Burnley Grammar School

T, Interesting that your experience mirrors mine many years before: initially nervous, eventually confident and then not bothering whether you're nude or not in the showers queue or changing room. It helped that we had no choice and were all treated the same.

The photos I mentioned bear this out. The foreground figures in McBride's might well be posed but the boys in the background are not and seem entirely relaxed; and the American boys are unconcerned that they are all naked in the showers, as if it's completely natural, which I suppose it is.

William, I have to agree with you that communal showers can help a lot in terms of not being shy. When I first started secondary school nine years ago, I was pretty shocked to hear that we were supposed to shower after every swimming lesson and that we had to take our swimwear off before doing so. Eventually, we all got used to it and didn't even bother covering up with towels in the queue!
So little things like this do boost your confidence

Louise,

Our PE teacher was a stickler for us wearing the correct PE kit and made us wear some from the lost property cupboard which if we forgot our own (which we hated as it was usually grubby and smelly!).

She had a rather different attitude to bras than yours; far from forbidding them to be worn, she would sometimes 'suggest' that it was time that certain girls started to wear one!

I would imagine that for some, running around topless towards the end of year 7 must have been uncomfortable and embarrassing?

I assume that they were allowed in later years you were allowed to keep them on?

Louise,I was a little more than concerned and wondered what a man who said that was doing teaching PE in a girls school.However, your female teacher doesn't sound much better and I can imagine her. She probably chose the kit she wanted girls to wear from year 8 onwards until you were aged 18 so I hope none of you ever forgot your kit.With boys it's different; we didn't need anything other than a pair of shorts in the gym or outside and as we got very hot and sweaty we needed to be naked in the showers together in order to wash properly and it wasn't a problem. However, your teacher was very insensitive making girls shower when they were having their periods and it must have been very unpleasant for any who suffered heavy periods.Surely, if you brought a doctor's note this would have excused you.She shouldn't have been snooping around in the changing room anyway, our teacher never did. We knew we needed to shower and all got on with it.But then again, we were all boys and had it easy.

Rob, in fact we always had to shower after our PE lessons. Very often our PE teacher would be in the changing room or at least come in at some point so there was no way of not showering, even if you didn't want to. Being on your period didn't get you out of it either; our teacher said that you still needed to get clean after sweating in her lesson.

At the end of my earlier message it was supposed to read "I remember her saying we were lucky to be allowed our pants!" Sorry for not correcting the bad typo!

Andrea, no one was allowed to wear a bra for PE in yr7. Our PE teacher made it really clear that all we could wear was a pair of pants. I tenner he saying that we were lucky to be allowed our pants!

Rob,
Our PE kit in the early 1970s was white polo shirt and navy gym knickers. The shower rules were the same as described by your wife. A few girls would try to get out of showers by saying they were on their period when they weren't, but our PE teacher soon got wise to them!

Louise,
Were you allowed to keep your bra on if you were doing PE in underwear, or was it strictly knickers only?

The recent discussion has highlighted the change in attitude between now and 50 years ago towards nudity in single sex schools. We had communal showers at school after gym and were told to get on with it as we were all boys together and there was no reason to be embarrassed. Most of us quickly stopped being shy about being nude. I never saw a master behave improperly in any way.

Will McBride famously photographed the boys washing at Salem School in 1963. Germany has always been more relaxed about nudity than Britain; but the US was more like us and there the change in attitude has been equally striking. In Life magazine dated 13 Jan 1941 there is an article on Democracy in US Schools which includes a photo of about 20 boys back view in a communal shower. Life was a mainstream magazine widely available on US news stands and the photo was uncontroversial. Very different from today's attitudes.

As this is a history site I thought referring to a couple of primary sources would be interesting.

Gerald, I'm not the one you asked but I can say that it is an anomaly. Very very few schools still have compulsory showers, especially nude. It's a shame because the area covered by swimwear is one of the places most prone to infection.

Gerald, it was an anomaly as none of my friends from other schools had the policy of compulsory showers after swimming. I'm glad that this is a rare case, more and more schools are realising that showers are better done in the privacy of one's own home rather than in front of your classmates.

Louise, my wife told me that at the mixed school she attended in the 60's the girls PE kit was white shorts and polo shirts. After every PE lesson they all had to go naked in the communal showers unless they were having their period when they were excused showers. No doubt this quite normal for girls at that time and you probably didn't have to take showers at your school. At the boys school I attended, we wore just shorts and plimsolls and nothing else and of course there was no excuse for anyone not going naked in the showers afterwards.

T, thank you for the response. So it seems that even today schools still allow for nude showers. Was this the case at other schools do you think or was your school an anomaly?

