Burnley Grammar School

JP1, Our gym was deliberately kept cold so we'd have to work hard. When we stripped down you really felt the cold on your bare top. It was no worse than when we did gym/games lessons outdoors though. The part I didn't get was why we went in the gym in vests just to strip off when the lesson started, it was the same outdoors.

JP1 when having to do pe in your underpants was it the era when lads wore briefs. At least there would be more support then if wearing the modern boxers

Oh I don't think there was anything wrong with it, most of the boys probably preferred it or didn't care if their shirts were off, just that I was quite self conscious to have my top half bare as I was very skinny and shy. And cold! The gym was very chilly. So I didn't especially enjoy having to be stripped the waist, especially if only half of the class had to.

What was wrong with boys being stripped to the waist anyway?, it was much safer when using wall bars and vaults etc. Our school gym was heated in winter and we always got hot and sweaty, so it was better not having to wear a top.

Your description of P.E. lessons is very vivid and atmospheric JP1! I tried a backward roll and ended up in A & E when I was thirteen!Ouch!

Thanks for the answers. There was a lot of variation between schools.
Our lessons similarly started with a warmup workout: star jumps, knees ups, sit ups, stretches. I hated the cold gym floor on my bare back if I had been picked to do the class with my shirt off, literal shivers on my spine. Normally only half the boys had to strip to their waists, for teams as shirts and skins, and this was chosen at the roll call at the start, before warm ups. But when the lesson had to be vaults, ropes, bars and the like, then every boy had to be topless.
I didn't so much enjoy my barechestedness, it felt too naked and cold, but we got to be OK like that. I cannot say I preferred it though, being shy. I was happier the times I did not have to pull my T shirt off and go half naked.
The thing I never mastered was somersaults. Hated them more than anything. I was convinced I would break my neck. I would rather have done PE starknaked than do a somersault! No one ever did do PE naked of course. Sometimes in pants due to forgotten kit, this was not fun. I only did this once. Not nice taking off my uniform ,stripping down to just my underpants in the changing room and then having to enter the gym to spend a whole period in that way. But a good deterrent and lesson learned.

When I started middle school in the 1980s we had to purchase a PE top in school colours (mainly white but with blue bands across the chest). This could be either a vest (singlet) or a T-shirt, which obviously covered the shoulders and had a higher neck. Some boys opted for the vest, others for the T-shirt - I'm really not sure why it wasn't one or the other! Shorts were white and could be made from any material.

JP1, Our gym vests were white and what would now be called tee shirts. We never wore them indoors, only for athletics and cross-country.

Our gym master used to start every lesson with 20 star jumps as a warm up exercise. It was very obvious that the fronts of our shorts were bouncing up and down, but because it was the same for all of us I didn't find it embarrassing.

I was not athletic and had to do things I hated but in a regime of no choice, no complaints, no fuss, I got through it. It was good that for some exercises (forward rolls, handstands etc) we could help each other.

Undershirts of the style you refer to were commonly known as vests (or at least they were in my neighbourhood).

I think that in some schools (mainly primary schools) PE was done in 'vest and pants' ie. the children's usual
underwear. As I understand it, singlets were very similar in style, but quite often with a coloured band (presumably to identify teams or Houses etc?).
One of the runners in the photo on the following thread is wearing a PE vest or singlet.

http://www.historyworld.co.uk/photo.php?id=1602

Some contributors refer to wearing 'vests' for PE. Is a vest in this case similar to an undershirt, with no sleeves and a low cut neck? Is a singlet the same?
At my UK school our PE top was a normal plain white T shirt, albeit it was not always worn.

With regard to Bob's comment regarding running on the spot and star jumps, I can recall our PE teacher suggesting to some of my classmates that they should start to wear a bra after seeing them doing exercises like that!

I can understand the tradition of boys swimming nude especially in prep and boarding schools. What I find a bit hard to believe is what some said way back on this forum that they were also nude for swimming galas in front of parents, siblings and guests including females.
Some even claim that they had female instructors in junior nude swimming classes up to about age 12 or so.
Does anyone know anytrhing about this or had this experience?

