Burnley Grammar School

JOhn, how did your parents feel about you having to sleep topless at school, and did you wear full PJs at home during the holidays?

To David. It was most unfortunate that you were circumcised for social climbing reasons. When you got to the grammar school, were you in a minority of "good boys"? Have you ever resented your circumcision? And how did your brother feel?
I was circumcised as a baby. I don't know why but wish I hadn't been. How do others feel about being circumcised?

Chris G
Gosh that brings back memories the term "roundheads" and "cavaliers" and although l was a 'roundhead' l would say that the 'cavaliers' outnumbered us just!
I too was "done" as an infant for very valid medical reasons.

Morgan
Fascinating to read your message concerning Dr Kellogg and thoughts on circumcision for pubescent boys to stop masturbation!
I had to laugh, as circumcision never stopped me and others who were circumcised! We were as ferocious at masturbation as were those who were those who were 'uncut' at boarding school

I was circumcised as a baby. At boarding school I would say that 80% of lads were. From there I went to university and played rugby so again maybe 60% of the lads were. I continued to play rugby post university and I think probably 50-60% of the guys were cut. These days going to the gym, the number of cut guys is reduced. Probably somewhere around 10-15% and mostly we older men (I mean 60+ here). There's one guy in his 30s I sometimes train with and he is but he was done as an adult because his foreskin was way too tight - he asked me about it before he went for the op so I know why he was done.

It's obviously something that is no longer routine outside of religious reasons.

Hi Chris, the topless rule was decided by the school. However, the rite s was decided by the other guys. Has anyone experienced the rite or punishment of being tied shirtless and “tortured” ?

I was "done" as an infant for very valid medical reasons, as we're our s n's a generation later. At school as a teenager, "roundheads" and "cavaliers" were approximately equal in numbers.

David
How old were you when you were "done" and do you remember anything about it.

David,I wouldn't call it'bizarre'at all.I think your mother was very responsible to have you both circumcised,albeit a little late.I agree it was more customary to have it done in hospital after birth when I was circumcised.
Apart from the obvious reasons,including health and hygiene,I believe it was was also done for cosmetic reasons.
I thought it was common practice for all boys to be circumcised until I had communal showers.
I also felt self-conscious when I realized I was being stared at,as I was the odd one out.

David,
I think that your mum had your best interests at heart by getting you circumcised. Being circumcised greatly reduces your chances of developing penile cancer, women who have a circumcised male partner are less at risk of developing cervical cancer and it is far more hygienic than having a foreskin.

In response to David and Julian.
"Circumcision wasn't popularized in the western world until Victorian times, when a few doctors began to recommend it to prevent boys from masturbating. Dr. Kellogg (of Corn Flakes fame) advocated circumcision for pubescent boys to stop masturbation."

"Kellogg never promoted routine circumcision of all boys, and he had no interest in performing the procedure on infants. He endorsed it solely for the purpose of inflicting genital pain on boys who were caught masturbating.
He saw circumcision merely as a pretext to inflict pain. That’s why his instructions specified that a boy should not receive any anesthesia. He wanted to convert a boy's attitude about his genitals from thoughts of pleasure to thoughts of pain."
Kellogg's Crusade
Circumcision Choice

Though religious circumcision has been practiced in the Middle East for millennia, it wasn’t popular in the U.S. until the puritanical 19th century, when, among other things, sex-phobic doctors promoted it as a way to stop masturbation.
These views on masturbation being an act of self abuse remained prevalent well into the 20th Century in British Boarding Schools.
At my own boarding school a boy caught in the act of so-called self-abuse would be harshly punished. The School Chaplain preached about the evil of such activity regularly. House masters would patrol dormitories and warn us boys to keep our hands above the covers. Boys under suspicion would have their bedsheets inspected for damning evidence.
The comment about all good boys being circumcised at Grammar school would suggest the need for circumcision related to more than just cleanliness. Which proponents of circumcision still claim today.

Julian & Chris
Seems bizarre now - but need to put it in to context.
Born at home before the NHS started.
Better off famileys gave birth at local private hospital, that often included circumcision for the baby boys.
Would now call mum a social climber, trying to move up the social classes,and my brother and I where part of that.
After receiving an inheritance she took the opportunity to have us both done before I started at grammar school.

Fiona

1 - What was your usual sleepwear at home before you went away to boarding school? Pyjamas
2 - Was sleepwear specified for boarders, and if so, what? Pyjamas
3 - What sleepwear was actually worn in your dormitory room? From 13 onwards most of us slept naked
4 - Was this less than, the same as, or more than you were accustomed to wear at home? Became the same pattern at home .. sleeping naked, that is

7 - If you modified your sleepwear to conform with your dormitory mates, did you revert to your previous practice when you went home for holidays? If not, did your parents make any comments? My parents didn't mind. Mum just asked us to ear pjs when grandparents stayed over.

John, Paul, Chris, Graham, Brit in Berlin, etc.:
Some interesting revelations here, although so far no feminine perspective. So, here's a short survey for all those, girls as well as boys, who went to boarding school and found themselves in a dormitory environment where the practical level of sleepwear differed from the theoretical specification set out in the boarders' clothing list:

1 - What was your usual sleepwear at home before you went away to boarding school?
2 - Was sleepwear specified for boarders, and if so, what?
3 - What sleepwear was actually worn in your dormitory room?
4 - Was this less than, the same as, or more than you were accustomed to wear at home?
5 - If the general sleepwear level in your dormitory room was less than that specified, what was the reason?
6 - If the general sleepwear level in your dormitory room differed from what you were accustomed to at home, was that a problem for you?
7 - If you modified your sleepwear to conform with your dormitory mates, did you revert to your previous practice when you went home for holidays? If not, did your parents make any comments?
8 - Any other comments?

