Burnley Grammar School

Edward and Matthew, can you name the schools which you were in which had this practice?
I don't think this would be a problem since it was so long ago and thousands of pupils must have gone to those schools.
When did this practice stop, if it did?
Can you produce some document or verification from your school or its website, or any other school official website, to confirm that this was the rule at the time?

Another poster gave a link to the old pupils site of the school he went to where he claims that both boys and girls swam nude together as normal. There is all mention of every trivial thing that happened there in their days by these old pupils, but none mention anything about nude swimming.

So if it was so widespread as some claim why is there no verifiable mention of it anywhere, at least that I know of?

To 'Curious". I would suspect that in the case of schools where naked swimming was the practice, maybe the uniform lists didn't mention trunks. It is also quite possible that new intake pupils were aware of what to expect from having friends or family already at the school.

Matthew,doing PE in only shorts is one thing, but made to swim nude as school rules is quite another.

Are there any documents which show in the school rules that boys must swim in the nude?

Such rules would obviously be public, since parents and prospective parents would have to be notified about it, among the other rules concerning uniform and others, and thus nothing secret about it.

In reply to 'curious' concerning nude swimming which was mandatory. As Matthew said, if a boy defiantly wore trunks, he would be ridiculed by his classmates, as I was, and so I joined the others naked, as vehemently instructed by the PE master. One did as one was told in the 1950's. I would have been disciplined had I not complied. Everyone just had to get on with it, like it or not.

To "Curious", the lack of newspaper articles is no doubt due to the fact that the practice was fairly widespread and those who were subjected to it had to just accept it.
If any boy got his parents to insist that he had to wear trunks and the school agreed to it, that boy would have been ridiculed by his peers. In my school, PE was done wearing only shorts. I remember that a boy wore a vest one day and it appeared that his parents had insisted that he should wear one. He was subjected to such an amount of mockery that he soon ditched the vest.

In my school gym every piece of apparatus seemed specifically designed to offer the maximum degree of hazard. I was terrified of climbing those ropes and having to risk breaking my neck somersaulting over the vaulting horse, yet I had to do it.

The teacher was a humourless bully, and any hesitation in following his commands, or failure to perform to his expectations, was painfully punished.

Adding in the perishing cold of the place and our scant clothing, the school gym was nothing more than a torture chamber so far as I was concerned. The dank changing rooms and communal, often freezing showers afterwards, contributed the final touch of misery.

Years of this experience three times a week, put me off any kind of sport in later life.

Are there any pictures or reliable newspaper articles which show the evidence of nude swimming in British schools?
The only evidence I have seen from reliable newspaper articles, though without any pictures, are about Manchester Grammar school and Summerhill, which was a unique liberal school.
There are many such accounts on blogs and forums, where one can say what they like, so not that much reliable.

If this practice of nude swimming in schools was so widespread, as many claim here, why are there no reliable articles or mention of it during that time?

Another memory from that picture......the climbing ropes.
For the first few sessions on the gym I was terrified of the ropes. Everyone else seemed to be able to climb them, I couldn't get more than a foot off the ground! We had to do circuits of the equipment....I couldn't do the ropes.
One day when, for some reason there were very few of us in the gym and little pressure, I decided to give it my best shot. Suddenly I got the knack, up I went to the top and then froze. They had to send helpers up the wall bars to coax me down! I never managed it again.

"Surely there is no nude swimming in schools these days."

Matthew, I am also curious about this, though seems unlikely.
But mandatory group showers still seem to be a rule in some schools.

About Rick's post, I find it plausible that some schools had mandatory nude swimming, but I never heard of mandatory chastity belts for boys in schools that he mentions. He must have gone to a very special school if that was the case.

I doubt it very much, or there would be a lot of court cases etc.
I certainly remember the woollen trunks at the sea side in my earlier years.
Starting off ok when dry but uncontrollably droopy when wet.

Matthew I agree with your last comments,implausible.

Edawrd, interesting reference to woollen swimming trunks. I remember them all itchy & scratchy. On summer holidays I used to be envious of boys I saw wearing the synthetic material trunks and was so happy when woollen ones were no longer available and I got a pair of "speedo type" tunks, which in turn seem to have gone out of fashion with youngsters opting for board shorts that cling to the legs.

Surely there is no nude swimming in schools these days.

My comment "Implausible" posted on 7th February, referred to Rick's posting.

Following upon my earlier comments about swimming at school. In the early 1950's, I attended a devoutly Christian boy's school in southern England.

At assembly, the Headmaster,an ex Naval officer, announced 'No one will wear bathing suits this term', which created much murmuring amongst the boys. I was appalled, since the first swim session was only two weeks away. In fact, I was extremely apprehensive. Needless to say, this bombshell was not greeted with much enthusiasm, and most boys said that they would continue to wear woollen trunks.

