Burnley Grammar School

Picking up your comment Yours Truly on PE "uniforms". I went to a secondary academy, starting in 1974 and there was no school uniform at all for anyone which was I think somewhat unusual. We could wear what we liked subject to just a couple of minor rules such as no denim for instance. I'd come from a primary school with a uniform so that was a very strange feeling going to a big school and being able to wear just what I wanted like at home. About fifteen years later long after I'd gone they did introduce a formal uniform sometime around 1990 or so.

However, and here's the amusing bit, although school required no uniform for normal everyday classes it did for PE lessons and we were not allowed to just come to those with whatever we wanted on. In the school gym for example we had to wear white trainers and no socks, or be bare footed, black shorts only, no other colour and markings, and the whole gym was a shirtless environment where only bare chests were permitted for us, but I'll give a couple of my teachers from that time a heads up for at least sometimes being like the boys in PE and taking us shirtless themselves but most of the time they seemed more comfortable keeping theirs on.

You might imagine any school would be more concerned about how we all turned out for the majority of our time there in all the other subject classes rather than just the one subject of physical education lessons. It's interesting isn't it that PE lessons were treated with such discipline like this even in a school with no actual formal uniform.

I had to laugh at the link on professional footballers, I didn't listen to it but anyone who thinks most of them shower after the match with their undies on obviously hasn't been near a real adult locker room in their life.

Hi John D,

As you say, everyone is different. I have admitted before that I was a particularly shy and self-conscious child and as such felt that the world didn't need to see my parts (I never asked but I bet the world would have agreed).

I hope that reading other comments on here you can at least accept that not every child or every boy felt the same as you did. Too many posters on here cleave to the reasoning, 'I never was aware of any issue and so therefore there cannot have been an issue'.

As I have said before, this ought all always to have been optional and up to the individual. There was never any intrinsic need for a 'PE uniform', apart perhaps from gymnastics where the potential for a t-shirt to fall over its wearer's eyes could prove dangerous.

Freedom of choice. You should have the option to get your danglies out if you want to. Juts as long as you don't get them out anywhere near me.

Comment by: John D on 28th February 2025 at 04:20










"....I was a show off in front of friends sometimes and when I was ten years old I ran about 50 metres between my house and my best friends house in the middle of the day for a dare completely starkers and ran up to his bedroom while his mum was out>>>>>"

Well, John, everyone is different. . Some people like to disport themselves in nudist camps, but they are in a minority, as I suspect you were at ten. I don't think you would have done it down the high street where I lived in London. We had three bus routes running along my road.

By the way, it might interest you, and others here to know that professional footballers these days - those earning thousands of pounds each week - shower after games in their underpants. You don't believe me? - I must admit I found it hard to believe myself - just watch this Sky TV journalist saying so from 50 seconds in from the start of the recording. Whether you watch the rest of it or not is entirely up to you, but he is an interesting speaker, and I can empathize with some of what he says, even though I loathed sport..

So - all those people who laugh at me and others for their modesty back then - we were not allowed any covering - this is professional football in 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgQdQHbEPSs

John D, You have highlighted what is frustrating about Alan's often interesting comments - his tendency to make sweeping generalisations from his own experience: my gym master was a pervert, so all gym masters were perverts; I hated showers at school, so all boys found showers a horrible experience, and so on.
I have made this point before but I have no wish to criticise Alan: his candour a few weeks ago was impressive.

Comment by: Alan on 27th February 2025
<You just can't convince me that those boys freely consented to that shower sequence....... There is nothing you could have offered me to agree to being filmed naked for national TV on repeat. I still think those boys were made to do that.....">

<So do I - I suspect it was like the old army/RAF system - "I want three volunteers - you, you and you". I doubt any of the men who were the boys in the film would admit to being in it - I know I wouldn't.>