I concur with a lot of what Paul has written. Not all families had washing machines and furthermore there was not a lot of money available for us to have as many clothes as we have today. At least my family only had to buy pe shorts which were also used for Football and cricket in the summer. I think they had to last me most of my school life(bought a bit large for room to grow). We only wore a top outside in winter and that was any T shirt we had, so it was not too expensive. And yes ours was an all boys school with all but one male teachers ex forces served in the war and our PE teacher was ex military PTI a strict disciplinarian and a frequent user of the Plimsoll on the backside.

With regards to " dancing behind a towel" When I lived in London the swimming pool I used had single sex changing facilities with a large communal area and a few cubicles, and life was simple. You just stripped off and changed. Now, where I go, the municipal swimming pool has a "Changing Village" which means that it is open to both sexes and all cubicles. Often you have to wait to get changed because there are insufficient cubicles and when I do get one if I need the loo urgently, I have to get changed quickly into my trunks on before leaving the cubicle. Whereas in the single sex changing rooms as Paul says you could be naked and not worry.

RE Gvain's reply to Alf about visitors to swimming pool

I went to all boys private prep/senior school in Surrey which had its own indoor heated pool. We all swam nude until 13, after that regulation black speedo type trunks. We had saturday morning school which was common back then.

One school year, i think when I was 11 or 12, we had swimming as our last lesson of the saturday classes. Quite often the Head would be showing parents & offspring around, which meant that Mothers and sometimes daughters would come into the pool.
I specifically remember one occasion where I was standing on the side for some reason when a boy and girl came in with their parents who were talking with the Head. The kids wandered further in and stood by me, the girl aged about 13 pointed at me and said with a big smile to her younger brother that will be you next term swimming naked and then laughed. He blushed profusely.

I didnt really think anything wrong about adults coming in but then I hadnt hit puberty so did not have much to hide.

I think in days when mothers did not have automatic washing machines or indeed in some cases any washing machine at all it was quite normal that clothes were not changed every day and sometimes not for several days. I was only allowed two grey school shirts a week and three pairs of white underpants. I was no different to other lads in that regard.

In those circumstances I don't think it was unusual that for sport where we would sweat or if outside potentially get soaked that we were required to take off our underpants when getting changed in fact it was totally sensible.

Equally in those days all PE teachers (well the men at least) had done national service. The military paid no attention to any concept of privacy when I joined the Navy in the early 1970s so I don't suppose it was any better in the post war era. We slept in open dormitories, showered in communal showers, used toilets that had no partitions and so on and we certainly didn't wear underpants with our sports gear which given the hard navy canvas like gym shorts we had which used to feel like rough sandpaper and they never softened was something you were always aware of.

These days I still use the gym regularly and I'm glad when I see younger lads dancing behind their towels and waiting for the one private shower cubicle as opposed to the fifteen communal showers that I'm comfortable naked in front of other men and don't care that others see me in a place where being naked is actually quite normal. All these years later, I wouldn't think of wearing underpants with my gym gear.

This weekend why not check out the Hesketh Fletcher web site there is a gym photo similar date to above and comments by many of the contributers on this Burnley site. Go to Old Photos and it is positioned on page two.Similar topics are discussed ! F. C.

We never had any problems with athletic supporters, which were never mentioned at my school, or having to take off our underpants for PE.
We kept our underpants on under our PE shorts which served as supporters in themselves. I am surprised at how many schools required boys to take off their underpants for PE.
But then our PE lessons were usually light affairs with light exercises and which only lasted about an hour or so.
The only exception was that if a boy forgot his PE kit he was made to do it in his underpants, as someone else mentioned.

I had forgotten about the press ups...all that bumping up and down onto the cold wooden floor.

