Burnley Grammar School

James.

I always wanted to box as a youngster although my mum was always dead against it. I was hugely looking forward to moving to secondary school where I knew from the older boy next door, that it was part of the curriculum (this was the early 60’s) and there would be no question of my taking part – only boys wearing spectacles were exempt if I remember correctly – only to find that it had been abolished the year before I started. I was furious! And have wondered ever since what exactly it would have been like to take part and how I would have coped, far from being a really fit or sporty lad.

Where did you box – at school? I assume it wasn’t at an amateur boxing club as I believe they all had to be affiliated to the ABA, which required (completely unnecessarily in my opinion) vests to be worn.

I’d love to know all the details about how opponents were decided, the length and number of rounds, who and how bouts were refereed, etc, etc – all you can recall in as much detail as possible, please!

James,
In my final year at secondary, last lesson of the week was timetabled as Music/Boxing. I always opted for the easy option of sitting in the hall with a book listening to Classical music, and never once showed my face at Boxing, but as vests were always mandatory for PE, it was inevitably the same for Boxing.

When I boxed as a youngster the majority of boys went into the ring stripped to the waist and no one was surprised.

Why do you always have to take a pop at what was obviously Nathan even though you never mentioned him by name? He couldn't sound more reasonable to me if he tried. I think even you would probably enjoy his PE lessons if you found yourself in one, whether you were wearing a shirt or not. He got an overwhelmingly positive response to his query on shirtless PE with three quarters thinking it was fine, that's a big chunk in any binary vote. Can you ever imagine one of our own PE teachers in our day even thinking about asking such a question never mind actually doing it. Actually, if you had been in his class there would you have been prpeared to accept the outcome to any choice before the vote was taken and then accepted it fully after the result came back even if you were on that minority?

Comment by: Stella on 24th April 2024 at 22:44


"A parent's viewpoint on PE and the kids doing it without shirts......

......We went along to see our thirteen year old son take part in a gym display in his school sports hall in 1992.
Now I always remember my initial reaction while we were sat there as the pupils at his school filed in, the girls arrived in a lot of leotards or short sleeved tops and shorts but it was all the boys that I noticed. None of them were wearing the PE vest I expected to see on them. Not one, including my own son. Only white shorts and a bare chest. I don't know why I was so surprised but I was and I made comment to my husband about it. He didn't say too much about it. As I watched them doing their display, which was impressive from many of them and very physical at times, I noticed a number of them looking like they would prefer not to be there and a bit glum with strained faces.

When he came home and we spoke over dinner that night and talked about what we'd seen, we congratulated our son on being so good but I did ask him if that was the way he usually did school PE and he told us no, that a lot of the time they wore vests in PE and only sometimes didn't and that their teacher had simply decided they would look best presented to the parents for the school second years gym display all the same in bare chests and it had been compelled on them all and done that way on purpose........"

O share your view, Stella.
The thing is, if these obsessed PE teachers had ever seen any PT (as they call them) displays put on by the Army, RAF or even the Royal Marines, they will see they all, to a man, wear a singlet. The days of military bare chested displays ended decades ago. But hey, some schoolteachers still think it is 1945.


Why do they do it?. Several reasons. Mainly it is power - they insist on it because they can. We have a current PE teacher on this board. In one of his early posts he contradicted a man who had written that shirtless PE was "a thing of the past". "Not in my school it isn't" he announced, almost triumphantly, I thought, and told us he would conduct a shirtless class the next morning. Later we had a frankly piss-poor excuse that it was conducted in this manner so the muscleculture of the lads could be checked. Why? - how often does it change?

Then you have the "discipline" fetishists who thinks that it makes the boys realise that they are subordinate to "sir" - perhaps, most probably, a sign of the inferiority complex of the teacher concerned. I doubt that is a success - out of school, over the years, we have had Spivs, Smash & Grabbers, Teddy Boys, Skinheads, Bovver boys, football hooligans and today's various graffiti and drill rap gangs - and worse, who are perhaps rebelling from this post war "discipline" still being inflicted - a reaction to the methods of the 20th century still being applied in the first quarter of the 21st century. So much for old fashioned school discipline. Girls are treated much more gently at school, and, on the whole, there are far fewer social problems with the female sex.

