Burnley Grammar School

With reference to the posting by Guy, it is the teacher's responsibility to keep his class under his direct supervision at all times. However much Guy might have liked the scenario he describes, it is a figment of his imagination.

Our Grammar School kit all year was just shorts. No top and bare feet and everyone loved it in the whole school and that is today. No boxers underneath and most lads had erections all periods and we enjoyed the wanking in showers afterwards or if the PE master left we had a most enjoyable extra session. This happens from first year at The Grammar.

Gedvin, which school was this?
Did anyone watch you during your nude swimming classes, like teachers or staff, especially of the opposite sex?

John ... Yes we had our own pool. For school swimming up to end of junior school we had to swim naked so up to age 12 or 13, in the senior school we were asked to wear trunks. School swimming was once a week and house swimming twice a week. School competitions necesitated the wearing of trunks ... They had to be Speedo type as any other was regarded as too informal!

Hi Dave. It was at an all boys grammar school in England 1955-1961. My parents had a list of the uniform which included a T-shirt for PE. My mother told me that she had learned from the mother of a boy down the road who attended the school that 'in the summer the boys go around outside with nothing on', meaning no shirt when they had PE outside. I thought nothing of this at the time.ynzc2However, at the first PE lesson the teacher told us all to go to the changing room and take everything off, including our pants and socks and come back to the gym wearing just pe shorts and plimsolls. On the way to the changing room the topic of conversation was whether we were allowed to wear a T-shirt, to which I and others said, no, just shorts and plimsolls.We all duly stripped off and returned to the gym as instructed and I am not aware that the matter of PE kit ever became a further talking point. If we had team games in the gym, each team wore different colour bands across their chests.

Some researcher in the future is going to be dumbfounded that this topic has had so many (over 1000) replies over so many years all saying more or less the same thing! What is so intriguing about it?

Hi Rob! Was there any comments among boys getting to know having to be shirtless for PE? Were it a talkin point among the boys sometimes? How did you get to know the compulsory PE kit? Was it in a list or the teacher himself told it to you? Hod did you play team games if you all were barechested? Which decade was it? Was it in England?

Dan, This was at an all boys grammar school. At my small primary school we didn't do pe but just moved around the school hall to 'Music & Movement' on the radio wearing our normal clothes.So it was a bit of a culture shock at the grammar school the first time when I had to strip off completely and wear just a pair of shorts and plimsolls.I remember taking off my sleeveless vest in the changing room and feeling strange wearing nothing on top.No doubt a lot of others felt the same but we very soon got used to it and enjoyed the freedom. Again I was apprehensive the first time about taking my shorts off and going in the showers but after that I felt no embarrassment.

Rob, was this in primary or secondary school?
From what I gather showers after PE in primary schools would have been rare, unless it was a boarding school.
I am also curious how many posters here had the no swimsuit rule at their school with swimming pools.

We certainly weren't allowed to wear underpants.Our kit was just shorts and plimsolls and that came off after every session as we always had compulsory showers.

The no-underpants rule for PE seems to have been common in many schools, though not at my school. I guess it did not apply to girls in most schools either, if any. But we did have showers after PE.
I wonder how many here had compulsary showers after PE.

With gang showers after PE we were used to being naked together, so I don't see that nude swimming would have made any difference.

@ Gavin: your school had its own pool,didn't it? How was swimming organised and conducted there?

Graham with regard to your comments about pajamas. I remember for scout camp the camp list always included PJ's,and they were packed. However, when on camp and in tents I remember that we opted to sleep in our pants in our sleeping bags. After a couple of nights we had opted to sleep naked. It seemed macho and we were away from our parents control. If we went to the loo in the middle of the night( which was usually over the other side of the field.) We would go over there naked. This was in the era before girls joined the scouts

Dave, to answer your questions: yes, my school was all boys. Until our first PE lesson in the gym I think we were under the impression that we'd be wearing vests as part of the uniform. Then the teacher arrived, introduced himself and went through the register and promptly announced 'you boys won't be needing your vests for this lesson. Take them off and go and line up in the gym'. There were a few shocked stares and most of the boys went quiet, we hadn't expected that and a lot of us felt shy about doing the lesson shirtless. I did wonder what was the point of putting on a vest only to take it off straight away, but looking back that probably was the point - it suddenly made us feel vulnerable and less sure of ourselves. I certainly felt self conscious about my body for a while and so did most of my friends, but we all got used to it in time and I think it was no bad thing in the long term.

Hi Sam!

Hi Sam! What was your mates reaction having to do PE shirtless. How did you get to know it? Was it in a uniform list or the teacher told it to you himself? Was there anys reason given to you having to do PE shirtless? Was it an all boys school?

RE Mark's surprise (Dec 11th 2013) that a boarding school with a topless PE policy insisted on full PJs for sleeping, it would be interesting to know whether reality always reflects theory. Back when I started at a somewhat macho single-sex boarding school at the tender age of eleven (England, late 1950s early 1960s), the uniform list specified, inter alia, PE shorts (noting that PE was done topless), seven pairs of underpants (vests optional) and three pairs of pyjamas. So far, so conventional for the period - I did did PE topless at primary school, I stopped wearing vests before starting school, ditto most of my friends, and everyone I knew wore pyjamas in bed.

