Burnley Grammar School

Looking at that picture the shorts don't look as brief as the white ones we had to wear for gym in the early 80s. We had black ones for rugby and football outside too.

It's not even just the leg, though the ones in the picture look more like modern board shorts, sort of. Some of the boys seem to be wearing them quite high, almost at belly button level. I'm sure our ones had a much lower waist somehow.

A friend of mine was overweight and wore his school trousers roughly at his navel. He couldn't do that with our shorts I remember.

I don't remember fully but I seem to think the shorts really didn't comedown the thigh much, and my belly button, as a marker, was way above the waistband. At least they weren't tight though.

I was a 14 year old girl in 1990 having a teacher make me shower naked in a school changing room, it was one of the worst experiences of my life and a lot of girls would certainly agree with me that the whole experience of PE in school because of this was tainted by feeling dehumanised by the system that allowed for no compassion or dissent when it came to making us parade through a shower after PE while two women checked us over, one each end checking us all in and another checking us all out. I saw some girls openly crying after PE because they didn't want to do it.

I entirely agree with every word of Mr Chips last paragraph (20/11/23) - this is what I have said constantly on this site and it is good to see it ratified by a teacher. Thank you, and I hope ll the naysayers (like Les, also 20th November) take note. Just because some of us were made to feel uncomfortable, that is no reason to inflict it on today´s pupils.

Garth raises an issue that I raised with Nathan a few weeks ago - I think he thought I was being facetious, but it is true that these days, as so many people - including children - think they are in the wrong body, how can you tell a boy who claims he is a girl get in a group shower.

Comment by: Frederik on 26th November 2023 at 05:33

Quite amazing what some people are prepared to agree to but if you're giving informed consent without pressure then so be it. I wouldn't myself unless the price was very right. It reminds me of this question the BBC asked once. It must have been a slow news day;

Can an employer demand you go to work naked?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-42236608

Lance on 26th November 2023 at 22:00

May I ask then Lance, was it only PE you hated or was it other subjects and for instance do you think you should have been excused from English, Maths and so on but then free to take them up in later life if you had wanted to?

Mr Chips on 26th November 2023 at 18:55

At my school which was an all boys school we were addressed by our surnames with the exception of by the music teacher who was the only woman on the staff. She addressed us by first names. I really didn't mind one way or the other, you quickly get used to which ever it is.

In my professional life, I'm usually addressed formally as Mr Original Andy and that's how in the main I address others, though in court it's more formal and in the office, sometimes it's more relaxed.

Comment by: Frederik on 26th November 2023 at 05:33


".....Yes Grant I would go along with it if I was in a job like that and my boss gave me such instructions as part of my working day. If I'm being paid to do something then the boss has that right in my view and I'd readily accept it rather than blot my copybook, affect my prospects or be seen as a prude....."

Well, Fred, I wouldn't, but then I would assume that this odd employer would inform you of the condition before you accepted the job?. If you were prepared to go along with it, that would be a decision you made for yourself - it isn't like school where it is demanded of you. Same, as somebody else pointed out, if you choose to join a gym or sports club. This is another decision you make for yourself.

Somebody else asked about what you found off-putting about communal showers at school, and one of the things I Ioathed about it was being shouted at by the teacher, that, and the noise. If you ever saw the Peter Sellers film "Two Way Stretch" and saw LIonel Jeffries as Sidney Prout the chief prison officer, our teacher sounded like a Welsh version of him, but louder. That and as others have mentioned recently, the constant bawling of surnames only made you (or at least made me) feel like a criminal. You have to ask yourself why it is necessary? an ordinary state school is not a prison or a borstal, so why treat the lads as if they were inmates at one of those places?. I suspect it is the "power" thing that so many teachers have that make them behave like this.

Mr Chipping.

I soon found out that I was only to be addressed by my surname once at secondary school. It had always been my Christian name previously (Gregory is my middle name) at infant/junior school.

I always loved the old original film, Goodbye, Mr Chipps. A slightly sentimental view of old public school life I suppose, but certainly from a time when the cane, in all its graded forms, would have been in full swing. No doubt something you would have approved of.