The swimming class soon came around and I perversely resolved to keep my trunks on, whilst all the other 15 or so boys in the class capitulated. Obviously, I was the one soon noticed by the supervising master, before I had even entered the water. He shouted at me to take my trunks off, and reluctantly I had to remove them. I was now unashamedly nude, along with my fellow classmates. Trunks would never be worn again by any boy for normal school swim classes.

On that first day of this new swimming regime, I walked to the footbath, then back to wait dutifully in line, to be told when and where to enter the pool. It felt strange, wearing nothing at all, and decidely airy, with the whole class displaying their bareness. No place for shyness here. It was not on the agenda.

I entered the water. Since I was unable to swim, I stayed at the shallow end. My lack of ability soon became evident, and subsequently, I was put in a swimming class of three. One afternoon, myself, and the other two non swimmers went to the indoor pool, where the instructor was waiting, wearing swimming shorts. We boys stripped at the poolside, and stood there in our birthday suits, rather self consciously. I was the first to be directed to balance precariously, face down, upon a wooden contraption, in order to practice breast strokes. This was humiliating, since I was trying to protect myself, whilst unavoidably exposing my backside. The other two boys laughed at my predicament. Soon it would be their turn. Later, I put on a harness of sorts, which was to be supported by the instructor, and having started at the deep end, I somehow managed to swim to the other end. I have been able to swim, albeit poorly, ever since. The regular swim sessions were followed by showering in open stalls.

Even after many such swims, it still seemed odd, I suppose that I eventually became used to it, and I rather enjoyed the feeling of freedom it gave. No excused would have been contemplated anyway.

It seems that the practice of naked swimming was quite widespread in boy's private schools in the 1950's. Why this was so, I do not know ?

Implausible.

i was sent to an exclusive boys boarding school where there were only 3 years 14-16 with only 12 boys in each year.
the new years intake the 14 yr olds had to assemble in the canteen and strip naked and put our folded clothes in front of us.we were taken 3 at a time into an adjoining room which was set up like a hospital room with 3 beds and 3 nurses present.we each had to lie on a bed where a nurse would shave our pubes off. we were then each fitted with a chastity device,these were taken off once a week for cleaning and any new shaving.
we were told that our parents had agreed to this,and we found this to be true,because when we went home at holiday times we were sent home with them on and being told that a key had been posted home to our parents.
it was humiliating being controlled like this,both at school and at home.

PE stripped to the waist, naked swimming, communal showers, brutal punishments - there is ample evidence on this site that some if not all of these formed part of our experience in school days. However, I find Bob's account implausible.

Having read the many comments re PE and shorts, it is apparent that generally there was a uniformity expected about pe kit in most schools. Furthermore, I expect most schools had a unifrom and strictly enforced it. But did any school go as far as mine whereby,boys were told "not to wear" the string type singlets that were fashionable in the 60s/70s because they were visible underneath our white shirts. No mention was made of course about wearing string briefs because they obviously were not visible.

Was this type of underwear generally worn?

I went to a Northern School in the 60's. Early on in my secondary shool days I remember one unpleasant day for me.
One day due to emergency repairs being required, all our year's three classes had to be sent out of the building.
We were sent across the road to a neighbouring secondary school. The gym (or hall?) had no windows that could be looked through from outside. Of course many of the boys had no PE kit with them as they were not expecting this event.
We were told that in this school it was the norm for boys to do PE naked. Perhaps this was true, I do not know. On this day we were to be combined with pupils from the other school, so there was a large number of us. I saw with alarm that some of the more extrovert boys from our school had dashed naked across the street to the school opposite. Reluctantly, a group of us went and joined them as instructed wearing just our PE shorts. On entering the hall I was horrified to be told that we were to take off our shorts and leave them in a neat pile by the door, which we did. We were informed that this was to make everyone appear the same, regardless of wether they had the correct kit or not. I recall there was an hour or two of excercises, mostly sitting or lying on the hard wooden floor, and sometimes dashing about the hall, still naked. When we were eventually allowed back into our own building, we had to sort through the pile of white PE shorts to find our own pair before returning over the road. I do not think activity happened more than once or twice, thankfully.

Yes. Cold house was the norm.
My parents managed to rent a house with two sitting rooms when i was about one year old when they left their first flat which was over a shop.
They had no money to furnish the front room and it stayed completely empty for a number of years. Every Sunday their two arm chairs, a small square table and the mains table radio were moved into that room and after Sunday lunch and we spent the afternoon and evening in there. After I went to bed, the furniture and the "wirless" were moved back to the back room and we spent the rest of the week there.
This was still going on when I was about seven and they got their first tv. That was moved into the front room on Sundays but they had managed to buy a there piece suite by then.
We had a coal fire in one room only (front room on Sundays!) and the paraffin heater in the hall. It had to heat the hall, stairs bathroom and three bedrooms! Ice on the windows and no loft insulation. My bedside table was a wooden orange crate.
One memorable event was the purchase of a single bar electric fire which went on the landing on really cold nights and in the bathroom with a long taped-up flex and a big two-pin plug (!!!!) on bath night to stop the icicles forming!
(I know this belongs in the house and home section, but previous comments here brought it all to mind. I might copy it across.)