Finally (and it happened in my school, sadly) you have the homosexual teacher who is just a little too interested in boys bodies. Mine was so interested he took great pains to ensure that, as we got older, he would minutely "supervise" the showers religiously. He got so close he got splashed sometimes. Sadly, with the probable advent of a new "progressive" government we will have even more of this latter sort.

A parent's viewpoint on PE and the kids doing it without shirts.

We went along to see our thirteen year old son take part in a gym display in his school sports hall in 1992. I think at the time it was meant to have taken place outside but because of poor weather was taken indoors at the last minute. The building was huge and there was plenty of room so it seemed to make little obvious difference to us at the time. All around the edges seating had been set out for rather a lot of parents like us.

My son never used to say a lot about school and I used to have to drag information out of him about what he was getting up to and learning.

I remember looking forward to this event because at home he liked climbing the tree in our garden and we had a rope hanging from a high branch which he often climbed up to sit in the tree. We had a large long garden. We still do and the tree is still there. He ate his greens and seemed quite a strong active child for his age I thought.

Now I always remember my initial reaction while we were sat there as the pupils at his school filed in, the girls arrived in a lot of leotards or short sleeved tops and shorts but it was all the boys that I noticed. None of them were wearing the PE vest I expected to see on them. Not one, including my own son. Only white shorts and a bare chest. I don't know why I was so surprised but I was and I made comment to my husband about it. He didn't say too much about it. As I watched them doing their display, which was impressive from many of them and very physical at times, I noticed a number of them looking like they would prefer not to be there and a bit glum with strained faces.

When he came home and we spoke over dinner that night and talked about what we'd seen, we congratulated our son on being so good but I did ask him if that was the way he usually did school PE and he told us no, that a lot of the time they wore vests in PE and only sometimes didn't and that their teacher had simply decided they would look best presented to the parents for the school second years gym display all the same in bare chests and it had been compelled on them all and done that way on purpose. I remember a mum sat next to me saying she'd not expected her son to be confident enough to take part like that. I wasn't sure quite how she meant it but I became instinctively less comfortable about what I watched from some of them whose body language gave them away I thought. Not our son though. They looked good and did very well but I think on balance it was nicer if they'd put the vest on for us.

Was I just being a silly over protective mother here do you think?

Comment by: Wes on 23rd April 2024 at 22:47




"On days when I didn't have PE and passed the gym going to other classes I never ever saw any girls lined up to go in the gym, their teachers didn't seem to make them do that but it was common to see a waiting class of boys standing along the wall just in navy shorts, no top, in line waiting to go into the school gym loitering in the public corridor where all teaching staff, admin staff and other pupils would be passing by frequently.......



........I think secondary schools attempted to knock the modesty out of even the shyest boys didn't they. If there was any way most of us could finish up PE without doing the showers then we would make sure of it but this was the exception rather than the rule and there was always at least one, if not two eagle eyed PE teachers looking over the whole class like guards in a watchtower to make sure everyone stripped off and got in. I think communal showers are awkward as hell at school even for confdent boys. Who can seriously say they relished such things?"

I think it was even more than knocking modesty out of us, Wes - it was a deliberate (and sadly successful) attempt to humiliate. The people who yearn for the bad old days, are ;probably the same people who long for National Service to come back, are probably the same people who would run like a stag if they were called up themselves.

Which brings me to:

Comment by: Sean on 23rd April 2024 at 20:23


"But Nathan made it very clear weeks ago when he did that survey that all those boys accepted the decision that came out of his survey, so while there may have been a handful per PE group who were not keen on that result he got they did accept it, and that's how it should be, otherwise why bother with doing it at all."

Indeed - why bother doing it at all, when it seems clear that Nathan approves of shirtless PE as he makes his own pupils undertake it?. He knows there are some lads who don't like it, but he imagines a few warm reassuring words will "cure" them. That is why I said yesterday that he should have been a politician. He listens with the utmost courtesy, but nothing changes and he allows an old system to continue, and ignores what is in front of him. If school has any value at all it should be about today and tomorrow - not yesterday. We need teachers who accept that the world of 2024, and the people in it, is a lot different to the world of 1959, when the header photo was taken. That was the world of conscription and conformity, but it is not now, is it?. Damn it, some people seem to think that working from home is their right now - that would have been unthinkable even 10 years ago..