I always thought Robert Donat a great actor, and for whatever reason, this old film was always loved by my younger brother, who at the age of 10 annotated the Christmas Radio Times back then while making note of all the tv programmes he hoped to watch, one of which was Goodbye, Mr Chipps. I still have that 1970s copy.

You also come across on here a long-established school master of traditional character. Someone I expect, ‘your many children, and all boys’ might have some affection for? If indeed you’re remembered with having helped them, which I’m sure they’d remember especially as the years have passed…though maybe not the ones you’d frequently caned! Did you ever keep in touch with any of them? How do you, or they, react if meeting up by chance again?

At my rather well regarded secondary school from 1981-1987, when aged 12-18, all my PE teachers without exception called me by my surname only. Every other teacher in the school called me by varying versions of my first name, just Dan, Daniel or lesser Danny. The only other teacher apart from all the PE ones to call boys by surname was my science teacher. He didn't even call girls by their first name but put Miss before their surnames.

I was no fan of surname only use. I'd have much rather been called by my first name at least a bit here and there. As you say Mr Chips many of these teachers probably barely knew our actual first names. Just using our surnames made them sound authoritative I suppose and gave an impression of strictness in some misguided way.

Why surname's only, what's actually wrong with using Christian names. It generally sounds friendlier doesn't it?

There was one exception to the PE teacher surname use. The school report. Suddenly they knew my name and in almost all cases became Dan or Daniel. Funny that.

How one feels about this might also depend on what your actual surname is. In my case I have a surname that was a PE teacher's dream for shouting out and using against me once or twice. I've the same surname as the winning jockey of the 1981 Grand National, which describes people who are winners. So that gained attention in PE instantly.

Mr Chips if you are interested go and read my debut comment on 19/11/2020 because I'd like your take on what I wrote that time as a gentleman of the old school so to speak.

I never handed homework in on time Mike.

Comment by: Paul on 26th November 2023 at 11:53


There's a world of difference between choosing to go to a gym and use their facilities and shower voluntarily as against having to go into a school gym you might detest and then be forced into showering after it.

Mr Chips on 26th November 2023 at 18:55

Interesting question.

At school, I was always addressed by my surname, I don't remember anything other.

On leaving school, I went to Dartmouth and there also I was addressed by my surname. Once commissioned in the Royal Navy, I was either addressed by my surname or by junior ranks as sir. Only a few close friends ever called me by my first name.

So most of my working life, I've either been addressed by my surname or as sir.

I never felt uncomfortable, addressing by surname both at school and in the navy is normal.

Mr Chips - surname use.

If you go back just a few weeks on here you will find a period of discussion on this whole subject you raise here. Infact I think it has become a subject of debate a couple of times in the past year or two.

Craig on 25th November 2023 at 23:16

My nickname from the lads was completely unimaginative, it was Frenchie and it stayed with me all the years as far as I know. There may of course have been a few others that I didn’t know about.

I think the name I picked here was perhaps a generational choice, perhaps many of you don’t know who Mr Chipping was? I’m thinking the original, not the Martin Clunes remake.

Kevin on 26th November 2023 at 02:19

Creepy Crawley applied to almost every teacher called Crawley both male and female since time began!


A general question about school days if you please gentlemen:
How were you addressed at school? Over all the years, I only ever addressed boys by their surname and indeed, that’s how I was addressed as a boy at school. When I began teaching I would say 100% of masters addressed boys by their surname only and few, including me would have known a boy’s first name. Towards the end, some masters had taken to addressing boys by their first name.

So how were you addressed and did it make a difference to how you felt?

Craig. To answer your question yes I would do so myself and have done so, in the summer months sometimes but never what I would define as out of season. I would certainly not be one of those PE teachers of old who some men here describe taking them out on the school cross country without any layers at all with nothing on above their waists. I wouldn't be allowed to do that anyway. At this time of year we stress the importance of layers on the coldest outdoors days underneath the school sweatshirt but that's up to the individual. Long sleeved sweatshirts are the order of the day over winter in PE outdoors. Many of them do just go with the one layer however. If there was a Craig like you in my classes who wanted to run like you do I wouldn't allow it in winter, more to cover my own back from behaving less than appropriately.

