Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Nick on 1st May 2024 at 02:44

https://www.facebook.com/camberleymemories/photos/a.1546972158849342/2613441038869110/?type=3


I like your photo Nick, all good looking nice boys of the time. You must have been the keen ones at PE there and all look perfectly presentable like that. I was also at school in Kent back in 1972 at a similar age to you at the time, I'd just gone up from primary then, and I remember sharing many PE lessons with boys my age at my school who didn't seem to stick tops on for PE much. Your old photo brought back quite a few memories for me there actually, it took me back to doing games outside with boys looking just like you lot there. I don't know if you or any of your class there felt bashful about it but you should not have done. I think you all look fine and well. I don't think the PE teachers ever made any distinction between boys doing things by themselves or with the girls and I myself never looked at boys in school PE lessons and thought it was unfair of them to be with us in bare chests, actually we would have expected it I think and might have been more surprised if they were not like it perhaps.

I agree with the other welcome female contributor here today, Veronica. I think Craig's running group is a lovely idea and it seems to be going great guns.

Veronica was gentle and made some good points Alan.

Your constant mischaracterisation of people's frustrations with your complete demolition of discussion on this board, backed up with insults really does suggest you to be unwell.

Comment by: Veronica on 4th May 2024 at 00:26


"I'm rather concerned about you Alan and why you remain committed to posting these press articles on the history forum and the one in particular which often mentions a specific named person."

Thank you for your faux "concern" Veronica. The reason I have named Quinlan is because for reasons, known only to themselves, the police refused to co-operate with the press in supplying photographs of that appalling pervert, even after conviction. It was only thanks to a whistle-blower (not me, I hasten to add, though I would have done it, had I known his whereabouts), that we can now see what the creep looks like (and he looks like a child molester straight out of central, casting - bald, fat, bespectacled and ugly) that after his first conviction, he was allowed, after serving a too-short prison sentence, to return to teaching and practising his perversions on a new set of boys. Had the police published his photograph, as they would with a common housebreaker or shoplifter, he might not have had the chance to re-offend, at least in a state school. The police, in my opinion, acted appallingly. They should be made to explain themselves.

I am not repeating my history here, except to say we had a paedo PE teacher who got away with it, because at that time there was no internet, and nobody would believe what a bunch of common kids knew to be fact, and other teachers didn't have the guts to challenge him, even though they were aware of the problem (as indeed other Royal Liberty teachers were at the time - read all the reference quoted by the Romford Recorder), bet read that than your amateur psychology on me. What did you read to reach your prolix conclusions on me, Veronica, Teach Yourself Amateur Psychology, or the Ladybird Book of the Bonce?.

It is no more questionable for me to mention cases of genuine concern (and remember two other - unnamed - as yet - teachers from the same school are being investigated for the same loathsome sort of behaviour than it is for all these middle aged men pretending they are still at school and deciding if they would be a"shirt or skin".

Does it not bother you that Quinlan is only "Vaguely aware" of the impending legal case (of course, he knows in a civil case he will not be imprisoned, as he should be), that he seems to have no shame, hides behind his solicitor and claimed to be "in a great hurry"? - an old man in his seventies, in a great hurry? Pull the other one. He should be manifestly aware of the legal action regarding his scabrous past behaviour. He was lucky the offences he was convicted of - twice - were before he would have been required to sign the Sex Offenders Register. At least everyone can now see what the pervert looks like.

In short, Veronica, I am sorry I cannot write in the manner of "Hello" or "The People's Friend" - nice cosy articles about a past viewed through rose-tinted glasses, where it is always a summer afternoon. MY life wasn't like that, even if yours was.

History dictates that we recall the very bad as well as the good - and Quinlan is part of very recent history. I also strongly suspect there are many other Quinlans, whom the law has not yet caught up with. But thern we were only boys - had it been girls or women he would have been inside for much longer - both times.