I've read most of the comments and a lot of people are surprised that girls used to have to do PE in their underwear or even just their knickers, but a lot of these messages relate to lessons in the early 1990s and earlier.

I'm 24 and went to an all girls school from the ages of 11-18. When I was in year seven in 2004 we did indoor PE twice a week and we didn't have PE kit. We all had to just strip down to our knickers and do the lesson like that. It was embarrassing to start with and it was cold in the winter! From year eight onwards we got a kit to wear but it was a pair of tiny gym knickers and a thin cotton vest, always with bare feet. If we forgot our kit then it was back to doing it in our underwear!

Daryl, I agree with your point that showering is important. After swimming, showers were compulsory at my school. Most of us did take our swimwear off before hitting the showers. Since the showers were communal, you can understand why some might have preferred to keep their swimwear on, however the rules were that swimwear should not be worn in the showers.

T, thanks for your answer. Was showering done with or without trunks? And did you have to shower after PE or just after swimming?

In my day, if you even considered not showering you were given the slipper and made to shower. It's just not hygienic to go from high octane exercise to a lesson without having washed yourself. T, did your school have showers? And was it compulsory to shower?

Gerald, at my school, the sports we played were football, basketball, rugby, cross country, gymnastics and athletics.
There was compulsory showers after swimming but not after PE.
It is a state-run boys only school.

T, were there showers after PE or did you not have them?
Also, what sports did you play during your time at the school? And was this at a private or state run school?

T thank you for your response. Your comments re underwear show how times have changed since I was at an all boys school from 1961 to 1966

Yes we wore our normal underwear under our shorts. All our kit was bought from a supplier so everyone wore the same kit.

T it is interesting to read comments from a person who has recently left school. For PE were you allowed to wear pants under your shorts or like us from older generation was underwear banned? The fact that you wore swimming briefs in the pool is interesting but I assume that was the rules, because one rarely sees males wearing swimming briefs in public these days

At my school, we did PE in shorts and a t-shirt. For team games, we would use different bibs and for colder days, such as for cross country, we wore jumpers. I finished school last year so this is quite an accurate representation. For swimming, we wore swim briefs.

In response to Willy.

Swimming lessons were in an indoor pool not large enough for spectators with a male supervising master.

Edward, can you describe how the swimming sessions were carried out?
Were they swimming lessons or free swims?
Did you have swimming competitions or galas in front of spectators?
Also were female teachers or staff ever present during your nude swims?

In response to Willy.

I attended a boy's only Preparatory/Public School.

Swimming without trunks was obligatory for all.

Edward, could you elaborate and clarify further, was it a primary, prep or secondary school?
Was it a boys only or mixed school?

Further to recent comments tradition was not the pretext to swimming naked at the school that I attended in the early sixties.The regime was imposed at the whim of the Headmaster.

'Get used to it' was the response from other staff.

Participating nude was initially daunting, but I became accustomed to it, with the added benefit of no wet trunks.

In response to your comments Willy, I think you are correct. It was either school or district policy that governed rules on nude swimming. We had weekly swimming lessons at our secondary school but we were taken b y coach to the local municipal pool. It was a session just for our school which all boys but swimming trunks were worn. For PE it was like most schools shorts no pants or top and plimsolls only no socks. Our parents knew this and no one thought anything about it.

I expect at the first lesson I thought it strange and felt a bit uncomfortable but I knew what was coming because my elder brother was already attending the school and he had told me about the minimal clothing in PE and I know he tried to tease me by saying that with no pants and only shorts everything would hangout. In spite of everything we all survived.

In answer to the question about dress for PE today I know from my son's high school ti is shorts for outdoor football etc. although winter he can wear track suit bottoms and they always wear a top and underwear. There is no mention of showers and he does not have to take a towel. It seems from what he says several PE and sports lessons are spent talking about the theory of keeping fit with very little exertion

It was not teachers that made boys swim nude. It was either the school policy or district policy.
If it was illegal it would never have happened anywhere.
The main reason was tradition and the culture of the time. In fact most all parents of the time accepted it as normal and never objected.
It was the same with PE kit of shorts only or underpants unly, or even supervised communal showers at school, all of which would be seen as unacceptable today.
I guess the only tradition from among these that still survives today, though probably getting rarer, is the compulsary communal shower after PE.
Does anyone here know of any schools which still have any of these old traditions?

I never minded nude swimming once we got used to the idea. Equally communal showers were quite healthy places where there was always a bit of chat and banter which was much more fun that the closed cubicles of today.

It's always a mistake to judge other times by values of a different age. I certainly never met a teacher who seemed to have any untoward intentions, no doubt a very few did but it's so wrong to judge the majority on the basis of that.