Most of them wear shorts outside all year around but full legs coverage is permitted under certain conditions with some jogging bottoms occasionally taken up but most do prefer going out in shorts in all weathers.

Just a question to all these men who seem to have hated communal showers and PE more generally.

Did you never play a team sport or did you never go to a gym? Both of those places require changing and showering together with other men and so did you avoid those activities between leaving school and now? If you didn't, what was so different?

Comment by: Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35
If anyone on here was in a job of work right now where your employer demanded you had to take a compulsory and fully naked communal shower with your fellow workers at the end of the day if the job got you a bit sweaty or dirty, be honest, how many people on here would seriously entertain the idea of that and go along with it?




Yes Grant I would go along with it if I was in a job like that and my boss gave me such instructions as part of my working day. If I'm being paid to do something then the boss has that right in my view and I'd readily accept it rather than blot my copybook, affect my prospects or be seen as a prude.

I believe there are diamond mines in South Africa where the workforce has to submit to compulsory cavity strip searching after shifts by their bosses to ensure no theft of valuable gems. It makes your question seem quite tame in comparison Grant. But you take the job knowing the facts, you can't complain.

Maybe 'Mr Chips' nickname at school was, er....'Mr Chips'. But that just sounds too quaint for me, I know what real nicknames sound like and they don't start with Mister anything.

We had a PE teacher called Mr Crawley for gym. He was known to most of us as 'Creepy Crawley' for many things, including the way he watched over boys and sometimes the things he said. He was always looking 'down there' at us when on shower watch.

Conscientiously object to showers at school, no. Why should that have been allowed?

Compulsory school showers for everyone at secondary level was always the best way to go and the clearest and simplest too and I support it then and now. Concerns over sharing close range group nakedness are vastly overplayed, everyone no matter how shy and self conscious about how they look to themselves or others is more than capable of overcoming such fears in quick time if they set their mind to it. Mind over body!

To the questioner who asked about first time school showering memories, mine is quite fresh to this day although it took place way back in 1971 back in my primary school where there was some light hearted teasing without bad intent on anyone's part but the standout moment for me is a lad called Justin who for some reason just could not control his laughter as he looked around at us which I think must have been the way his anxiety over the new situation we were thrown into showed itself. I think we would have all been about the age of 9 at that time so a lot younger than those who wait until they get to the seniors to shower with PE.

Come on then Mr Chips, what was your nickname at school, or maybe your had more than one over your career in various places? Every teacher knows he has nicknames so don't be shy.

Nathan, thanks for the link there, a good read there. We were planning a bareskin run this evening at 5pm in the region of about 5 miles which was going to attract about five of us but you might not be surprised to know we shelved doing that kind of length. But three of us did go out and do a quick fifteen minutes run, when the ambient air temperature was barely hovering above freezing. To me that was the running equivalent of a cold shower, or maybe those Russians who like diving through into a hole in the ice. I felt incredible when I'd finished and so did the other pair with me, two guys aged early 40s. We all had rosy red chests. But the shortened time was perfectly manageable for us, fit and healthy younger end middle aged men. The good thing about tonight was how calm conditions were to run in, despite the low temperature. I love running in calm weather. The windchill can be a right beast even at much higher temperatures, so a strong wind in say 10 degrees is far worse than a calm run in zero degrees for example. If there is a strong wind on any night we decide to bareskin run then we check the direction first. If you are the kind of person who doesn't generally moan about the cold in everyday life then running for a short time on a calm night in close to freezing air is a lot easier than you might think.

Nathan, would you bareskin run or give it a go?

Steve B on 24th November 2023 at 18:06

I don’t think challenges ever do us any hard particularly when we rise and meet them. You now have the wisdom of retrospect and can see that. Well done!

Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35

I think you are representing the view of an insignificant minority of boys here. Communal showers were and in some settings still are the norm for men and they have plenty of positives like post-game camaraderie that you would find among rugby players.