Oh I don't know about that in answer to these two comments above. I would have probably put my hand up if asked, although granted I might have been a bit surprised if my boy bits also ended up shown if the camera went lower. With things like that the parents would naturally want to see their kids appearance on the telly, can you imagine sitting with them for that, but they are young enough not to be majorly embarrassed surely. I thought the edition was absolutely fine from my standpoint. We all see the same things differently it appears. We actually did have showers in our own primary school in the early seventies and they were used quite a lot, not always but we never seemed to go more than about two or three PE lessons before using them and they were quite nice and new I think, so was the school building. There was a simple small hand towel cupboard in the cloakroom near our coat hooks, it was filled with cotton towels and bundles of paper ones as well as loo rolls and a few other bits and pieces like soapy bits. Cotton hand towels, very fancy but good enough to dry with and we had to share one between two of us. Not a good lesson in hygiene there. Our class teacher, whether a man or even a woman would be around briefly checking in on us and I suppose as young boys we didn't think too much about that, teachers knew best after all.

I was a show off in front of friends sometimes and when I was ten years old I ran about 50 metres between my house and my best friends house in the middle of the day for a dare completely starkers and ran up to his bedroom while his mum was out. We had been paddling/swimming in the garden. But I had forgotten about the running back bit and didn't have any clothes with me, as I bottled the return run, and he had to lend me something, but his mum came back and saw me wearing her son's clothing and asked where mine was and we admitted the dare. I was marched over back home and given a rollicking while laughing about it and handing the clothes back to my best friends mother after I'd changed in my own bedroom back into my own stuff. Because I took showers consistently at primary school I think this gave me a confidence about my own skin and I was used to being seen and seeing others from a young age with no clothes thus leading to the confidence to do silly naked dares in our quiet little street in broad daylight. When my dad used to inflate his really great fun paddling pool in our garden and fill it about two feet deep me and my best friend never wore swimming trunks in it as children and always went without until we were about ten. Some other boys from school would also join us sometimes and a couple of them were adamant they would never use the pool without their swimming trunks even though we saw them at school in the shower, which seemed kind of funny really. Having an extroverted persona helps I think. I'm unable to put myself in the introvert quiet shy persona so it must have been far more difficult and my thoughts are with anyone who suffered shame, unhappiness or embarrassment at school as a youngster, it obviously stays with a lot of adults and I must confess to being quite surprised at the consistent strength of feeling on things like shirtless PE lessons and showering described across these pages.

For kids in the seventies it was such a free and easy life and I miss all the fun we got up to, it just doesn't look like many ten year olds today are enjoying their childhood as much as I did mine. Many seem harrassed by over protective neurotic parents nowadays who won't let them out of sight for ten minutes without checking up.

Hi Alan,

I would speak up. Now I would. If that had happened to me I would post it on here. History gives people long voices.

I remember crying the first time when my teacher Miss Cresswell made me take my top right off for PE when I was eight years old and new at primary school in 1992. It made no difference, it just made her angry, and all the boys had to do PE in bare chests throughout the primary school with the girls by our side. I hated PE at primary school. We could only wear shorts.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 27th February 2025 at 08:44
,

"...Christine: would you have felt as relaxed about that clip if it had been of girls showering? The nudity is entirely unnecessary. Part of the scene shows showerheads sprinkling followed by a shot of the boys from the waist up. That was all that was needed to show children watching this film that showering would be necessary........


You just can't convince me that those boys freely consented to that shower sequence....... There is nothing you could have offered me to agree to being filmed naked for national TV on repeat. I still think those boys were made to do that....."


So do I - I suspect it was like the old army/RAF system - "I want three volunteers - you, you and you". I doubt any of the men who were the boys in the film would admit to being in it - I know I wouldn't.

Hello Yours Truly.

I've thought about your question for a moment and you have made valid points of interest that show up how many of us routinely accept differing rules between differing people, in this regards on the gender issue.

It does intrinsically feel and look more acceptable to see boys in such a situation than girls and I would have felt less comfortable with girls shown in the same precise manner from that school at that age. At face value there should be no discernable difference I agree with you but we are all clearly conditioned to some automatic thoughts on gender that are hard to break out of. Even as children we expect the boys to be tougher and more resilient as a gender even though this in itself plays to gender based stereotypes.