The fact that he is a comparatively young teacher makes it even more disappointing that he still has the mindset of a teacher of forty years ago, however much he suggests he understands child psychology.

When I was at school, and I'm 48 now, the gym PE was shorts and no t-shirt and no socks. We used to have to all line up like this in the school public corridor before PE where all comers could just walk past us while we waited to get into the gym.

One measly pair of dark navy short and nothing else was worn. Many of us used to dislike going shirtless for PE, worried about what we looked like at that age. I was paranoid about the size of my chest measurement and biceps for example and when I was 15 I'd convinced myself I still had the body of the average twelve year old for some reason.

On days when I didn't have PE and passed the gym going to other classes I never ever saw any girls lined up to go in the gym, their teachers didn't seem to make them do that but it was common to see a waiting class of boys standing along the wall just in navy shorts, no top, in line waiting to go into the school gym loitering in the public corridor where all teaching staff, admin staff and other pupils would be passing by frequently.

It was even worse when we went swimming. The school had a modest sized outdoor pool. We had to hang about in reception in our swimming trunks to be taken out to the pool. It just all felt so awkward and come to think of it now looking back there was no real need for all this hanging about at all like we did.

I think secondary schools attempted to knock the modesty out of even the shyest boys didn't they. If there was any way most of us could finish up PE without doing the showers then we would make sure of it but this was the exception rather than the rule and there was always at least one, if not two eagle eyed PE teachers looking over the whole class like guards in a watchtower to make sure everyone stripped off and got in. I think communal showers are awkward as hell at school even for confdent boys. Who can seriously say they relished such things?

But Nathan made it very clear weeks ago when he did that survey that all those boys accepted the decision that came out of his survey, so while there may have been a handful per PE group who were not keen on that result he got they did accept it, and that's how it should be, otherwise why bother with doing it at all.

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 21st April 2024 at 22:19




"Chris A. I've never had such a letter, but if I was to receive one then I would receive it sympathetically, have a chat with that pupil, maybe also the parents who sent the letter, and be prepared to accept such a request. I would never be dismissive in that manner. From my point of view the potential issue could become a fellow pupils one, youngsters don't tend to like it when one person in a class is seen to get special treatment. I refer you to the Mark Twyford comment left here on 18th February this year and the power of peer pressure in school...."

Nathan, this hardly applies in your own school though, does it?. According to your poll, there were 5/6 boys in each class who felt less comfortable shirtless, so there wouldn't just be an odd one out. Why not allow those lads to feel more comfortable by wearing shirts?. The others who prefer to work without would not have any grounds to feel hard done by.

It seems common sense, to me, but due to your endorsement of Thomas' remarks ("......I note what you also said Thomas and think you are along the right lines there....."), I put it you that you are, in fact, biased towards shirtless PE which is one of the reasons you make your lads take part in it from time to time, and probably the reason the vote was so heavily in favour. Some lads are notorious people pleasers You should have been a politician.


Comment by: Neil on 22nd April 2024 at 17:49


"....Alan, do you write on any other forums on this subject?..."

No, Neil, I don't, but even a cursory reading of this board will tell you there are many others who think like I do.

Comment by: A Yorkshiredad on 8th April 2024 at 10:21
On the point of school showers, I do not know of any primary school that requires them. Pre-pubescent boys simply do not sweat that much, I have never seen a boy "soaked in sweat" in one of my PE classes. To require showers in primary schools would simply be odd.




Hi, A Yorkshiredad. I presume you are/were a teacher of some sort.

When I was at middle school from the age of nine upwards we had to make use of the communal shower plus provided soap that my school had back at the time there after just about every PE lesson going and it was compulsory to do it fully naked in a small and quite narrow but long oblong shaped white and dark blue tiled area with lines of showerheads high up down both sides so that if you stood in the middle you could get a burst from two at once. We all went in at once and it was a bit of a squeeze for something like 16 to 18 boys. This was in 1973 - 76. Like you say at that age, I rarely remember being at all sweaty after PE in my middle school, or particularly dirty at any time, but we still had to go in the showers after PE and wash and soap down properly until the teacher was satisfied. I can still remember how incredibly nervous many of us felt about it the first time. "Seeing" other boys like that proved nerve wracking initially but also interesting in some way.