As for your time at school, what did you have free choice about? Doing your homework? Attending lessons? Sitting in a class room smelling of stale sweat and inflicting it on everyone around you? Much better that you were made to shower. I think the majority would agree and it was compulsory in case you didn’t appreciate how bad you smelled. There is no need for any teacher to think you might not want to wash, washing was required by people who didn’t want the alternative inflicting on them by you. It’s only you who doesn’t understand that simple fact.

Robbie on 25th November 2023 at 04:06

‘Ole Chips’ indeed. My hand is itching to reach for my cane ;-)

Believe me, communal baths were never great. To begin with getting enough hot water to fill one for each team was a struggle in most rugby clubs and so at the start they were usually luke warm. Then by the time you get twenty muddy guys into it, the water didn’t stay clean for long so while you got to wash mud away and as any rugby player knows, on a wet day, mud really does get everywhere, the water was now cold and pretty grey so apart from losing the mud, there wasn’t much to like about them. Showers which were hot or indeed almost any temperature you wanted were a huge improvement.

The set up at school for me was that there was a boys changing room and showers with room for about a hundred lads at a time and maybe fifty in the showers. Off it was the gym one way, the way to outside another and the other way was the PE office shared by the PE masters, it had a big window overlooking the boys changing room which met the required need to supervise the lads if the masters had other things to do. Next door and also with access to the PE office was the masters changing room and showers with room for about forty to change and twenty showers. The PE masters used this space to change and shower as would any other master. Without going through the PE office, there was no link from masters to boys.

I didn’t shower with the lads ever. We had good facilities, probably better than most places.

Was it right to shower with the lads? I think in the main no, however if I had been at an away match with a group of sixth formers and been muddy would I as a twenty two or twenty three year old showered with them? I may well have done. I’m not sure it would have done any harm and given that I, at times played alongside them and in practice tackles, my shorts had come down as often as any other man’s, it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen the bits my shorts covered often enough so I had nothing to hide from them and I had certainly seen them naked often enough.

From time to time, sixth form lads started playing rugby for the same club as me and while they weren’t on the same team, we were often in the changing room at the same time. They weren’t the only sixth formers, there were a few others from other schools and I can’t say I was conscious of them one way or the other in those circumstances. There were times when we were in the showers together and if at next heads, we used to chat as did any guys. I suspect but don’t know, that these days with safeguarding, under eighteen year olds would have to have their own changing room?

I would also say having played team sports and gone to the gym for most of my life, I really don’t notice naked in any different way to clothed, I’m not sure how to explain that but it’s not like I look any more or any differently when a man is clothed or naked and if it’s me, I don’t feel awkward. All that said, there is no way I would have got in the showers with a crowd of eleven year olds, that just seems wrong.

Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35

I don't remember communal showers being an issue for any lad, we just got on with it. I was very glad of the opportunity.

I suspect a very small number of lads now like to find something to whinge about but the five minutes a couple of times a week in the showers is hardly any issue.

If you got to pull out of any life experience you didn't like, how would you ever deal with a challenge?

Your comparison to the current world of work is irrelevant and inappropriate. My uncle was a miner, he had a communal shower with his workmates at the end of every shift and he didn't mind one bit compared to the alternative and I think my aunt was very pleased he didn't come home coloured black from coal.

This from BBC Sport may be of interest to some, possibly Craig in particular who likes his barechested running and the outdoors.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/67473443

Comment by: Mike on 19th November 2023 at 00:10
I'd like to give Alan some homework.
Task: To give the most positive account of your schooldays you can possibly manage to grind out of your memory bank.
No excuses for not handing it in completed fully. You have until the end of the week.




Alan hasn't handed his homework in on time Mike!

Come on Alan, we are waiting.

The old fashioned communal bath got a mention there from ole Chips here. Those things seem to have well and truly died out in the last few years don't they. I don't think even football and rugby players in the professional leagues have such arrangements in their changing areas anymore like they once did, do they. Probably more hygienic, who really wants to sit in a bath with another ten men, half of them taking a pee in the water and farting bubbles like men do. How did anyone come out of those sports baths cleaner than they went in? Did these things exist in any schools anyone went to, possibly more likely private ones or boarders most likely if at all.