You are correct of course, the points could have been made effectively without any need to see boys showering directly at all, just taking their PE kit off, a sequence on the running water and then getting dressed. I do agree that the whole thing was very literal indeed, and wasn't really required. I was not troubled or offended by it though and accept the educational context, just about. But as I've also said beforehand, it may have also acted as an introduction to school showering requirements for the primary ages watching who might or will have been unaware of future expectations at that time, so in this context the film at least did its job.

Double standards are a fact of life and were quite dramatic when I was at school. I had a friend who wanted to do woodwork but she wasn't allowed to do so because she was a girl and they only allowed boys to do so. Where I live there is a woman who runs her own one woman carpentry business nowadays.

I think one of the most important lessons that should be given to children is that life isn't always fair, you can't always get what you want and there are winners and losers, but if anything we were more likely to have told that to the previous generations than the current school age generation and that concerns me.


Going onto A Yorkshiredad, you are a PE teacher yourself. That's a very interesting story you relate from your own school. Why do you personally feel so uncomfortable on your new summer PE kit issue, and I'd like to know if you've had any parental feedback so far or if you expected any? I think the reasons you have been given sound fair and reasonable.

Hi Christine Sanderson, Sean B,

Christine: would you have felt as relaxed about that clip if it had been of girls showering? The nudity is entirely unnecessary. Part of the scene shows showerheads sprinkling followed by a shot of the boys from the waist up. That was all that was needed to show children watching this film that showering would be necessary. Somebody else here stated that the Benny Hill theme was used over this clip, though I didn't hear it myself, I only skipped through this bit.

You just can't convince me that those boys freely consented to that shower sequence. I had two full medical exams at primary school and even though there were maybe five adults at most present they were shocking, horrible experiences. I used to swerve school plays because they always made us strip to our underwear before changing into our costumes. There is nothing you could have offered me to agree to being filmed naked for national TV on repeat. I still think those boys were made to do that.

I think we all got that that segment was filmed for hygiene purposes . . .

Of course there were safeguards! Nobody here has said otherwise. The animosity towards that scene on here isn't because of any suspicion that any shenanigans took place. but because of the lack of regard shown those boys. There was no safeguarding those boys' dignity, was there?

As overwrought as Alan may sound he makes a crucial point - it was for a damn good reason that CRB checks were instituted, a long time after the time of this film.

Christine, your observation about the boys themselves commenting is good. They could clear this up.

A guy on here, or was it even two, on the ginger hair thing said something I can concur with fully too. I hope things have moved on a bit nowadays and school is not so bad for that kind of thing but I used to keep taking hit after hit for being a ginger haired schoolboy and yes you better believe it, when you have to shower and they see what you've got they hit on you again, and again and just never let up about a sprig of ginger hair that grows in your school years. Another ginger haired lad in my gym group used to get the same nonsense and we were referred to as the twins despite being unrelated and only having ginger hair in common, not looks. A certain gym teacher we both had said he thought ginger boys were less strong than others in class once when I flunked something, no idea where he got that from, although I guess you don't see many major sportsmen who are classic ginger redheads do you who excel.

Comment by: Sean B on 26th February 2025 at 23:28


"I'm quite sure Christine isn't as naive as you're attempting to make out Alan, and I think the power of your own arguments is reduced by making a post where you thread together all those characters from your childhood on TV and radio like that into one big worst case over the top scenario. It looks rather silly to make your point in that way because I could just as easily run off another much larger group of names at the time, 99% of everyone else, without any hint of scandal or impropriety against them."

Sean, the vast majority of police officers are honest and do their jobs well with no suggestion of corruption, does that excuse those who don't?. Should the police service overlook rape, murder and criminality of any sort, committed by the rogue element, just because the majority of officers do not indulge in criminality?

It is not a silly point at all, to highlight the fact that several "entertainers" who were contemporary with that revolting TV schools programme were perverts - and given that, to take Savile as an example, we now know that several of his work colleagues and producers had been telling the BBC this privately in the 1970s but the BBC refused to take action is terrible. It reminds me of the fact that when I met one of my ex teachers when I was about 22, he as good as admitted to me that several of the staff knew about our P.E. teacher' s "weakness" but chose to look the other way. You will forgive me if I find the word "silly" rather offensive in this context. The 1980s was a time for sweeping a lot of things under the carpet. Perhaps I was wrong to call Christine "naive" - I suspect she just liked the status quo and was in no hurry to break up the exclusive little club some teachers were members of. Why rock the boat, when you can enjoy a nice calm cruise, on a tranquil river.

