Burnley Grammar School

Hi James and Alf,

I may have been the miniskirt era, but not in our school! Our dresses or skirts were supposed to be knee length and on occasions the teachers would have us kneel down to check that our hems touched the floor! In the first two years we had to wear 'gymslip' style dresses with a blouse underneath,but from the third year onwards it was a skirt and blouse. All years had to wear a tie and blazer and worst of all a beret - we all hated those!

I think the boys at one of our local schools used to have to wear caps for the first couple of years - did your school have those?

Alf & Andrea,boys still wearing shorts at 13 or 14 would also have been typical at my school although some boys continued to wear them till they left school.
As you point out hemlines rose abruptly in the sixties and the same applied to boys'short trousers.
Knee stockings,which we wore would only keep our legs warm,but you could you could 'freeze' wearing short shorts in the winter.
My strict parents took advantage of the uniform policy that allowed boys to wear shorts up to leaving age,so I was only one of a few to wear shorts at 16.

Andrea, you are right, it was common for boys to still be wearing shorts as part of uniform in early secondary school years. I myself wore them till I was 13 or 14.
However girls uniform memory brings a grin to my face. It was the miniskirt era and girls wore school skirts above their knees, even in Winter with woollen tops but still with bare legs for many of them. Some wore woolen long socks like you mention, but not all.
I guess it was nearly the same for us boys, it was shorts up to about knee length even in Winter, and those woollen uniform grey socks even in Summer.
But we, both boys and girls, never actually gave it a second thought because we just accepted it as normal, even if it was uncomfortable at times.
It was the same with neck ties, you just had to wear them as part of secondary school uniform.
Girls in some secondary schools also had to wear neck ties as part of uniform.
Girls also had to wear school uniform jackets with the school logo, like us boys. In fact we wore the same uniform, except for shorts or trousers for boys and skirts for girls.
How things have changed!

Hi Andrea,I went to a mixed Secondary Modern and there were no restrictions when boys had to wear long trousers.
Therefore,some boys,including myself could be kept in shorts till they left school.

Hi James,

I actually went to an all girls school, but from what I remember of seeing the local boys on their way to their secondary school, some of the first years (ages 11 to 12) wore grey shorts, but some were in long trousers.
Was it the same at your school?

Hi Andrea,did boys wear grey shorts at your secondary school that you attended and if so up to what age?

When I was at Primary School in the 1960s all the boys wore grey shorts. We had to wear a skirt or dress. We were allowed to wear wooly tights to keep our legs warm in the winter.

It was different at Secondary School - tights were not allowed, so it was long socks in winter and ankle socks in summer. This wasn't much fun in the middle of winter, especially as I had to cycle to school!

I was at primary school approx 1957 to 1961 and our grey uniform shorts were well above the knee. When we did PE we simply removed our tops keeping on our vest(singlet) and so participated in the uniform shorts. The girls however had to remove their dress or skirt(they did not wear trousers those days) and therefore doing PE in their underwear. The pe was a mixed class and no one thought anything of the arrangement. It was just as it was. Girls in knickers boys in shorts.

Turner,short trousers were longer in the sixties,but became much shorter in the seventies and eighties and of course were worn with knee stockings and as you say they were tightly kept in place with garters.
Unlike the longer shorts,shorter shorts were much colder when worn in the cold weather and I certainly couldn't see any advantage in wearing shorts that that came well above the knee.
The garters would always leave bands in my legs where they kept my stockings firmly in place,which I found uncomfortable.

Don't forget that in the sixties school short trousers were actually quite long, almost like those ridiculous shorts that footballers wear nowadays, leaving not much bare leg between trousers and long socks (kept up with garters)..

Our PE teachers were both ex Army, our lessons were done either with us all skins, or teams of skins and vests. From joining the scool as a 9yr old through to leaving at 18 we never did a PE lesson with all boys in vests.

I vividly remember as a ten-year old, walking through sometimes knee-deep snow to my primary school during the long, exceptionally cold Winter of 1962/63.

The distance was about half a mile and, although I was warmly dressed with duffel coat, gloves, long socks and stout shoes, I still wore my usual grey short trousers.

Looking back, it seems amazing, but neither my mother or I gave the matter any thought at all. It was just expected that I would wear shorts all year round regardless of the weather. I didn't even have a pair of long trousers to wear instead, even if I had complained of cold legs - which I never did.

