Burnley Grammar School

My last posting should have read "there was no regulation" regarding whether shorts or longs were worn as uniform. It was for the parents to decide.

NickK, Sadly we are the cause a lot of the problems. There is a culture of if females cannot do something, it's banned. There are some things females just cannot do and stripping to the waist is one... well we can but. Boys should be encouraged to strip it's just natural.

I do not how I would have coped with nude swimming. although as Ivor says parents would be aware of the school rules so I suppose I would have just got on with it. Like all the other schools at the time for p.e. we only wore shorts (no pants) plimsolls with no socks and we were shirtless. Our parents new about these rules because we were told when we attended an open evening with them before we joined the school, when we were advise on the full uniform, including p.e. and swimwear.

There was regulation on whether to wear long or short trousers and so my family took the opportunity to keep me in shorts until I was in my late teens.

NickK,
The School in Madrid looks like it is making boys strip to the waist for PE just as was common practice until quite recently in the UK. It didn’t do my brother and I any harm. This seems to be another sensible policy from a European country. I cannot understand why the UK ever changed this practice. There never was any big deal, it was nice after being in a hot stuffy classroom to get shirtless and put on shorts and pumps and enjoy doing PE without a hot and sweaty vest or shirt stuck to your back. It seems to me that this Spanish school has thought about what is best for boys when deciding on this rule.

Further to Kevin's post (30 Dec)- there are a couple more pics of mixed PE class with most boys stripped to the waist here: https://colegio-estudio.es/instalaciones/

Scroll down to Instalaciones Deportivas

Amazing that today PE kit can just be shorts!

Just catching up with entries made since mine. To answer a couple of questions, firstly the school was boys only and all staff were men, so there were never any women/girls around the swimming pool when nude swimming was compulsory.
Secondly, although there were no swimming matches with other local schools, once a year at the end of the summer term, there was an inter-house swimming competition in front of the whole school, and school policy was followed in this: first three years, compulsory to swim naked, older boys trunks optional, but many still chose nudity. Given the thinking about this sort of thing nowadays, it seems unbelievable that we spent two lessons each week in the summmer term naked for swimming. We and our parents well knew that would be the case when we entered the school.

Tobias,Did you wear short trousers till you were 14 because it was a compulsory school uniform or were they imposed on you by your parents?
I wore them at that age because it was strictly enforced by my parents.

In the mid 60s, we started having to dress down for PE and shower communally afterwards from 5th grade on into HS, so you had to strip twice per day in the locker room, and for swimming, you had to strip and shower before and after getting out of the pool.
Shirts were optional during PE, and most chose not to wear them unless it was cold, or when split up into shirts and skins teams for games.
I guess nudity was not such big deal among kids back then, in fact we had no qualms about skinny dipping at the river in the summer, even if girls present or joining in.

Shirtless PE for boys in a coed school. Seems fairly recent!

[URL=https://s1053.photobucket.com/user/hagi52156/media/Gimnasia2.png.html][IMG]https://i1053.photobucket.com/albums/s463/hagi52156/Gimnasia2.png[/IMG][/URL]

Ben, we were fortunate to have had a pool in our school grounds, this was a boys only school and we were required to strip nude and walk to the pool. Like you say this was the rule in the junior years and at age 14 we were given the choice to stay nude or wear trunks. We all stayed nude.

Our swim team practiced in the nude but were allowed trunks for events but these were not compulsory and I do remember a few boys swimming nude. I also remember one time a visiting school swim team that came to compete and the entire team was nude.

Tobias
Did you have a swimming pool at school or were you taken somewhere for lessons and practice?
Did you have swim teams that also competed in the nude?

It seems from other posters that in most cases only junior boys up to about 13 took swimming lessons in the nude. I guess it was not considered as proper for boys older than that to be nude for swimming lessons, even at the same school. This arrangement was probably accepted by everyone, including parents, at the time, though I can't see it happen today.
I wonder when this practice of making boys swim nude at school stopped in the UK.
I also assume that this happened only in boys only schools. I can't imagine boys being made to swim naked in mixed schools since I never heard of girls being made to swim nude at school, though there could have been some exceptions.

With regards to swimwear at my all boys school circa 1961 the speedo style trunks (although I do not think speedo was actually a brand then) were worn for swimming. I prefer them much more than the long board shorts etc. which seem to be the style these days. I suppose the brief style trunks are considered to revealing. But I do not think they are any worse than some of the swimwear worn by females. Some of the bikinis with the thongs leave very little to the imagination.

Seems a few here June and Ivor share similar experiences to me. At school I was in short trousers until 14 with long grey socks in winter and black shoes and in the summer barefoot and sandals. For PE it was just white shorts absolutely nothing else in or out all year round we was shirtless and barefoot. Forget the shorts then you went nude. We also had swimming lessons every week and practice was always in the nude.

Ben

I don't think it was an issue at all in the junior houses. I do remember some boys finding it hard concerning puberty- different growth rates causing some issues - but otherwise there weren't any problem. My son has just reminded me that speedos were the regulation in the senior houses!

Thanks to everyone for replying. I'm at a loss to understand why boys don't strip off to the waist for PE. Charles makes a very good point about things being taking things too far,but done properly, there are more benefits than negatives and encourages boys to become young men.