As a subtext to this memory, for some reason there were a couple of occasions when the school matron, a rather round and overweight middle aged woman, would supervise us doing this. I have no idea why this must have been, perhaps there was some discreet observance health reason for it but after such a long time I have no idea. The normal man who used to take middle school PE with us always supervised us and made sure we behaved and in particular for some reason I recall him making sure we dried ourselves properly before dressing.

So by the time I attended secondary school such things had already become second nature, lessening the impact that others must have felt who didn't do the showers thing at middle school. I thought this was the norm at that age back then and only latterly realised that only a fraction of middle schools ever asked the class to do showers after PE, and mine was one.

And like many write on here of their secondary school and grammar experiences of PE, at my middle school the boys did PE in our bare chests and feet, beside girls in the main hall. Girls obviously took a shower separately but we could always hear them in ther own changing room and I suppose they could hear us too.

But when I went to secondary school in the late 70's I did less bare chested PE than I did at middle school, just the skins against shirts basketball springs to mind and maybe some indoor football and the occasional fitness tests like timed press ups and the like were done like that. Showers never stopped being compulsory though. The imagery plays in my mind quite clearly from those days and so do some of the sounds.

James, try this:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-children-playing-in-the-sea-and-splashing-1902-online

This is one of the films that the BFI kindly designate as "free" so the public at large can watch it. I'm sorry you had problems.

Comment by: Matthew S on 18th April 2024 at 22:55

Your link does not work Matthew. It looks as if you need to be a registered member to view content of the BFI.

Nathan, that seemed a very mature and responsible comment, certainly not sounding like a teacher treating anyone like s--t like Chris wrote of his days, although I can well believe it in the mid seventies. You gave your lads a chance to say what they felt about doing shirtless PE, you sound like you've gone the extra mile to understand your own youngsters.

Alan, do you write on any other forums on this subject?

Chris A.

I've never had such a letter, but if I was to receive one then I would receive it sympathetically, have a chat with that pupil, maybe also the parents who sent the letter, and be prepared to accept such a request. I would never be dismissive in that manner. From my point of view the potential issue could become a fellow pupils one, youngsters don't tend to like it when one person in a class is seen to get special treatment. I refer you to the Mark Twyford comment left here on 18th February this year and the power of peer pressure in school.

I note what you also said Thomas and think you are along the right lines there.

Comment by: Chris A on 20th April 2024 at 22:2

..." Pure torture, and I hated going shirtless and just as much having no shoes and socks on. It really made me feel exposed. So my parents wrote a letter asking if I could wear a tee shirt or a vest for PE and my trainers and when I handed it to my PE teacher he just laughed at me and screwed it up and told me not to waste his time. .....

....Basically we were all treated like sh*t."


I never know if P.E. teachers are pig ignorant, or if they take evening classes in it. They always seem the most ignorant and ill-mannered of their profession. Perhaps it is just self-awareness that their particular speciality is of minor importance, compared to other fields of education - for example, physics, English, Maths.

I fully understand how you felt though, Chris

Comment by: Chris A on 20th April 2024 at 22:21

I'm sorry to hear that Chris. I remember feeling awkward among girls in my early to mid teens quite a lot and that was with my clothes on. I can imagine it would have been difficult to be thrust among the girls for PE if like as you say, you were very self conscious about yourself and were made to do so in what seems like just shorts by what you said, in your bare chest and feet. I can understand why you felt like you did in that case. It seems a regular type of comment that pops up. Perhaps a little more consideration was due at times in those days, although I think it was wrong to dismiss a letter so abruptly. Perhaps he was one of those teachers who used to think any letter given to him was a forgery.

Disliked PE intensely. Disliked taking my clothes off even more. Bit of a problem that when it's an English North London secondary school in 1976 that gives you three lessons of PE each week and wants boys without stripped of their shirts and footwear in two gym lessons a week. Pure torture, and I hated going shirtless and just as much having no shoes and socks on. It really made me feel exposed. So my parents wrote a letter asking if I could wear a tee shirt or a vest for PE and my trainers and when I handed it to my PE teacher he just laughed at me and screwed it up and told me not to waste his time. We showered naked too but I knew that was impossible to get out of so didn't even try to get out of that. We shared with girls once a week and that was hell.