I'm rather concerned about you Alan and why you remain committed to posting these press articles on the history forum and the one in particular which often mentions a specific named person. I did believe I read something early in the year where you accepted it would not be appropriate or sensible to continue doing so. I can't help but wonder if you are holding back on the truth about yourself and in that old trick when asking for a friend you are infact asking for yourself, but in this instance maybe you are more directly involved in some of the articles than you feel willing and able to let on. Otherwise I cannot understand why you have taken some of these articles so deeply personal upon yourself. If you are simply an interested third party and no more than that I really think you should reconsider future postings of this nature. Yes, they are interesting and nobody should ignore such stories which can be all too frequent unfortunately, but they are still uncommon all the same. I just do not think a gentle history site such as this is the place for such intense and deep discussion on the criminality of former teachers. I'd much rather read about your own actual experiences and what you got up to than simply the need to use this forum as a soapbox for an actual agenda. I don't think I'm being too unfair stating this. The adults on this history site were not born yesterday, they all know that life is not perfect and that not everyone is a good person with good intentions and don't really need to be reminded of this.

Just to lighten the mood somewhat if I can also be allowed to answer David P's question, I feel quite certain my choice would be to remain a shirt, and I must say I liked reading your comment Craig, that's a lot of very brave men there in your group and one of the things that is supposed to aid mindfulness is an ability to get back to the nature all around us, get outside and feel it and the sensations it gives rather than be stuck inside or in cars or over protected from the environment we live in. When you are running without your shirts on you are clearly getting back to nature in some profound way. How interesting that so many men have wished to take the opportunity to do this up. I think it's rather magnificient.

I like this pinning our colours to the mast on the skins and shirts here. The 11 year old me faced with this choice in my grammar school in 1962 would have opted for;

Skins.

Choice was not available in 1962 however. We were skins anyway. Every time in gym. I'm sure it did the boys I was at school with more good than bad.

David P - Skins for me most definitely.

Comment by David P - Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?


Skins.

Why? It feels great. I had a stick thin white body but that didn't bother me at all.

We never actually volunteered to go skins at school though. It was always imposed from the teacher and was a regular instruction in all kinds of PE going. If you didn't like your body being on display in PE that would obviously feel unwelcome but few of us have the perfect shape or size or muscles we wished for.

It will come as little surprise to anyone on here that my choice between skins and shirts would have defiitely been.....SKINS.

I hope someone is keeping a tally on the skins v shirts score so far. It seems to be matching the ratio of 3 to 1 that the PE teacher discovered with his own pupils.

So to the real reason I checked back in this evening, to talk about bareskin running again. We've now got 36 members on our Whatsapp bareskin running group.

I'm a bit behind with my update, and you might recall me mentioning we had planned our biggest bareskin run for Easter Monday afternoon on April 1st. This did indeed take place with our biggest group ever, we finally got 24 of us to turn up and do something like 8 miles bareskin running through a local beauty spot off the regular track for the masses, using designated public rights of way. While running we did get caught in an unexpected brief shower, rain is cold on skin, but it was generally bright otherwise and fairly mild that day, about 16 degrees, perfect for a comfortable bareskin run and low humidity helped nicely too.

We try not to separate too much as we go and keep within a structured group. It's not about timing the distance or anything like that, just about the enjoyment of running and being shirtless while we do it, socialising and obviously the fitness aspect. We had three female partners come and run along with us on this occasion, dressed appropriately for their gender and not bareskin I should add, I don't think I needed to say so though.

We did bump into a late middle aged couple who thought our group were something to do with the army reserves out on a training exercise which was probably down to the numbers of us involved. Two dozen shirtless males running past you is noticeable. Their reaction was broad smiles. The core age range is 30s to 50s but we had some twenties and a couple of sixties this time. There is no bar to this bareskin whatsapp group based on age, any age is welcome, no upper limit other than the ability to actually run. There is no lower limit either, anyone over 16 can join us and I suppose if someone under that age and still at school wanted to come and join us too then as long as they had permission from parents then that would be accepted. We have a gent running with us who did try to persuade his 13 year old son, a keen runner at school, to join alongside him on one of our previous afternoon weekend runs when we went out with a group of six but he chose not to but not because it was bareskin.

Every single person who has done this has remarked how positive it makes them feel and everyone has come back for at least another go so far, and as I previously remarked we have men running bareskin who have admitted to lack of confidence and still done it and surprised themselves.

Here is another guy explaining and doing bareskin running on You Tube.

https://youtu.be/Qn8YjrTxk9w?feature=shared

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54

Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?

I'd pick skins.

At our school indoor PE was white shorts or blue shorts, so we didn't need to be in skins. But always were!