Ben,
My cousin swam naked at senior school from age 11 to 18 and was perfectly happy to swim naked as were the other lads, it was normal for them to swim nude. If they had inter school swimming galas they wore trunks.

June
Did the boys ever complain that they had to swim naked at school?

Daniel P,
My school experience was like yours, I was 9 when the local education authority decided that boys must be stripped to the waist for PE for health and safety reasons. Until then we’d been allowed to keep our vests on for indoor PE, we got changed into full football kit for football outdoors.

When I started at senior school some lads were shocked that they had to be stripped to the waist for indoor PE,; they’d come from primary schools where they’d always been allowed to keep their tops on. They were equally horrified to discover that cross country runs also had to be done barechested.

When I was at school in the 1960's we did PE indoors stripped to the waist as soon as we started secondary school.This would be Year 7 in today's numbering.For cross country we usually waited until Year 9.

Rachael, we started stripping to the waist indoors from 9yo, being barechested/stripped off (as the teachers would say) came the following year.

outdoor

Ben
No the boys only swam naked in their boarding houses or weekly class lessons. They were allowed to wear their black or navy blue speedos in whole competitions or gala where they were external guests or parents.

To June and Ivor,

Doing PE in just shorts is one thing, but making them swim naked is a bit different in my opinion.
Were there any female teachers or female school staff who could watch the boys swim naked?
I read that in some schools the boys were also naked during swim galas in front of mixed spectators. Was this also the case at your school (Ivor) and your sons' school in the case of June?

Rachael
For gym we were stripped to the waist from age 11.
Ivor
If we forgot our shorts we did not have to do the lesson nude but the gym master would throw us the first pair of shorts that came to hand from lost property. These had not been washed and wearing them was not pleasant. I forgot my shorts only once.
June
I'm sorry one of your boys found the regime a bit too hard. None of us liked being frozen stiff. The attitude towards nudity at school and at home was "You're all boys, what are you fussing about" with the implication that those who fussed were cissies. A very small number of boys never got used to it. Most of us took it in our stride and were not embarrassed, unlike some young men you see at swimming pools today having a shower with shorts on. What is the point of that when the shorts are chlorine soaked? I never wore a jockstrap at school.

Rachael,at our boys grammar school in the late fifties we all had to be stripped to the waist from the first PE lesson aged 11.

William. Physical hardship and humililiation doesn't turn boys into men. Making boys run in sub zero temperatures has nothing to,do with the transition to manhood.
Tenderness, respect and love are essential parts of bring up children
I remember the arbitrary rules at school.
A pe teacher so obsessed with his precious new gym floors that everyone bar himself went barefoot. These were his power trips.
Extremely Harsh regimes such as many of us endured were unnecessary.
Many of our teachers were severely damaged by the war and should not have been allowed anywhere near children as they took out their trauma and pain on us.
Personally I would not have wanted my children anywhere near these kind of people.

Hi Ben, William, June. My two boys are 11 and 12 so I'm guessing boys wouldn't start stripping to the waist until they turn 13?

The state school I went to in the mid 1950s had a policy of nude swimming for the first three years, and all parents and boys knew that this was the case, so there was no argument about it and everyone accepted it. From the fourth year upwards trunks were optional, but most boys simply continued to swim without them as they were so used to it, and to wear costumes seemed somehow to be more embarrassing! What was more, there was a strict no pants underneath shorts for all indoor PE lessons during the other two terms, so woe betide any boy who forgot his kit because it meant PE in the nude. Again, it was school policy and there was no argument. It didn't happen all that often as we all knew what would happen, but inevitably it did happen from time to time when someone for example had accidentally forgotten their kit or else left it on the bus! To think that all of us were used to this

William

Good to hear from you. We had friends whose boys went to grammar school and seem to have shared the same conditions as you did then. My three boys were all boarders in a public school (or private independent school if you prefer) in the 60s. As said two of my boys had no problems whatsoever with the conditions as you describe. Communal showers (often only cold water), gymnastics without tops etc. Naked swimming and wearing shorts up to age of 13. They all loved their sport. Around 14 and thereafter they were allowed to wear jockstraps and quite understandably. Yes it wasn't just the harsh Spartan conditions but also doing what they were told and without questioning authority that made them great men that I am ever so proud of.

Rachael and June, I think that what turned boys into men was not just physical hardship, such as games afternoons in the winter when our hands were so cold we could not do up shirt buttons when we got changed. It was also having to do things we didn't want to do, getting on with them without making a fuss because we had no choice, and finding they weren't so bad after all.
At a boys' grammar school in the 1960s we wore nothing under shorts for gym, athletics or games. Our gym lessons were like the photograph. We had communal nude showers. I started off shy and would have avoided all these given the choice. But I became more confident about my skinny body, got used to the regime and even to like it. I didn't realise at the time but it was a good lesson for life.

Hi John, Thanks for the insight. As June said it makes men from boys and I'm all for that. Stripping off makes a lot of sense. I encourage my two boys to have their tops off in summer hols. If they had the chance I'd bet they'd love to do PE stripped off too.