Burnley Grammar School

Hi Rachael, it is natural and more comfortable for boys to do exercise with tops off in Summer, but not in freezing Winter, especially outside.
Do your boys still have compulsary showers after PE at school?

Rachael

How old are your two boys? What school did they attend? My three boys all went to boarding school and the regime there was pretty hard. Two of them weathered the Spartan conditions very well but one of my boys found it all a bit too hard.

Rachael,
My dad encouraged me and also my brother to play outside shirtless in summer, we’d meet up with our friends and kick a ball about in the road and all of us would be shirtless. None of us were self conscious about being seen bare chested and that is a good way to be.

Some lads at Senior School felt awkward at first having to do PE shirtless but that was because they had been allowed to wear vests or t shirts for Primary School PE lessons. They soon forgot about being shirtless and started to enjoy PE. If boys had started doing PE shirtless whilst at Infant School they would never have felt awkward.

Lads today should be allowed to do PE shirtless if they want to, it’s far more comfortable than having a hot sweaty shirt stuck to your back. I’m glad that I could enjoy PE in the 1970s, I don’t know why schools started to make lads cover up all the time.

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.

Ben,

How boys were treated in the past sounds harsh to most people now. We were allowed to wear running shiorts with inner briefs but not underwear and always wore socks and trainers. Running shirtless was no big deal actually, believe it or not we stayed warmer bare chested in the rain than we would have done with a rain soaked shirt stuck to our chests. The showers were always warm too.

Howard,

The tawse ( always referred to as 'the belt') was the implement of choice of most teachers. The PE dept also used the gym shoe across the (thin) cotton shorts for minor offences though it still stung!

There were various weights of tawse , M -medium, H - heavy and XH -extra heavy. Most teachers used the H at my secondary school though there were a few XHs around . Most had 2 tails though 3 tails were available.

I understand that the tawse was used in north east of England in preference to the cane.

James

A similar custom to toughen boys up in some institutions and boarding schools was to make them take cold showers even in freezing weather.
Same for making them swim in unheated pools all year round, including in winter, often naked.
As for what some others describe making boys run outside bare chested in just thin shorts in winter, I don't know how one coulld get used to that or even 'enjoy it'.
I can't imagine this happening today without a public outcry.

Rachael

Guess it made men out of boys!

Rachael,

It was daunting the first time that we realized that we’d be running stripped to the waist in winter. Part of the cross country run was on pavements outside residential properties and another stretch on pavement along a busy main road; I felt potentially embarrassed at the prospect of being seen
by adults that knew me.

We did warm up and stretching exercises before setting off on the run, running on the spot and star jumps, we quickly got warm. After a few weeks I started to enjoy shirtless cross country runs and would have hated it if the PE kit rule had changed and we’d been made to wear shirts. Whilst running we forgot that we were barechested.

Thank you to those who replied.It must have been daunting being outside in the winter stripped to a thin pair of shorts.

I went to a Catholic primary to middle school in London in the sixties. The strap or wooden ruler was on every teacher's desk and was used freely by most teachers. Normally 2 to 4 strokes on the hands.
I only remember one teacher who used the ruler on our buttocks over shorts. He was the joke between us boys when boys were in his class.
Although we dreaded him more than the other teachers who punished on the hands, thinking back it was probably less painful than being hit on the hands. Maybe because it was not the norm and unusual.

Hi to Howard and James B, The strap was certainly on the agenda at the Catholic College I attended circa late sixties to early seventies in Greater Manchester.Nasty little beast utilised on either the hand or the behind.The plimsoll for PE..

jamesB, were there any other instruments used in Scottish schools, like the cane, slipper or ruler?
Or was it just the tawse?

Was the tawse also used in Scottish homes, or just in schools?

The strap on the hands seems to have been popular in Catholic schools, notably in Ireland. I presume the tawse, being a two tongued strap, was more painful.

I saw a BBC short documentary once in which was stated that the tawse was the casue of corporal punishment being banned in all of Britain.
A Scottish mother took the case to the European Court after her son was tawsed at school. The European Court forced the British Parliament to vote against all corporal punishment in schools.
I think Britain was the last European country to ban CP in schools, but I am not sure of this.

Howard

The tawse was always given on the hands- never on the bottom.

I doubt if there was any maximum officially written down . Depending on the severity of the offence the number of strokes given was 2,4 or 6. In my experience , 4 seemed a popular choice amongst teachers but not all teachers would give the same. I have seen boys get more than 6 but this was because they had been adjudged as having moved their hand. If a teacher decided a boy had moved his hand and even if the tawse had hit him, he was given that stroke again and an extra one for moving.

JamesB

Rachael, I never had shirtless pe lessons but we did have swimming lessons which were obviously done shirtless. I personally didn’t see many people with chest hair, I think people tend to either trim it or not have much of it. I personally don’t have much hair on my chest and never really cared about it.

I never really felt embarrassed about anything during lessons. It was just galas that were a bit awkward but even then i just got over it

I agree with David G's comments re Josh. If that really happened it would be a classic case of child abuse.

In the late 50's when all boys wore vests under their school shirts we had to strip off for PE from the age of 11 until we left at 18 and wear just shorts and plimsolls, indoors, and outside for athletics and cross country through the local woodland and open countryside. No-one was concerned about whether you had a hairy chest or not and we always had to shower after every lesson and there was no privacy at all there! we all had to get used to it and become men together.