So you had your own staff communal shower, that will make our current PE teacher contributor Nathan on here rather envious I think, as he got it in the neck recently for asking his own class to shower communally while treating himself to a private one person shower in his PE office at school.

Mr Chips, what's your view on teachers who used to shower alongside their classes after PE and was it very isolated as a thing or widespread fifty years ago do you have any idea? In your case with your excellent teacher facilities it would not have been needed but would you have ever done so in other circumstances?

We had a teacher in my school who showered alongside fifth form boys on a number of occasions.

Going into the showers after PE at school, having to strip naked among a large group of others without free choice, was a really big deal to a lot of boys and girls when we went up to our secondary schools back in the 70s/80s.

Why the hell can't current or retired PE teachers actually understand that simple fact eh?

If anyone on here was in a job of work right now where your employer demanded you had to take a compulsory and fully naked communal shower with your fellow workers at the end of the day if the job got you a bit sweaty or dirty, be honest, how many people on here would seriously entertain the idea of that and go along with it?

Brian's points about objection to taking a shower in school, I've no doubt whatsoever if that kind of thing had been in some way officially available to me when I was at school I would very probably have pulled that one out and used it because I was shy and self conscious but it would have been a mistake which I can see with a bit of distance. I was far better off just being told to get on with it and doing some of the more uncomfortable things like that and with every day I did so the anxiety about it lessened quite a lot.

Nigel on 23rd November 2023 at 16:40

Showers in schools were designed by architects who were probably men in the time scale we are looking at, approved by education departments or school governors and built by builders so I think you can believe that’s what was the accepted standard and how they were meant to be.

Perhaps instead of showering, you would have preferred to sit between others smelling of stale sweat for the rest of the day and inflict that on your teachers too? You would have been in a very small minority of those who wished to endure that. That’s the reason showers were compulsory and, in my experience, boys recognised that and the need to be clean.

While I wasn’t a PE teacher, I did coach rugby and my group were aged sixteen and seventeen. Coaching was after school for a ninety minute session including getting changed at both ends so we had about an hour and ten minutes of actual training. On return to the changing rooms, I don’t remember having to tell the lads to get in the showers and as it was the end of the day, they could have gone home in the state they were in had they wanted to. All had a shower without me saying anything.

When that was done and they left, I went next door to the master’s changing room and usually met up with colleagues who had been coaching too and we all took a shower and yes, the master’s showers were also communal, no one would have expected anything different. The only difference to the boy’s changing room and showers was that it was smaller. There was the same arrangement at the rugby club I played for and also at any away match. Men had communal showers though for rugby in the early days it was sometimes a bath, showers were definitely better than that.

Brian on 23rd November 2023 at 22:10

You make an interesting point but if you can have a ‘conscientious objection’ to PE or taking a shower at school, why not also have one to learning English or music or indeed anything and why not extend the principle of conscientious objection to going to school altogether?

I find it difficult to accept that back at the time so many boys disliked taking a shower especially in an age where few would have had them at home and as someone has said, a bath was a weekly occasion.

When I was at school (sounds very old now) we had showers, communal of course and they were always cold but we still used them and I don’t remember anyone objecting or indeed not getting properly under and getting washed.

I suspect there are people around who now want to feel they were ‘wronged’ in some way during their time at school. They weren’t. Everything that happened was above board.

Original Andy on 24th November 2023 at 15:32

I wouldn’t have let you off either but that probably won’t surprise any readers here and it’s quite right, there was never a better intentioned boy than one who was about to be caned and no better behaved or more studious one than a boy who had been caned.

Mr Chips on 23rd November 2023 at 15:51

Thank you for your comprehensive explanation and answer to my question sir (I think I have to add sir!).

I can now understand why those who took the legal case against won with relative ease but of course as you rightly point out, all punishments have variable consequences for the recipients.

Although I certainly didn't like the cane at the time and did my best to avoid it, for me, the 'short, sharp, shock' was highly effective and got me to mend my ways very quickly indeed.

I remember once asking to be let off promising to mend my ways and the master laughed and told me there was no better intentioned boy than one who was about to get the cane and no better behaved and diligent one than a boy who had just had it. I think that was probably 100% true. Needless to say, I wasn't let off.