At long last (and no thanks to the Metropolitan Police who have always refused to issue this man's mugshot to the press, even after he was jailed), you can see this vile example of a PE teacher. You will note he shows no shame, no guilt, no remorse. And to think this is the sort of creature we are supposed to look up to:

https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/24292024.romford-paedophile-teacher-michael-quinlan-confronted/


I know some of you don't like mention made of this sort of story, but the fact that this sort of person exists this late in the day constitutes a warning not to be ignored.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54

Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?


Given a free choice, in all honesty I'd probably want to pick skins but chicken out at the last minute and go for shirts.

Shirts. Sorry.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?

I would choose the skins team.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?



Like Sean and Chris I would choose, then and even now - skins.

Seems like 3-0 to the skins so far!

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?


Although I never had a problem bring told to remove a shirt in a PE lesson back when I was at school, if I was being truthful to myself I would only ever choose to keep my shirt on and not to remove it, so shirts from me.

But I don't think there is anything fundamentally wrong with a PE teacher telling boys to remove their tops and go shirtless within the confines of an actual PE lesson or anything associated with PE that involves parental observation. It goes with the territory.

Comment by: Stephen on 2nd May 2024 at 11:11

"What does the latest press article pasted here prove? A silly drunken teacher to me at and after a party."


It proves, pace Marcus, that many teachers are not to be "looked up to". Some of them seem barely house- trained, put on a pedestal, when they are just very mediocre stupid individuals, and far from being looked up to, they should be treated with the derision they deserve.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to bem

Skins.

What does the latest press article pasted here prove? A silly drunken teacher to me at and after a party.

These stories can always be found in the media. They don't make the case for anything in my opinion. Every day I could pick out the latest story on someone using a knife lately but it does not mean every time I leave the house I'm going to bump into someone wanting to flash a blade at me does it and that every path I walk down is fraught with peril.

Comment by: David P on 2nd May 2024 at 01:54
Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?



I'd volunteer to be a skin quite easily without hesitation.

Further to my message of 5.21 the link did not link, so to speak, and renders the comment otiose. Here is the story as it appears in the Evening Standard:

"A deputy housemaster at a top London private school who grabbed his colleagues’ bottoms while making unwanted sexual advances has not been struck off.

Liam Oakes, who was a PE teacher at the £43,000-a-year Mill Hill School, made repeated advances towards two female colleagues at an end-of-term staff party on July 1, 2021 - even grabbing one in a headlock, a panel heard.

In a ruling on Friday, a teaching misconduct panel found his behaviour “unacceptable”.

But the panel did not bar him from the profession.

The hearing was told how Oakes, who previously taught GCSE and A-Level students at the boarding school, repeatedly asked one colleague “do you want to come home with me” at the pub gathering, grabbing her bottom despite her persistent rejections.

When the staff party returned to school grounds, he then attempted to follow her into a toilet, knocking on the cubicle door “over a number of minutes” before being told to leave by other members of staff.

At the same event, he grilled another colleague about her sex life, asking: “You must be really horny” and “When was the last time you had sex?”

As she stood up to walk away from him, Oakes followed her, attempting to grab her, “including at some point putting her in a headlock,” the panel heard.

This left her “in tears” and she then decided to leave the pub.

The panel also heard of an earlier incident in December 2019, where the second colleague shared a taxi back to her home with Oakes as she had agreed to let him stay in the spare room.

During the taxi ride, he repeatedly attempted to hold her hand, despite her saying “that's not happening”, and at the property, grabbed her bottom. This forced her to lock “herself in her own room”.

In mitigation, Oakes, who studied Sport and Exercise Science at Hertfordshire University, said he accepted his behaviour was “out of order”."


.....and uncivilized as well.

Comment by: Marcus on 1st May 2024 at 16:18


"When you're at school you generally look up to your teachers as if they can do no wrong....."

Really?. How wrong parents and pupils were to do that in the past - and they certainly shouldn't now.

Even at a young age, at my school, we were quite aware that some of them drank far too much, smoked too much, was too fond of using their fists, were time-worn old misanthropes - and two had definite perversions.

There were warning signs 40 and more years ago. These days we have charmers like this - censored, but still "cleared" to carry on elsewhere:

MSN


A bit like politicians, police officers and other authority figures they have been allowed to get away with too much, and regard themselves as "special cases". Look up to them? - I think looking down on them might be more appropriate. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. They should be far more accountable - and sackable.

Skins v shirts. Free choice, what would you choose to be?