The few boys who did wear long trousers usually got them saturated from trudging through the deep snow, so wearing shorts did have its advantages.

Toughening Lads for possible Military Service was once the logic. Many PE Teachers having served in the Military also added to the often extreme Discipline.
However it was still Irrational to make this assumption in the Early 80s! Also Boys back then where quite tough given the lack of Central Heating etc
Northern Ireland was blanketed in deep snow in 1963. Hence Shorts were totally impractical.
We Boys had to clear snow from the Pitch, around the School Grounds and also the Girls School Opposite.
Outdoor Games and Shirts Vs Skins continued despite the frozen ground. Those horrible Plimsolls Caused many Chilblains!
But we were tough alright. The problem is the Experience put many people off Sport for life. Particularly later say the 1980's when Corporal Punishment was often replaced by gruelling Exercise Sessions during Detention!

Sterling,I believe the rationale for keeping boys in shorts was to toughen them up and make them hardy and therefore able to withstand cold weather.
I don't recall the winter of 1963,but I do recall other cold winters particularly the one of 1981 when temperatures plummeted to-27 degrees.
Shorts were usually purchased in August in warmer climes and no consideration was ever given to the harsh winters that lay ahead.
Shorts were considerably shorter in the 80's and withstanding the cold weather was an ordeal.

I was wearing long trousers by the time of the winter of 1962/63 as were all my class-mates.
However we still had to do PE and cross-country topless.

As James Rightly Remarked Keeping Teenage Boys in Shorts in such a cold Climate is Totally Irrational!
For those of you who remember the Big Freeze in 1963 and spent it in Shorts will concur!
It was so cold the Sea Froze. Yet lads still commuted to School in Shorts!

Mr Anderson, your explanation is great and I think we have been molly coddling boys ever since. A form of National service be brought back for male & female at 18 years of age. (not in the armed services) but to give some idea of discipline or give the existing youth organisations such as Scout Guides cadet services etc funding so that they can encourage more to join up.

I would see it as a step forward'to take boys in forms 1-3 out of short trousers'which would have seen boys over 14 years old still wearing shorts.
As you said'this would only be optional'and boys,like myself could still have been enforced to wear shorts till they left school.
I wouldn't have considered it'mollycoddling' to put boys in long trousers at that age only appropriate items of clothing particularly in the cold winter months.

Hello Dave,

You pose a question about why shirts were introduced for PE and lads didn't see a need to wear them.

In the run up to the start of the new academic year in 1976 there was a general review of the school uniform and a few relatively minor changes were made which included shirts and socks for PE, grey shirts were changed to white ones and boys in forms 1-3 were given the option of long trousers as opposed to shorts. For the first time also swimming trunks were included in the uniform list, black speedo style trunks were prescribed - bearing in mind that they were the only sort of trunks you saw in those days.

The uniform review came about I understand because in September 1975 for the first time ever two women were appointed to the board of govenors and they had many (strident) views about how the school should be run which did not go down well with the chairman (a retired brigadier), the headmaster or indeed the other govenors or senior masters.

The uniform review was brought about to keep the two women occupied and seen as harmless to the running of the school. They had lots of ideas about things that should be changed and how the school could be made more friendly towards the boys to which the chairman of govenors responded that he was not authorising anything that turned out 'molly coddled nancy boys'.

Having conducted the uniform review the two women felt very satisfied that they had made great changes to the school and that they had done their duty after a year and were replaced by two more men who didn't see the need to change anything.

So the uniform list changed and lads in forms 1-3 started to wear long trousers, as lads needed new shirts white ones were bought - probably a lot less popular with mothers than grey ones, swimming trunks started to be worn though many of the older lads didn't bother with them and on the two lunchtimes the pool was reserved to staff I didn't see trunks worn until about 1985 and as I said before very gradually lads started to wear shirts for PE.

Dave, I suspect the issue with boys doing PE shirtless in a mixed gender class these days would be that it'd be deemed unfair to the girls rather than the boys. The reasoning would be that girls would not be allowed to do as the boys did - not that boys shouldn't have to to take their tops off.
I was certainly required to do PE with my top off many times and that included occasions when girls were watching, so what? As you say, it shouldn't really be any different to swimming.

"As far as I know boys still normally swim without tops when girls are present. I really cannot see why it would be considered inappropriate for boys to do p.e. shirtless in mixed classes."