Re: Good Health Fit and Healthy ATV/ITV circa approx 1980.

That was a very authentic showing of the school showers after PE as I remember doing them myself in both my own middle and comprehensive schools not far away in Stourbridge in the 1970s/80s, except there were more of us. It might have been even more accurate if that PE teacher had been shown peering in too. I notice he kept out of sight!

I agree such things are a good record of the truth we all lived. No point erasing stuff like this. There's nothing wrong with showing the truth of school life in those days.

I must have been about nine when I first had to shower at middle school and I just remember it happening to us one day without any warning after we did a PE lesson which involved music and a tape recorder and a lot of moving about in a warm school hall and with my first ever male teacher I'd just got called Mr Gander.

Even before that we were often made to walk into a foot bath before going out into PE which we always did with nothing on our feet, so they must have been keen not to give us all infectious foot problems but I always thought damp floors were more likely to do this.

As a general rule most of the middle school PE lessons I remember were done with boys remaining shirtless throughout and girls in leotards or shorts and top. At comprehensive school it was a bit more varied between many variations of which shirtless PE was a definite favourite of many teachers to tell us to do.

I'm quite sure Christine isn't as naive as you're attempting to make out Alan, and I think the power of your own arguments is reduced by making a post where you thread together all those characters from your childhood on TV and radio like that into one big worst case over the top scenario. It looks rather silly to make your point in that way because I could just as easily run off another much larger group of names at the time, 99% of everyone else, without any hint of scandal or impropriety against them.

I agree with Christine's general sentiments. I've also seen the item under discussion for the first time this evening. It's alright for what it is and the reasons it was shown. It's possible being a film under an education remit will have allowed greater freedom to do that. My only problem there would be if anyone was placed under pressure or literally ordered to take part against their own wishes, that would be unacceptable of course. If the boys wanted to take part in their PE showers fly-on-the-wall filming like that then who are we to moralise on their behalf. I agree with what was said previously, it would be nice to hear from one or two of them about their remembrance about the day they did that film and how they view it now. None of us would forget would we if it was ourselves. If it was me, I really don't think I would mind, it was only a few seconds.

It's easy to be instantly over reactionary to such material, yes there are a class of unclothed naked middle school boys with their willies to camera who look about ten or eleven to me, but accept it for the innocent situation it is. For some people, maybe you Alan, they can't see a naked person or private parts without thinking, naked/penis = sex/temptation. It certainly doesn't in my own mind, any more than when I was at school and showered naked with the boys and looked at them and was thinking such thoughts, I wasn't.

I thought Christine's comment suggesting that this programme was also using quite direct imagery of school showering to press home the future expectations of school hygiene to primary ages quite an interesting take.

Some things about the past may well make uncomfortable viewing to some but that doesn't mean they should be airbrushed away. History, even very recent history, isn't all perfect and rose tinted. Things haappened, and they happened in the way they did, and we should all be able to see these things free of censorship.

Answering Mark's questions.

There was no problem encountered with any of the boys working ex-top in gym class, but I knew there was unlikely to be. By the age of 9/10/11 they have all absorbed the ' teacher knows best' line, which Alan so detests, for several years and a rebellious boy would be very unusual. My own stance remains that the boys should be allowed to wear shirts because this is clearly the preference of most of the boys and it is now the established norm in schools. Our school is an exception in its somewhat old fashioned policy in this respect. Not that I always disagree with the older ways.

We are only talking about indoor PE being done shirtless. Outdoor games lessons are just the opposite with skin covering insisted on, indeed a sun hat is included as part of school uniform and must be worn on sunny summer days even for games.

"You seem to be suggesting that when given their own choice at the other times they are all shirting up rather than any of them being shirtless."