Rachael,  this was something that really worried me when I began to develop hair on my chest at age 15. We still had compulsory PE for another year and usual practice for boys' classes at my school was vests vs skins, with the teacher deciding which of us had to strip down. So I knew at some point I would have to be in skins and I felt nervous about being the only lad in the class with chest hair.
To my relief, when our first PE lesson of the term came around, I could see another boy had a patch of hair visibly poking out above his vest (more than I did, in fact) and that gave me encouragement, to know I wouldn't be the only one whose body looked a bit different. As it happened I kept my vest on for that first lesson while the other lad was a skin and didn't seem bothered about it at all. That definitely helped to ease my concerns. For the next few lessons I was picked to do it in skins and soon felt more confident about showing my chest hair, which thickened up more during the course of that year!

Rachael,
The PE teachers didn’t care whether lads had hairy chests or not, the school PE kit rule for boys was white shorts and pumps only for indoor PE. Outdoor team games were often shirts vs skins, if a PE teacher selected you for the skins team you stripped off your shirt immediately without question.

JamesB,

I assume the tawse was used mainly on the hands.
Was it ever used on the bottom?

Also, was there a limit to how many strokes could be given on the hands?

Seeing the comments on this post surprised me quite a bit. I’m probably a bit younger than most people on here, having graduated from a boys only high school three years ago. We didn’t have shirtless pe lessons at any time and I don’t think it would be allowed today. However, we did have swimming lessons for about half a year, for which we wore trunks. If you forgot your trunks or PE kit you were given a detention and missed the lesson.

I've seen comments from other females so I don't awkward for asking if any lads were still made to strip off as skins if they had hairy chests or did they keep their vests on at that stage.

Hi Josh, I'm not sure why - but I don't believe you!
You may have had a fantasy about this happening-but it really doesn't help genuine posters to have confidence in this site if you post "crap". I'm sure there are better sites you can go to play out your fantasies!
PS your grammar isn't the best did you have a learning problem/dyslexia because the way you express yourself seems quite childish!

Hi, I came from a small village near Bristol, and yes, our teacher used to punish us by caning ourselves. One time I forgot PE kit, and she ordered me to join the group taking off my shirt, then she take my shirt so that I cannot take on if I was cold. It was winter and extremely cold, moreover I was the only one bare chested but I was very angry so I offended her.. it was the end, she ordered me to run other 5 laps (400 meter each one) while the other boys were seeing me from the window because of cold. At the end she caned me and it was terrible because I still was shirtless until she let me go inside and gave me my shirt back, even though I prefer to remain shirtless because my chest was full of sweat and I didn’t want to dirty a new shirt..

Howard,

I attended a boys only school in Scotland in the mid-late 60's and we too had 'punishment periods' in the gym. Very hard work and if anyone was slacking then corporal punishment was inflicted.

Being a Scottish school, the cane was not used but the Tawse ( always known as 'the belt') was used extensively. This was usually a 2 tailed leather strap applied with enthusiasm on the hands of the poor boy. In gym class the gym shoe was used across a boys shorts. Our gym kit was exactly as shown in the picture and the 'no underpants' rule was the norm .

JamesB

Howard

It's was a boys only school, and yes I got caned

Alan,
Was it a boys only school or mixed?
Did girls get the same punishment?

Ours was a boys only school.

Btw, my previous post I left out that we wore plimsalls besides just shorts for outdoor running.
The plimsall was also used for whacking by teachers.
The cane was only reserved for the headmaster and that was only used for very serious crimes that affected the whole school.
Your school seems to have had a much harsher regime. Did you ever get the cane?
Any other posters here who got the cane at school?

Howard

The run was mostly country tracks across fields/woodlands near the school.

For a detention if you forget kit, you did your best to borrow a pair of shorts from anyone. Boys who turned up without shorts, did the indoor workout in underpants, then get caned. The detention had to be repeated next week, and counted towards your 3.

If we were late at school, for say after school societies, it was normal to see boys running in only their shorts, as part of their punishment.

Alan, we had the same detention punishments at my school, in just PE shorts although we also wore
If you did not have your PE shorts you had to do it in just underpants.
Also it was not actual runs outside of the school as you mention in yours. We were made to run around the large schoolyard.
Slipperings were also given for repeated detentions.

I find the running barefoot outside on gravel and in winter conditions in your school a bit harsh.
Did you get your punishment runs in just thin shorts in populated areas or just countryside?

Also what happened when a boy did not have his PE shorts with him for these punishment detention runs?

For normal PE we wore shorts/plimsolls, plus a vest for cross country.

Detentions involved a workout and run, then we had to strip to just shorts, same inside and out. Thus we had to run with bare feet and stripped to the waist, plus the cane on return if you got to your 3rd detention.

One of my parents friends had seen boys being punished like this, and spoke to me about it before I started at the school, along the lines of it being an effective punishment for a boy on a winters day. As I soon found out with my first detention, after a workout in the gym, we all had to line up outside ready for the run - it was freezing cold standing hands on head, bare to the waist in only thin shorts, bare feet on gravel.