The comments about conditions at home in winter time certainly brought back a few chilly memories!
Another couple of things I remember about the winters are the smell of the small paraffin heater used in our downstairs toilet to stop the pipes freezing overnight and also that occasionally if milk bottles were left outside too long the milk would sometimes freeze and 'pop' the foil cap on the bottle.

On a more general note, I remember my younger sister and I having to use the same bathwater to save heating another tankful. I used to think it unfair that she always got to have first go. Mind you she would probably say that it evened things up for the fact that quite often she had to wear clothes I had outgrown!

I can also remember how popular one of my friends suddenly became when her parents were the first in our street to get a colour TV!

Well Rob, regarding your comments, I think I understand what the teacher was trying to do to prevent futher tomfoolery. Was it effective? The thought of being "invited" to touch another boy seems odd, something that would not happen nowadays. But of course this would have been a completely different era. Was it the 50's or 60's?

In reply to Bill. Nude swimming was a shock at first, but one reluctantly had to get used to it, and it continued until leaving school.No excuse was tolerated. Supervision was by male teachers. In any competitions, if the competing school wore trunks, then we would wear trunks also. Inter house school competitions would be strictly without trunks.

I recall that during PE in the gym boys would often grab at each others shorts and pull them down if they thought no one was looking. I was often picked on, and slapped or kicked in the crotch, maybe because I was an early developer in that area.

The PE teacher evidently decided we were taking too much notice of other boys' masculinity. One day we were formed into groups of ten or so, and made to stand shoulder to shoulder in a circle. He told us to lower our shorts to our knees and study each others genitalia. I resisted initially but had to comply, no doubt with a red face. We were then invited to touch the boy to our right. All this was apparently intended to make us feel less embarrassed about our naked bodies in future, enabling us to concentrate on the physical excercises and sporting activities.

Edward, what was the compulsary nude swimming like and up to what age?
Did you ever have female spectators like teachers or school staff or swimming galas?
From what several posters on this forum and other sites say this custom of compulsary nude swimming for boys seems to have been more common and widespread than I thought.
It also seems to have been more common in the north of England and the Midlands. I lived in the south, in the London area and didn't know of any schools which had this practice. Maybe it was more common in private schools. Most public schools didn't have a pool anyway.
I wonder if there are still any schools which still have this practice of compulsary nude swimming.

Regarding the spartan conditions at school endured by most pupils 50 or 60 years ago, it is worth remembering that in those times our homes were pretty uncomfortable too, by modern standards.

With no central heating, my home had only the main living room that was heated, from a coal fire, in Winter. Every other room, apart from occasionally the kitchen, was virtually a 'no-go' area owing to the bitter cold.

Each Winter evening my family gathered around the hearth in the living room, listening to the radio or watching the flickering 12" black & white TV screen. I would be doing my homework seated at the table at the other side of the room, but taking my time because I was usually sent to bed as soon as I had finished it.

Bedrooms were only used for sleeping in. Windows were large and single glazed and the lucky ones took a hot water bottle to bed to warm up the icy cold sheets. By morning the whole house was freezing cold with frosty 'fern patterns' on the insides of bedroom windows.

We expected nothing else during Winter and were well accustomed to those conditions, so we didn't feel disadvantaged. Complaints were rare and ignored anyway.

No comment about the transparency of shorts would have arisen at the all boys school that I attended many decades ago now, since swimming naked was compulsory, as were communal showers. There was also a strictly enforced no underpants rule for all sports, all unquestioned at the time.

We had lengthy cross country runs with the route taking us through villages,lanes and main roads.
I do recall some rude comments being made and also some tooting of car horns.This led further to our embarrassment and humiliation when having to wear our almost transparent shorts.
Ironically we were told to behave and treat people with respect when out of school grounds and not to bring disgrace on the school.

Actually I really don't remember any comments but it was on the edge of the town so there was only a short bit housing to run past. The rest was woodland and rural roads.
Although I say run, I was more likely to be wondering along taking short cuts!

James, did you ever get comments from the public or passers by when you had to go through town streets on country runs in just those skimpy transparent shorts that you mention?

Fortunately at my school we wore the older type thicker material shorts and vests for PE, and we never went for cross country runs.

It wasn't just the material that I found the shorts unsuitable but the way they were cut into very skimpy shorts.
I certainly didn't turn my shorts up as others have said but I was forever trying to pull them down slightly.