Yes that is correct. Back in September when I first told the boys they could continue to work in PE class in just shorts if they wanted, three of the boys did indeed choose to do so. These must be the boys who preferred the summer kit and perhaps predictably they were amongst the more naturally athletic ones. But by October they had conformed with the rest of the class and since then none of the boys have chosen to work in class without a shirt.. My own son is now in year 4 and part of the PE class so I was able to quiz him on his thoughts about PE kit. Summarizing his answer I think it amounted to - school is not the right place to be going topless.

"Have you noticed many boys yourself who you think might be the future men on forums like this complaining about being told to go shirtless in PE lessons at school, just by body language, demeanour or comments."

The quick answer would be no. But then they don't get much chance in PE to show it. There is not much time during the lesson when nothing is happening. I see it more in swim class. In swimming the boys and girls get split up into 3 groups as we have two swimming instructors plus me present. Two groups are in the pool and one is resting on the side under my supervision. Boys in the poolside group often show a 'I wish I was not just stood here half-naked' demeanour, but swimming is considered to be intrinsically more tiring and dangerous than PE so they must get plenty of rest time.

"What was the introduction to it like when it happened."

I took the advise of people on this forum and tried to introduce working bare chested gently. For the last two classes before Easter break I asked the boys to do some fitness training as part of the lesson, only 20 minutes and they were told to remove their tops for this part of class. They could then put their tops back on for the final 10 minutes of games if they chose and most did.

"Can you just remind me what the reason was for the summer term policy change in the first place?"

Our hall where PE takes place is not air-conditioned, there is a fan and a fire door can be opened for extra ventilation but the room does tend to get very warm in summer. Our headteacher decided that for the safety and comfort of the boys and in order to maintain an active class it would be better if they worked without their cotton t-shirts. Working this way undoubtable helps them stay cooler and keeps them active for longer. In a state primary school the option taken would almost certainly be to simply reduce the level of activity in class. We consider this to be undesirable.

I have one question for those so interested in the content of the 1980's Health program featuring showering. I have seen sex education programs for schools dating from the same period and aimed at the same age group and they are far more explicit, what are your thoughts on those.

Comment by: Christine Sanderson on 25th February 2025 at 22:15



"Seeing all the comments regards a particular school's broadcast I thought I might as well take a look to see what all the fuss was about. It is not something I have ever seen before I must add, so was new to me.

I was expecting something far worse based on the comments. I think the content was generally quite mild and I agree with the sentiments expressed by Gary B. I can also understand what is happening here though, people are strongly empathising with those involved and imagining themselves placed in such a situation and what their own reaction would be, I don't blame anyone for thinking like that at all.

If I can offer a little reassurance. There will have been safeguards taken in the middle school involved at the time, even 45 years ago......"

Sorry Christine, I just can't let this pass: Let's go back for a moment to 1980. On Friday evening Stuart Hall might have been on TV wetting himself with his faux mirth at the antics on It's A Knockout. The following evening we might have gazed in admiration at Rolf Harris - avuncular Australian funster with a beard , painting on a big canvas ("can you see what it is yet?"), that might well have been followed by Jimmy Savile with his Jim'll Fix It show, where he might be granting a wish to a 12 year old boy or girl. The next day on Sunday Jim would be back with two hours of afternoon radio, often involving a studio audience - perhaps a few there had been to see him on Top Of The Pops on BBC TV three days earlier.; After him on the radio Chris Denning might have been on to play the latest record from Michael Jackson. All good clean fun, eh?. Perhaps Micheal Quinlan our Romford P.E. teacher was listening or watching, preparing his lessons for the following week at a boys school, which included locking the boys into the school swimming pool and forcing the boys to swim naked. Sorry to bring Quinlan up again but I would like you to don your professional hat and read what he got up to at The Royal Liberty School For Boys. Like Stuart Hall, the old sleazebag remains alive and like Hall has served a term of imprisonment for indecency. Just google the case

Do you see any connections there?. If they were all still alive (Hall is) would we regard any of those gentlemen now with affection or even admiration?. People were much more innocent then - and it seems you still are - quote "I think the content was generally quite mild". Thank goodness most people these days are less easily hoodwinked.

Quite mild, eh?. One scene shows a young boy removing his underwear before running into the shower. Supposing that had been a young girl of the same age . Would you consider THAT "quite mild?.