Nick - I find your comment quite interesting and sensible. I was introduced to compulsory shirtless p.e. in the last year of primary school. It seemed very grown up after having to wear our underwear vest and pants for p.e. - except for the two boys in my class who never wore vests. The object was to get us used to shirtless p.e. before we went on to secondary school - a very good intention, I think. I agree it's a shame some people will see something they don't like about your photo

Nick thanks for sharing your school photo. I read the comment you noted from another man who asked what kind of school didn't let the boys wear their shirts. When people ake comments like that they seem to forget they are looking back in time, it's all past history now. He comments like it from now, not 1972.

It was interesting to see how boys the same age all looked quite different sizes there, but that's quite normal at that age, as any PE teacher would know. You certainly looked in good shape for your age.

Mel - You've got to admit that it would be quite strange to clam up about doing shirtless PE after doing it for more than two years wouldn't it. If he's done it for that long and is admitting it's no problem then it's safe to say he's got over the issue quite well and in the end I think that's a good thing.

Stella - You're not being an over protective mum at all in my book. You're just being a good mum and thoughtful. But I don't think you ever needed to feel concerned about your son at school in those days going shirtless. We all did it believe me. I swam the swimming gala at school in front of parents once too. There was a lot of standing about in very revealing small and tight wet trunks at that, worse than shorts I assure you.

I do like reading what the teachers say on here and knowing that they are taking on board ex pupils views, espcially the ones still at the job. There's one here from Yorkshire, no name given but I was surprised to read you sounding so concerned about your own school kit requirement for the summer term time. Isn't it meant to be the boys in school PE that fret about teacher telling them to go shirtless, not the teacher fretting about whether to tell them to. That's a bit upside down! You know your guys best of course, do you really think a majority of them would be scared or far too anxious and nervous if you told them to remove tops for PE and bare their upper bodies for a while? I think you may find most are not as concerned as you might imagine they are. As I just said in my case, many schools do things for parents that might involve boys being shirtless, but it's only the parents, they're all used to seeing their sons I should hope and think. There's nothing to hide from your own parents is there, or any other parents really. Swimming gave me a lot of confidence about my ability and the way I looked.

I think boys are generally wired the same whether it's 2024 or 1964 aren't they.

When you're at school you generally look up to your teachers as if they can do no wrong, or in some cases mock them behind their backs. For a year in the 80s when I had a young German exchange teacher doing PE with us he met every single stereotype you could imagine, and not one of our Brit PE teachers could match him for his determination when it came to his enforcement of bare chests for PE among the boys. He took us in the gym with boys in our bare chests but we also went outside for athletics in when the warmer weather came in our bare chests with him with girls taking part with us. The Brit teachers didn't do this, just this young German exchange teacher who was allowed to do it even though nobody else ever did when we did athletics outside. He was amazingly strict on everyone having a shower and later in life I now understand why he used to make a big deal about us bringing our towels and using them.

A lot of PE teachers seem to play up to the typical PE stereotype, like they feel they have to do it. A bit like football managers do. But my German PE teacher not only played up to a typical PE teacher stereotype but his actual nationality stereotype too, strict, humourless and obsessed with getting our clothes off. I laugh now, how can you not. So many people still years later seem to take their school PE classes so seriously. Most of us are better served by looking back at our school years forced through the rigours of PE with a smile at most of it.

It's very nice to see your comments and quite nice picture there Nick. I appreciate when some people come on and add some extra detail to their comments like where they went to school and old photo's like yours really do say a thousand words don't they. My son has been at school in Daventry and doing a shirtless PE lesson for the past two and a half years now, it happens about once a fortnight in the school gym. I don't think there is any opposite sex involvement that I know of in his case. He was never too keen at first and when I said something here a couple of months ago I was thinking about whether I should bring the matter up, having thought about it for a while but I've come to the decision not to do so having spoken again to my own 14 year old son about it after I wrote about our own thoughts on this a few weeks ago here, in March. He didn't want me to say anything when I said something and now says it doesn't matter to him anyway. I thought I'd let him see some of the old days comments on here and he sat reading for ages. I don't think he feels quite so hard done by now! As long as he's happy then I'm happy and if he accepts things then good. Like most parents, if your child is bothered by something then you are bothered.

