Burnley Grammar School

Hi everyone, this is an interesting topic. I am a student from Japan. In my school we did not have to be barechested during physical education lessons like the picture. However we do have to be barechested when we perform calisthenics during our annual sports festival. Here are some pics of me performing during my 2nd and 3rd year.

2nd year (3rd guy from the right in 1st row)

https://ibb.co/3fVdcLm

3rd year (directly in front of a guy with cap)

https://ibb.co/kSh0Msf

Hi Bailey,

I have not found your generation lacking in toughness at all.

I'm 26 and at my local boxing gym on Suffolk parents of boys from age of 10 upwards are encouraged to let their sons to strip to the waist when fighting competitively and the majority do give their approval for this to happen.

It does take guts for some of the younger lads to stand stripped to the waist in front of an audience waiting to fight.

The big difference these days are boys were expected to be stripped off for PE/Games(at my school this included fitness sessions out on the yard, X country runs and athletics. In the gym it was basketball, more fitness and anything to make sure you were sweating!)

If you attended a more enlightened school, vests would be worn and half the class would be picked to strip to the waist as a skins team.

Which would you and your classmates have preferred?

Personally I owe my PE teachers a lot. Not wearing a vest outside helped me physically to harden up overcome my terrible shyness and made me comfortable being stripped to the waist and sweating in front of females.
.

Thank you for the advice Chris! Shorts should be shorts for sports or PE etc. If not you may as well just wear trackie bottoms. I think PE should be brief trunks what do you need loads of clothes on in water for!!!!!

To add to the comments re swimming trunks,I do not if it still the case but I did read sometime ago that in France swimming pools (especially at holiday venues)ban the wearing of swimming shorts in the pool. All men must wear trunks/briefs. The reason given was that the shorts my have been worn outside the pool area perhaps on a beach and they would have sand on them which would block the filters in the pool. Whether that is till the case I do not know.
Furthermore, I agree with the males who like to wear what are now known as speedos in the pool. AS one person has commented, ladies can wear very tight fitting costumes and that is acceptable yet it seems unacceptable for a man to wear anything other than shorts.
My final point on swimming, I know of 2 swimming instructors who coach children in a public pool. They have to wear t shirts over any swimming attire they may be wearing. I understand that they must not "Show too much flesh"

Bailey, thanks for your interesting comments. The only advice that I can give is to stay strong and be your own man. As for swimwear, as I said a few posts ago, when I was your age, standard boys' swimwear was brief trunks. I've never subscribed to the "long shorts" swimwear thing. I'm four times your age now, and still wear speedo's!

Hi Tim. I don't think soft is the right word for my generation of boys because many of them are not soft i.e fighting or standing pain or tough conditions like camping out all weathers, taking risks on bikes etc. Many of my mates can do that sort of thing but they are shy of their bodies because celebrities on TV do tend to make a big deal of any male nudity and they make fun on adverts esp about speedos. I have been talking with my dad about stuff like this. Hardly any of the lads I know would wear small trunks but my dad said nobody said much it was proper dress for boys swimming when he was young nobody batted an eyelid. so maybe we are softer MENTALLY than in the past but then my dad and the like did not have to be they just wore what they had to or what was right for the activity/sport that suited the sex you were. My dad agreed that many boys would have to be thick skinned otherwise we are going to have to swim in jeans or a helmet or do PE in overalls !!!!!!! Being a boy of 16 I want to do PE or swim with minimum amount of clothes possible but adverts influence my generation and we have to be mentally tough to stand up and be counted thanks for reading

Firstly - Thanks to Bailey for his comments: really interesting especially the bit about the girls views on bare feet.

Looking at few recent comments, I have used the pool at my gym when there has been an area roped off for junior swimming lessons and it does make me 'smile' to see young lads in 'rash suits' - I suppose there must be a reason, but I can't really see one.

I'm not too sure about boys being 'soft' - yes - some of them are, but there always have been, but thinking of some youngsters I know, a neighbours son plays footfall to a high level and is in the Army Cadets, and another is also in the Cadets and plays hockey to a high standard. The daughter of another neighbour cycles and is a very good gymnast.