Basically we were all treated like sh*t.

Despite everything that gets said on here from time to time it was quite heartening to read the recent school survey instigated by a serving physical education teacher (Nathan) that showed the vast majority of his classes actually wanted to do his lessons in bare chests when told to. Sensible lads, and a sensible school that still wishes to take PE lessons like this and get them showered properly afterwards too. Just how it should be. The sign of mature thinking.

Comment by: Richard on 18th April 2024 at 22:44


"What is the disgusting element of the video Alan?"


There is a story that a lady once went up to Louis Armstrong and asked him to define rhythm. He replied "If you has to ask lady, you ain't got it"

I think that is the best reply I can offer you, Richard

I have a shirtless story from school, the one worth telling, and it doesn't revolve around a PE session at all but a weekend away in Dorset in 1981 when my second year comprehensive school teacher took us away with a couple of parent helpers including my own father to keep us all in line. On arrival we got taken along and onto Bournemouth beach Saturday lunchtime and our class teacher, a geography teacher, male aged about 40, insisted that all the boys had to be on the beach properly and this meant we had to take whatever tops and jackets we wore on the coach trip right off and sod about shirtless on the sand and water edge. Unsurprisingly the girls had no such requirement. My father on that trip even played second fiddle to my teacher there and told me to do as he, the teacher, said. I couldn't believe it when we'd settled down and began to enjoy ourselves and the teacher and one of the other dads picked me and a handful of others to go for a walk along the promenade and onto the pier which had just been renovated at the time I think, and we had to go off shirtless with them for this and were actually told to leave all our bits behind. I felt everyone was staring at me although felt better that I was among about six others who were the same.

School in 1984, I was 12 then, required that all boys in my gym classes showed out as skins while we took any type of PE lesson inside the school, either inside the school's gymnasium or its sports hall complex. I remember we used to have to get special permission to wear a PE shirt in these places and it was often refused, such as if it was cold weather outside which made the gym perishing some days. My body was ghostly white and very thin at the time with not a lot of fat to keep me warm. So many of us were the same. It wasn't so much that they forced us into PE like that but more that it was sometimes so cold doing PE this way and would have been even if we had shirts on in the school gym. It was unusual for any PE teacher to relent against boys barechested PE at school between the ages of 12 and 14 especially which to me seemed the strictest years going. The windows of the gym were often left open wide even in winter as well. I remember feeling warmer at times doing PE outside when I could actually wear a long sleeved top than I did inside stripped to the shorts alone.

I found PE teachers at my own school to be quite controlling over decisions on what boys were allowed to wear or not and always to opt for the skins rule for gym and the school uniform rules made it easy for them to do this blanket across the whole school because the school rules stated that - to ensure maximum attendance and participation, boys are not expected to wear any top in PE unless instructed otherwise, so without fail every PE teacher I had felt quite able to impose the skins way of doing PE on the lot of us almost always for the school gym.

One November morning at the age of 13 back in 1985 myself and the class got an unexpected treat of an unscheduled PE lesson because a large number of teachers had gone down sick with flu and sore throats so we got a number of lessons cancelled and packed off into the hands of the PE teachers but without anyone having kit. No matter! Wondering how that was going to work out we filed along to the changing room and it was 'strip to your pants boys' and that was it, off to gym sporting our various undergarments. Simplicity itself. I was far more conscious of my pants that morning than my bare chest.

I think one of the reasons for going skins for PE is the simplicity. I always remember seeing boys doing PE in their pants a lot if they claimed their PE shorts were in the wash or something like that. It was the same when we all went swimming, lost property had various pairs of swim shorts so if you came into school without anything with a view to not doing it then you got made to rustle around the lost property box for something and still have to go, and who would want to wear second hand swim shorts! It was a good incentive just to bring your stuff.

I came across this delightful family film from 1902, showing three children at the seaside merrily chucking water over their mother and uncle, all of them in the costumes of the day. Given this is a history site and there has been a swimming discussion, I thought the film might be worth mentioning.

