoors we all had to strip to only shorts, and even cross country was always shirtless. I would be surprised that everyone has such perfect kit, even in a middle class school, let alone a working class one like this.

Ash, Tanya and Andy, You are perfectly free to scoff - perhaps you didn't have a bent PE teacher. We did.

As others have alluded to, you got some very strange characters in the teaching "profession" in the days before checks were made on the background of some of these individuals, like putting an alcoholic in charge of a distillery.

Good film that. Surprised how it concluded.

I wasn't sure whether the sex ed teacher and the spanking porn mag being produced with the head teacher was meant to be serious or a quite dark comedy moment.

"but we are a spanking school, why not show them, avail them of some of the fringe benefits".

I wish I'd had him for sex education.


No showers after PE at this school, or at least they didn't show them. Kind of surprising because so many of these kind of gripping dramas would finish off those PE scenes with the almost obligatory communal shower moments and as it was forty years ago likely have shown everything without fear.

I don't remember 1983 feeling quite so grim though and I was there.