Rather uncomfortable reward for being good AND getting to Grammar School!

David
Why were all the 'good' boys circumcised? Seems quite bizarre

Remember having the PE master check that we had no underpants under our shorts at grammar school in 1955.
Not every time but if he suspected a boy was violating the rules he would have us line up and and pull out front of the shorts while he checked for underpants, violators would have to remove them and receive the strap.
Mum had me circumcised after I passed the 11+, as all good boy at the grammar school have it done, just as it became less common, so rather self-conscious in the showers at first.

John, was the "topless" rule made by the school staff, and if so, what was the reason for it, or was it just dormitory culture established by the bullies?

John,
That's entirely true of course, but unless you give every patient a private room....! Why not suggest it to the NHS?!

My experience in dormitory wasn't so beautiful. Out kit was pajamas, but only for the bottom part. So if we wanted to wear a pajamas shirt, we couldn't do it. But the problem was the initiation game in this dormitory. You had to show your strenght if you wanted other guys didn’t disturb you during the other days. I remember I was tied to a lamp with my arms up, for all the night, with a band on my eyes, so I couldn’t see what they would have done to me. It was terrible to be hit, and tortured in several ways. The day after my chest was a battle camp. But in this way, I earned the respect of everyone

Graham, Paul

Like both of you, my boarding school clothing list (circa 1960) included pyjamas, 3 pairs changed fortnightly to suit the laundry schedule, and while these were generally expected to be worn, the expectation only extended to the bottom half, and most of us slept topless, especially in hot weather. For PE in the gym and cross-country runs around the school grounds and surrounding countryside, vests were mandatory, which the relatively large number of us who had come from schools with topless PE policy found rather irksome, but which ongoikng campaigning failed to alter, and the swimming pool had prominent notices warning us that "swimming costumes must be worn at all times".

Leeds Lad,
Within a single sex ward of male patients how do you know that any gay patients would want the rest ( straight guys ) looking at them either?

It's ok to say "only one sex therefore nudity is ok", but that's assuming it's only the opposite sex that fancy the gender in question. Within one sex, there may be several gay people who the rest might not want looking at them. That's just the way the world is! I've said the same thing in my hospital, when they introduced single sex wards. They wanted women to feel men weren't looking at them, but I said "How do you know some women aren't looking at them?!" We just don't know. People think we all fit into nice boxes so they can say "Phew! problem sorted!" Their logic is amiss!

Paul - Your experience sounds very like mine, except that my three pairs of PJs, newly purchased from M&S as per the boarders kit list, never got worn at all. My first night sharing a dormitory room with an already established year-group of seven other lads soon established that birthday suits were universal night attire throughout the school.

Henry - Sleeping naked wasn't a school rule, as witness the PJs on the kit list, but it was certainly not frowned upon, and was even encouraged by the "house-parents" of the boarding house, as contributing to the ethos of manliness. Not that any of us needed any encouraging!

I went to boarding school in the 1970s in the UK. It was much as others describe, dormitories, communal showers, white shorts only for gym with no underpants. For bed we had to wear pyjama trousers, no jackets, no idea why that was the requirement. Swimming was naked and I never thought anything of it, it seemed quite natural. Punishment was the cane of plimsoll always on the bottom.

Here in Berlin and of course the Germans have a different attitude to nudity at my gym there is not a shower cubicle and it's communal for about thirty and you don't either see any towel dancing in the changing room.

I swim at a pool which has a mixed day on Sunday and other days are men or women only. I never go on a Sunday - too many children - but on men's days there is a big notice up in the changing room which says 'Badhosen verboten' - swimming trunks forbidden. Nude swimming is therefore compulsory on men's days and no one seems to think it's in any way abnormal.

John,
Not all boys and men are the same concerning modesty, especially today. Some are very reserved about being seen nude by others even if they are the same sex.
Maybe it is a cultural thing of what one is used to. Going to my local swimming pool over many years I have noticed that the nudity in the changing room and showers has grown less and less over the years when it has now become standard for boys and men to shower in their swimming trunks.

Also it was not always the case in some schools of being a male only environment. From what several other posters have said they had female teachers and instructors during their nude swim classes.

Graham,
Was the sleeping nude a rule of the school or the boys choice?
I had a friend who went to a boarding school where they had strict rules about wearing pyjamas for bed. He told me that he was once given corporal punishment for wearing underpants under his pyjamas.

On the same theme, what about the bedwetters which one always finds in such institutions especially among the young boys?
From what I have read and is well documented it seems that some boys were punished or shamed when they wet the bed. At my friend's school the boys who were regular bed wetters were woken up during the night by the person in charge at night to take them to the toilets to relieve themselves so as not to wet in bed.

Graham,

You ask about pyjamas, we had them as part of our uniform list so I had a couple of pairs however after the first couple of weeks no one wore them. Apart from a couple of times I've been in hospital I've never worn them since. Even if sharing a twin room with another man it doesn't bother me and almost every man I've shared a room with has slept naked.

For anyone interested, this is where I used to swim when I lived in Helsinki:

https://www.hel.fi/helsinki/en/administration/participate/contact/search-address/toimipistekuvaus?id=41102

As you will see there are no mixed days. If you should be visiting Helsinki and fancy a swim, I recommend it - it's a lovely pool and has great saunas too - it is Finland after all.

Paul,
I wholeheartedly agree with everything in your recent post. In a male only environment I cannot see why trunks need to be worn.

Paul I agree with your closing comments. I find it ludicrous in our male changing room that usually the younger men and lads all hide behind towels or in some cases complete their. changing in the privacy of a toilet cubicle. After all what have we got to hide?