Go to https://player.bfi.org.uk/ and in the website's search box search for "Children Playing in the Sea and Splashing". The paragraph underneath the video has a little additional information about the family.

What is the disgusting element of the video Alan?

I think you may be looking too hard into something that simply isn't there in that.

I shared my old gym photo's from Filton School here on 6th Feb and I think that schools like mine who made it mandatory for us to do the gym in our bare chests like my Flickr photo's showed in the mid 70s, and those that make the taking of showers mandatory for everyone regardless of who they are give rise to enhanced confidence in most cases. Why treat such things as terrible and disgusting, isn't that the way to reinforce negative self image?

Has anyone stopped to think that the reason that Swedes and people in other Scandanavian nations are so relaxed about their bodies is because they do those things in Anna's video from the moment they hit school for the first time. At that age there's nothing wrong with both genders sharing is there.

I was thinking about what Yorkshire Dad said about how even older primary children don't sweat much during PE, and it must be even less for the first school children and their PE lesson didn't look like it would raise much of a sweat to be honest so the effective value of a shower for them seems quite limited but maybe it's just about having a bit of fun for them, or more likely instilling in them good hygiene awareness from a very young age and fostering a healthy attitude to their own and others bodies they can see.

I rather wish I'd been able to do that from the start of school. I would have been in my element and treated it as part of the fun of PE at that age I'm sure.

One thing it was not was disgusting. That is something of an overreaction. I'm sure they were all treated very well.

For any parents or grandparents here, would you be alright about your own first school ones taking PE showers, even mixed, under the age of seven? It would not concern me too much. I agree, there are far more healthy benefits to be had long term I'm sure.

Has anyone stooped to think that the reason that Swedes and people in other Scandanavian nations are so relaxed about their bodies is because they do those things in Anna's video from the moment they hit school for the first time. At that age there's nothing wrong with both genders sharing is there.

I was thinking about what Yorkshire Dad said about how even older primary children don't sweat much during PE, and it must be even less for the first school children and their PE lesson didn't look like it would raise much of a sweat to be honest so the effective value of a shower for them seems quite limited but maybe it's just about having a bit of fun for them, or more likely instilling in them good hygiene awareness from a very young age and fostering a healthy attitude to their own and others bodies they can see.

I rather wish I'd been able to do that from the start of school. I would have been in my element and treated it as part of the fun of PE at that age I'm sure.

One thing it was not was disgusting. That is something of an overreaction. I'm sure they were all treated very well.

For any parents or grandparents here, would you be alright about your own first school ones taking PE showers, even mixed, under the age of seven? It would not concern me too much. I agree, there are far more healthy benefits to be had long term I'm sure.

How can such unabashed young innocence be described as "disgusting". The lens through which some people see the world is quite different to mine.

Anna's clip.

I just saw a group of children looking like they were enjoying themselves really. It's a foreign country, a completely different cultural attitude, and a different time.

The PE lesson looked very relaxed. I noticed they all seemed to be wearing something of their own choice there, a complete mixture, some boys shirtless, others in their t-shirts, some wearing plimsolls, others not. Various colours and types of clothing. No obvious branding! So all were doing their lesson how best they felt comfortable by the look of it. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on this obvious fact actually Alan.

Alan, Your comment yesterday at 1726. The ex-teacher was convicted of indecent assault. Everyone knows that the overwhelming majority of boys who experience some communal nudity at school are not indecently assaulted. Thus it is illogical to conflate nudity with abuse. I can see from the discussion that your views are fixed and will not be changed by comments I or anyone else might make. I will say no more on the subject.
Anna, Thanks for confirming the more relaxed culture in Scandinavia. I agree that it is healthier. As you can see from other comments, those who get very hot and bothered about nudity usually sound cross rather than happy.

Comment by: Anna on 17th April 2024 at 22:22


The film you included contains scenes of full frontal nudity of prepubescent girls. We can only hope that such material doesn't get into the hands of wrong-ungs. This is almost as gross as the ITV programme that has been posted on here, in that case boys being shown in similar circumstances.

There seems to be no respect for children from the directors of such material. Disgusting.