My first night in a dormitory of eight boys was a revelation. One by one, my room-mates stripped off uninhibitedly, revealing a universal lack of vests, showered, cleaned their teeth and equally uninhibitedly climbed into bed as naked as jaybirds. With this example, and reluctant to make an exhibition of myself by donning even the bottoms of my brand new pyjamas, all I could do was follow (birthday) suit, and ask questions afterwards! The boy in the next bed told me that PJs on the clothing list were a token gesture to convention. Under the school ethos, bare-chestedness was a manly trait required of all boys, especially for PE and sleeping, this manliness extending to not wearing vests, even in winter. Even more manly was sleeping nude, not formally mandatory but actively encouraged, not that any encouragement appeared to be needed.

I often slept topless in hot weather with my parents' approval, but wearing nothing at all in bed, without either their approval or knowledge, was a new experience that I eagerly embraced. Going home at half-term, with three unused PJ sets and apprehension at disclosing my new-found nightwear preference, was stressful, not least because I had said nothing about it in my letters home. I needn't have worried. Mum and Dad, amused at the situation, spared no efforts in reassuring me that what I wore in bed was my own affair, even at home, and suggested that they might follow my example that night!

John: yes some thought we were 'posh' but actually we were just pretty normal. Just sent to the schools our parents had decided upon, I guess. I know Aylesbury grammar and a good friend of mine attended the school.

Mark - you are right about teachers and power trips - we did have some like that but not in p.e. Fortunately our p.e. teachers were generally supportive and encouraging. I was not particularly good at p.e. but enjoyed it partly because the teachers were so good and not interested only in the more able boys as was, I'm sure, the case in some schools.

@Gavin - Aylesbury Grammar . Yes rugby in winter and cricket in summer with running and PE .. Rarely did swimming at school .. I know your school as Berko isn't far away ... Posh boys then?

Hi Guys. Regarding power trips and teachers. many of our teachers did get off on the power trip of controlling those in their care.
Sadly I can remember some horrific incidents of teachers humiliating their pupils. Some indulged in bizarre punishments such as confiscating shoes and socks for the school day.
And with without a doubt there were teachers who did enjoy administering corporal punishment.

Paul, you ask was joining the Merchant Navy any more dignified than the Royal Navy.

The answer is a little but not much but then I started in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary so although we were civilians much was the same as the RN.

The selection was again a three day event, we slept in open dormitories, there were waist high partitions in the toilets but no doors and of course communal showers. All fitness testing was done wearing white shorts and plimsols but other than that we wore our own clothes. For the medical we were naked but rather than stand in a line we had to move around stations in the room, there was a doctor and a male orderly at each one. All the same checks were done but at least when told to bend over the back of a chair I knew what to expect. Some lads still got a shock.

Medicals were like that on an annual basis and when I left the RFA and went to P&O there was still a group of us examined together.

To pick up on a point about school PE, I thought it was very 'grown up' to do PE wearing shorts only - we had black ones. It may have been something to do with the teacher telling us that we were men so we wouldn't wear shirts or for that matter underpants.

John: did all sport at my school ... You name it. What about you? Which school etc?

@ Gavin - oh that is an independent public school, isn't it? How much sport did you do there?

James - I certainly didn't consider it a hardship doing p.e. and games in just a pair of shorts - we thought it was very grown up and I remember feeling really alive running outside like that, especially in the winter.

I'm sure it was no great hardship wearing only shorts for sports and gym.
I was kept in short trousers all the year round and it could be chilly in the winter

I went to Berkhamsted School for Boys

That's true Rob, from what I know my friends who went to state schools didn't have the same emphasis on discipline or strict approach to PE kit.
To be honest with you, at first I didn't enjoy doing PE with my top off, partly because I was a skinny boy and partly because I wasn't expecting it! The kit we were told to get included a vest, then when we turned up for the first lesson in the gym we were suddenly ordered to take them off. A lot of boys who had been fairly noisy up to that point suddenly quietened down.
But later on you're right, it felt much more comfortable to be shirtless, especially when you were sweating a lot (which was usually the case in PE). I was a fairly good distance runner and although we wore vests for races against other schools, we did most practice sessions shirtless. So with that and the shirts v skins house races, I soon got used to running in shorts only. Never even occurred to me that anyone might be lurking to try and take photos, but yes they wouldn't have been able to do that on the grounds.
Overall I think it's a good thing that my school did things that way, I think it made me more comfortable with my body and probably healthier as well.

@ Gavin - what school did you attend then?

Those black plimsolls were horrid and offered no support or competitive advantage. Quite unlike today's expensive running shoes.
Worn without socks, ones feet squelched around inside something awful. We only wore them for outdoor games and XC, when they would come off if you ran through a muddy patch. Most boys ran barefoot because of this.
Gym was shorts only.
My nephew's school doesn't permit barefoot PE, even in gym. If they don't have trainers with non marking soles they must sit out the class. Howwever, they do still play shirts vs skins.