(The thing is just to help the less 'sporty' types 'mature' and see what happens)

I think they were more brutal with rules towards boys back in the day that is regretful but at least they accepted a boys body more than they do today that is what it seems.
I am a boy of 16 my dad is in his fifties I have talked to him about this subject. He was a brilliant swimmer at my age but he says he swam naked in front of girls or he wore tight small trunks what we call SPEEDOS. I have seen an old photo of my dad with some girls swimming and he was naked!!
I have seen him in tight trunks too he said they did not call them speedos then but same thing. I would love to swim naked or wear speedos but people are disgusted by speedos.But I have read on here people have worn them like my dad did. Boys I know wear baggy swim short I don't like them but you hear on the telly celebrities start mocking anyone in speedos but women and girls wear skimpy swimwear that is tight in certain areas.

It does seem as though many posters felt that the PE masters were stricter with boys than girls but it seems like most guys got used to it and liked it by what I have read. We are not forced to be bare chested so you could say we are lucky I am not so sure. I do it by choice because it gives me an identity that I am BOY/YOUNG MAN otherwise it is only girls that have an identity of being female us boys have to deny physically existing so I think this is where my generation of boys are dismissed.

I am a 16 year old boy. I hope some of you do not mind me joining in. This is really interesting to read some of the posts. I go to school in Derbyshire UK.
We do not have a compulsory rule on shirtless PE or sports but I would guess 60% of boys just wear shorts and bare chested I notice the white shorts on the picture us boys wear either black, navy or grey shorts those are the colours allowed for shorts but they are similar length to those on the picture. You can wear a dark vest thing if you wish to. We have Light shoes and black ankle socks allowed although some in basic PE are barefooted sometimes the basic PE Lesson due to logistics, staffing etc
are performed in a mixed group so I have had to do PE among girls at times. When the boys have done PE among girls as I say over half of boys opt for bare chest the big issue is the teachers and girls are more disgusted at boys bare feet.
I think somebody recently mentioned that recently on here who went to school in the nineties. Now I go bare chested in this situation but wear the shoes and ankle socks. Girls bare feat is accepted more than boys bare feet. Some boys have the vest and shorts on but bare feet. They are more noticed than me without a shirt and shorts, however girls say my socks stink so I can't win but they do not seem to be annoyed by the bare chest but then us boys wear shorts and go shirtless when the weather is hot in summer I guess the girls are used to it. Another poster mentioned these shorts that are really long like half mast pants I hate them but I guess some like them to me they are pointless.

I agree with the comments about boys being soft these days and Sterling I think you have got it right. In the winter when young lads are playing foot ball they wear long shorts and some seem to have a form of tights underneath coming below their shorts and almost joining their socks. Apparently this is to prevent being stung on the leg if the ball hits them. AS for summer and covering all of the body, I know that parents have to be responsible in the sun, but there are reports that nowadays the kids do not get enough Vitamin d because their skin is forever covered.

Chris G. Perhaps it has something to do with the feminisation of boys!

As a kid going on holiday to the Sussex coast, all I, and all other boys, ever wore in the sea was a pair of brief trunks, even at the beginning and end of the season. Go back there now, and lots of kids are to be seen in wet-suits and rash-vests, even on the hottest days. Wimps, or what!

Ross,
I was more comfortable doing PE shirtless, males don’t usually wear a shirt to go swimming so I think that there’s no point in wearing a shirt when you’re doing an activity that makes you hot and sweaty.

John, I think ultimately given a choice I'd have worn shirt but it was alright I didn't really mind. I think most boys were more concerned about having bare feet.

Ross,
Did you mind doing PE in just shorts or would you have preferred to wear a shirt as well?.

Looks like a lesson of mine from the 90s! Except we were all barefoot too.

I can also remember a PE teacher who drove out to the furthest point of a cross country though it was in his blue Vauxhall Viva and I can still see the number plate on it. He also used to tick a list though how he saw anyone through the thick cloud of cigarette smoke in the car used to amaze me.

He also used to smoke as he ran on the few occasions he ran with us. I do remember on more than one occasion running right behind him and wondering why he would wear a rugby shirt and quite visibly through his white shorts, underpants when we were allowed neither not of course that I or anyone else dared ask.

We were in shorts and plimsolls only regardless of the weather.

On return there was a dose of the plimsoll for anyone who was not ticked off the list and if it was a second offence the plimsoll was replaced with the cane.

We had a second PE teacher too who taught me for about half my time at school. He was far more fit and healthy, he did everything he had us do, I never saw him with a cigarette, he was always stripped to the waist and running behind him he didn't wear underpants. I much preferred him to the other one.