I think that's the key point. There are girls everywhere at swimming pools..etc and boys swim without shirts.Why is it any difference at PE lessons? It's the same.

George
I agree entirely with your comments. I went to an all boys school in the 60's as was called then Secondary Modern. PE was shorts definitely no underwear and plimsolls and no tops. AS you say communal showers afterwards.
In response other comments, for swimming we were taken by coach to the council swimming pool for a session reserved for our school. We did wear swimming trunks and those days all that was available were what are now known as Speedo's( although I think mine came from Woolworth's)

And yes George as you say have lads become to feminised or soft. Nowadays it is considered bad form for males to wear swimming trunks i.e. brief type bikini trunks, yet we see females of all shapes and sizes wearing the minimum of swimwear and that is considered acceptable.

There are some very interesting comments here including some I do not understand at all.
I attended an all boys grammar school in the 60s and we wore nothing but a pair of shorts in the gym and for some outdoor activities including cross country. We showered afterwards, naked, of course.
I think this was all quite common at the time though barefoot cross country may not have been as common as doing it bare-chested. As one person said the plimsolls that were the only available alternative to bare feet were not much use and I was happy not to have to clean a pair after a muddy run.
There was, of course, no question of the way we did p.e. being abusive - it was the way things were and we just got on with it. I think most us were happy with the freedom of our sparse kit - I for one would have hated to have been forced to wear more. In those days boys were boys and girls were girls. Boys were allowed, encouraged even, to be tough and most of us really enjoyed that.
As far as I know boys still normally swim without tops when girls are present. I really cannot see why it would be considered inappropriate for boys to do p.e. shirtless in mixed classes. Has the feminisation of boys really gone this far?

Dave, I reckon the reason for PE being done with shirts today is because most schools are mixed and do mixed gender PE lessons. Obviously it would be inappropriate to not wear shirts during those lessons. Even in single sex schools, the fact that it became a norm in other schools probably led to it becoming the norm in single sex schools as well.

Hi Mr. Anderson! I have some question. You've written:

"White T shirts became part of the PE kit at school in about 1976 but it was quite a few years before wearing them became a norm. Lads who had never had a shirt didn't see the need for them and new lads thought it more manly not to wear one so they came in gradually over quite a few years. While teaching I never wore a shirt right up to 1982. "

If lads didn't see the need to wear any shirt for PE and hadn't any problem havint to do PE without shirts why the schhol introduced T-shirts for PE? Wasn'it unnecessary?

Nick,

My Ex was also at secondary school in the 1970s and they had the same rules.
He also said that some of his classmates could really have done with wearing a jockstrap sooner than the third year!

To Mr. Anderson

I'm afraid you misjudged me. I have nothing to do with the "abuse industry" nor do I wallow in misery. I just thought your punishments were extreme, even in the context of the time. But let's just agree to differ on that matter.

However, I do admire you. In your school, boys and masters were stripped to the waist in PE classes. Boys were not allowed to wear underpants and you imposed that rule upon yourself to empathise with your boys. Maybe they knew, maybe they didn't but the important thing is that you were the same as them and for that, you deserve credit.

How did that go?
They were not required for us but it was suggested that if we felt uncomfortable, we should get one. They were on sale in the PE dept.
It seemed like a case of 'joining the big boys' for us, and I suppose I was curious as well, so I went ahead and got one, and so did one or two friends.
We were self-conscious at first, especially as they showed through the thin shorts but I found them much more comfortable than nothing. Also a requirement for holding a cricket box, of course. I remember 'forgetting' to take mine off one day for the long journey home.

At school in the 1970s we were not allowed to wear underpants for pe or other sports but from the third form onwards we were required to wear a jockstrap.

I agree with Willy many Private (Public) Boarding Schools and particularly PE Teachers in all types of Secondary Schools, were infamous for their cruelty!
I remember boys with aching Chilblains after running on frozen ground and through icy puddles in those horrible Rubber Soled Pumps! They gave no support whatsoever and didn't protect the soles while running on gravel. Worn with no socks, which seemed to be a Nationwide Ban, they were sweat boxes in Summer and Freezing when soaking wet in Winter!
Hence many ran barefoot!
As for the limited kit, Early Morning Winter Runs in nothing but thin, white transparent when wet shorts, followed by Cold Showers They Wouldn't do it to Prisoners, even then!
Yet People Paid Handsomely to subject their kids to this?
Different Times alright!