Sorry to hear of your P.E days at school and the fact that you remain quite bitter about them.I always thought of them as a welcome break from the text books and taking numerous notes!I had forgotten about the star jumps they were certainly physically exerting.It was the press ups that got me quite hard on. I started with puberty in the summer term in First form.As for the no underpants rule it was just one of the many you had to accept or face the consequences.It was a gentle irony that if you forgot your P.E. shorts for the lesson you had to do it in your underpants a humiliating sanction for any youngster as I experienced once.

My experience was pretty much like William's although we did gym into the sixth form. Like a number of others I preferred at first to wear a T-shirt but as I became more 'comfortable' with my body I was happy to just wear shorts. Like William we tended to turn the waistbands over, but in the 6th form I bought a pair of the short cotton football shorts then coming into fashion.

Cross-country kit was football shirt & shorts & plimsolls - no flash trainers in the early 60s. The course was a misture of footpath & country lane - I've measured it be a little under four miles in length.

Although I've no problems with boys doing gym 'topless' indoors or outdoors in summer I would have to raise my eyebrows if I saw boys shirtless in the cold weather we've just experienced.

It was the same for all of us,Bob. Like William we never saw athletic supports and I even did gym in the 6th form wearing the same gym shorts I'd worn since the first form with nothing on underneath for all sports,and we never wore a vest or anything on top, even for cross country running.I don't think any of us thought anything about of it; we just got used to it and enjoyed the feeling of freedom.

I resented having to do PE with nothing on underneath those thin white shorts we wore. We always seemed to have to do a lot of running on the spot and star jumps in the gym, which inevitably caused what I later realised was a partial erection.. Although not very athletic, I was well developed in that embarrasing area. Having the PE teacher kneeling down in front of me watching me closely while encouraging me to get my knees higher when jogging on the spot(he often picked on me, it seemed) only added to my discomfort.

Catching up with the athletic support discussion, I never saw them at school in the '60s, but I didn't do gym after the fifth form and it is possible that the 1st XV had them. I never wore anything under shorts for gym, athletics, rugby or hockey.

We used to try to keep our gym shorts from the first form to the fifth. As the elastic slackened we turned over the waistbands to keep them up. This made the shorts shorter and tighter across the front, which did provide some support.

We never wore vests for gym and so the daring boys whose waistbands were low on their hips were not wearing much by the time they reached the fifth, but I don't think boys or masters thought anything of it.

Hi Alf
Yes a few resented it because they might not have been so well developed as some of their peers, and they didn't like younger boys seeing that obviously.
We use to swim either as a class (obviously same age - average class size say 20), or as a house which meant that a 10 year old boy could be in the same pool as a 13 year old.

Gavin,

Were there any boys who resented being naked during swim classes?

Considewring that there was quite a big age difference at the school, were the classes separate by age groups or all together? How many boys would there be in each swim class?

Hi Olderscot,

Like you my Ex said they weren't allowed to wear athletic supports until the start of their 3rd year at secondary school. He said that some of his classmates could really have done with getting one sooner!

No such age restrictions applied to the type of support required by us girls. A few of my classmates started to wear bras during our last year at primary school, whereas others didn't need them until the 2nd year at secondary.

Alf
The kind of visitors were mainly potential school boys and their parents. On rare occasions that boy might have a sister probably tagging along because they had to! But apart from them I don't remember anyone ekse. I certainly don't think any other member of staff apart from the swimming master or house master/tutor would have had the slightest interest in watching us boys otherwise.

Peter B

No, I said that when it came to inter school contests we wore trunks

To Gavin,

You said " Yes, some of the boys who had turned 13 did start to resent visitors being present when they were naked."

What kind of visitors did you have during your nude swimming classes, were they school staff or others who were visiting to watch?
Did female teachers or other females also came to watch?

So Gavin A are you saying swimming galas for your school with parents or the public present were swum naked?

What would the date have been year wise. It does seem a strange situation, but I suppose some years ago people were not so worried. I do not know if I woolud have been happy swimming naked in front of strangers let alone my own family