To Michael and Rob.

If that teacher thought that the lads were a bunch of softies, he could have set them an example by going out stripped to the waist himself.

Michael - you do seem to have got off quite lightly with the kit you were allowed to wear for cross country. We always ran stripped to the waist and barefoot as others commenting here did. Bare feet were practical as the route took us through muddy parts and I'm sure I wasn't the only one that was glad to not have to clean plimsolls afterwards.
There were a few times each winter when we didn't really warm up but most of the time we would certainly not have wanted to wear more than our shorts.
One p.e. teacher had a little moped and he would sometimes come and check on us though I don't think he ever ticked us off on a list. I wasn't aware of any-one ever trying to cut out part of the route - it wouldn't have been easy. The route took us through woodlands and along the edges of fields all of which surrounded a golf course - there would probably have been complaints to the school if any-one had dared to run across the golf course.

Michael, If your PE teacher thought you were all a bunch of softies who needed toughening up he should have sent you out stripped to the waist every time like most of us here.

Our PE teacher routinely sent whole classes of us boys out on cross country runs.

The weather made no difference. In fact, the worse the weather, the better he liked it, as he often remarked that we were a bunch of softies who needed toughening up.

In winter, wearing only gym shorts/vests and plimsolls, it was sheer torture, but we had to do it.

Meanwhile he would stay in school, presumably making a mug of coffee before sitting down to read the newspaper.

Occasionally he would venture out in his big Ford Zodiac, and park up at the turning point of the run, to tick off our names as we ran past. We could never predict when he would do this, so the only safe option was to run the entire exhausting distance, every time.

After driving back to school, his oversize gym shoe would be made ready, to welcome back anyone whose name hadn't been ticked off.

Happy days? I didn't think so!

Thanks for the link Sterling.Always quite fancied Jane Asher!

Our PE teachers certainly didn't join us in stripping down.

In winter they were wearing layers of clothing, topped off with an overcoat!

It reminds me of the PE clip in the Movie 'Deep End' a 1970 British drama starring Jane Asher and John Moulder Brown.
Although Moulder Brown and his classmates are allowed vests and socks with pumps to protect their feet from the snow covered ground. The teacher is wrapped up warm in a similar overcoat to that of my PE teacher. And possibly leather gloves if my memory serves me right.

If a teacher's policy was that his classes did PE stripped to the waist, then he should have applied the same policy to himself. It's good to read that some did.

Andy. Our history/PE teacher would wear black shorts (we wore white) and white plimsolls (we were barefoot). I don't ever remember him coming on XC. He coached rugby at the senior level in the school but was in kit/tracksuit for that. He wasn't slow to resort to the strap (we had strap rather than cane) and you could very quickly end up bending over feet apart for a really hard three or four whacks. Even junior boys who usually got the slipper for minor infractions of gym rules. But he was very popular with boys.

NickK,Frank C,John
When I started at grammar school in 1955 two of our PE teachers looked elderly,although probably only in their fifties and the other one was younger, but much stricter. When I was in the sixth form a very young looking teacher arrived to teach geography. Like your teacher, NickK, he occasionally substituted in the gym when our PE master was called away.We had already seen him doing athletics on the playing field wearing a brief pair of running shorts and vest, but when he took our PE class he stripped to PE shorts, the same as us, and joined in as though he was one of the boys.In fact, although he was probably about five years older than us, some of the lads were bigger built than him. He came on a cross country run with us a couple of times and always joined us in the showers afterwards to freshen up before going off to take a geography class.

NickK

Did your history/PE teacher strip to only his shorts - so no shirt, bare feet, no boxers/briefs. I assume you wore white PE shorts, so did his match ?

What about when you ran xc, did he take it, did he strip, did he run ?

Matthew. We had a young history teacher who very occasionally substituted in the gym when a PE master was away. He would always strip to shorts (just like we were). He was a very popular teacher but was a ferocious strapper. On the hands in the classroom and on the backside in the gym. You certainly didnt want to cross him!

Andy, just to clarify - initially we didn't have to strip to the waist for cross country. By the time that happened (in the summer term) we'd had two terms of doing indoor PE in shorts only. So it was probably less of a shock than at the outset, when it first dawned on us we'd have to do the lesson with bare chests and bare feet. I remember standing there feeling quite exposed and vulnerable at first and I know many of the other boys did too.