Comment by: Sean on 30th April 2024 at 22:21


"Comment by: Cole on 30th April 2024 at 17:31

Plenty of questions but what about you, is that something that you relate to then?

I would not have cared one bit about any of the girls I was in school with seeing me stripped down to my shorts alone. I would have liked to be seen........."


Sean, clearly you were one of those kids who liked to display themselves - a real Jack the lad - every school, every class, had their brash show-off, fair enough, but clearly you have no empathy for, nor understanding of, lads who were the opposite to yourself.

If anyone believes that girls are not capable of causing offence or embarrassment, I suggest you take a trip on a bus at chucking out time at schools in the afternoons. We have two schools on the route to Romford - one an "academy" no less, and the coarse vulgarity of their girls (both mixed schools, as most are these days), has to be heard to be believed. I don't often have occasion to travel at that time, but last time I did, the driver had to tell one loud mouthed girl to stop vaping. The language - not to mention the racism - was appalling. She didn't stop, and she stunk the bus out. She was accompanied by a group of equally vulgar females, none of them over 14 and all of them swearing like navvies.

Just shows, I suppose, yet another conceit of the education industry, who thinks that a word like "academy" makes them "better". I doubt the teachers, when they leave their ivory tower for the day, would ever think of using anything as common as a bus!. They would have a shock if they did. Tread carefully, lest you tread on their dreams.

To Adam Donovan, Cole, Sean and anyone else interested in this. I don't have anything for secondary school but can provide some picture evidence of my own primary school taken in the early 70s when I was a pupil at The Grove School in Frimley, Surrey. I have a photograph on the local history of Camberley Facebook site taken in 1972 which rather finely shows the boys and girls on the school PE cross country running team at that time with our presentation cup. Most of us are ten and eleven years old in the photo. I am fifth from the right immediately behind the girl with the cup.

The boys at school would run with either white shorts or full length tracksuit bottoms, and we never wore a top when we did PE at this school or when we did running and Mr Atkins our teacher made sure of that. Boys didn't do shirts for PE at Grove and were not allowed to. Quite unusual because this is often thought of as secondary school stuff so I suppose we got stuck into it early in my case. My school uniform list, now a very yellowing piece of type written paper, at Grove mentions boys PE and said it straight - 'The boys will do PE in bare chest and shorts'. We wore running shoes/plimsolls outside, inside it was nothing on our feet. As you will be able to see we are mixed with the girls and we even had our photo taken with no shirts on. Someone who I don't know has even made a comment asking what kind of school this was that didn't allow us to wear shirts or tops of any sort. Well it was how it was at the time in the 1970s for boys. It was also another primary school that had full showering facilities for everyone there and made everyone, boys and girls use them properly, so I was taking school communal showers in the nude from the age of eight with everyone else at that time because that's what was expected to be done when PE was over. Photo's like this also went into the local press pages at the time quite readily and this one was no exception. School achievements were often lauded like this locally.

I do hope this photo comes out with the link so you can see for yourselves and if you've got anything to say I'd like to hear (read) it. It's a shame some people will look at this and see something they don't like about it. It's just a nice school memory to me.

https://www.facebook.com/camberleymemories/photos/a.1546972158849342/2613441038869110/?type=3

One for "A Yorkshiredad".

I want to address your concerns.

I think you have said you have a summer term PE kit that is shirtless at your school for the last couple of years if I understand right, and that you have been wondering what to do if you do some kind of performance during the summer term and if you should continue to use the summer term PE kit or not. My advice to you would be to just go for it with that same PE kit if it is the summer term kit you require at your school.

Tomorrow is May Day, May 1st. When I was at school during the 1970's every May Day, or the closest school day in May to May 1st would be a day when the boys and girls at my primary school danced around the Maypole for all the parents out on the playground. You'd often get up to a couple of hundred parents show up to watch. At my own primary school the boys always took PE lessons in our school hall in our barechested. The boys practiced the Maypole in PE barechested too, alongside the girls. Then when it came to doing the Maypole dancing properly out on the school playground we went out and all the boys did it just the same as we did PE, danced the Maypole in our bare chests for our parents. I did this three times like that myself, at the age of 9, again at 10 and yet again when I was 11.

It seemed quite a popular day when we did this and we all seemed alright. I don't even remember anyone making mention of the way we were turned out, it was conseidered a normal boys look to present like that I suppose and we associated it as an extension of PE anyway.