I think your reaction proves the point of Yours Truly and others when they speak of double standards. That a school inspector can defend that programme is quite worrying. You say there would have been "safeguards" Where were the safeguards where our dirty DJs were concerned?. People in those days took anyone in "authority" on trust. How wrong that was.

My late uncle worked as a caretaker at my comprehensive school for 15 years from 1968 until 1983. He said the senior gym teacher would to ask him to supervise boys on the playing fields in PE while the teacher went off elsewhere during lessons leaving them to it, and even asked him to supervise changing rooms a number of times, including showers, which blows my mind. He said some boys were told to help him out in the grounds during PE instead of doing the lesson they should have been when forcibly volunteered by the same teacher and that he got in a tight spot one day with the prowling head when someone was helping at the school pond area clearing weeds and fishing out algae, in the summer PE kit of shorts, trainers and without top, shirtless and that he made a quick excuse about a ball being fished out. HAHAHA! From the looks of it quite a few pupils would have taken the chance to do gardening duties instead of the usual team games or athletics.



Our school showers were a large room with multiple shower heads lining the walls and columns. We learned to just go in, take care of your own business and get out without making a fuss of it. It's much less of a big deal once you get used to it and just attend to it. Changing room etiquette meant you minded your own business and did not check out other boys openly. If you got caught staring at someone for too long, that's more embarrassing than being naked yourself. Our PE teacher used to sit on an end bench with a class roster. You had to physically walk up and appear before him wet in a towel, or even without one if you didn't take it to the shower with you, to show you were fully damp and dripping all over and had wet enough hair. Those who didn't got PE detention the next day after school which was most often told to go running around the school playing field or the gym under supervision while a teacher sat in the corner doing paperwork and looking up occasionally. This happened to me twice for PE kit infringements.

Greg, Alan & all who mentioned 'Good Health'.

I've seen another programme while in school which was similar to that one but even more in your face graphically shot with a bigger grouping. It was definitely not that one though, unfortunately I have no idea what the programme may have been called, but I definitely know more exists of a similar type from the 70s because I saw it at school.

I can't get too worked up about it myself. If I was at school in those days I'd have done anything to be on TV and even that I am quite sure. TV was magical, to be on it would have been fantastic, even with my clothes off. At 10, not at 15!

I think parents have an effect on how children view their own modesty. I'm pleased my own didn't restrict me.

I was at school their age at a time not long before those 'Good Health' lads too. You're right Greg, nobody much gave a thought or even cared about such things in those days. I remember my own childhood nakedness in front of many people aside from school, other adults apart from my parents, as well as those my age, including girls as well as boys. Too many times to mention. School showers comes tops obviously for most of us, but at an age not far younger than 10 was often in our back garden with nothing on, the fences of the surrounding houses only about 3 feet tall and the neighbours leaning over chatting to the parents while I'm there with nothing on even at 7 or 8. The parents didn't seek to hide me. I remember in about 1975 or 76 we went camping for a week and a man who ran the campsite in Norfolk near the broads got hold of a hose lying about and sprayed me and a large group of boys with his cold water on a hot day to cool us down and we all stripped everything off completely. Some parents were watching us all. There were boys from about 4 to 14 doing that, and nobody knew exactly who the campsite man actually was I think. It was fun and what I remember of it at this distance is how eager everyone there at that moment was to rip what we did have on right off even taking our pants off without much delay about it, even some much older boys did this. We had so much fun doing it that it happened again before we packed up and went home. Now I'm sitting here wondering if my innocent fun was so innocent after all or if the campsite man did this every week with the new camping families and was enjoying himself even more than we were!

Secondary school showers never held any fears or anxieties for me after PE lessons, does that make me in the small minority then? I don't know whether having a fear of such things is learned behaviour or born with in the genes.

Seeing all the comments regards a particular school's broadcast I thought I might as well take a look to see what all the fuss was about. It is not something I have ever seen before I must add, so was new to me.

I was expecting something far worse based on the comments. I think the content was generally quite mild and I agree with the sentiments expressed by Gary B. I can also understand what is happening here though, people are strongly empathising with those involved and imagining themselves placed in such a situation and what their own reaction would be, I don't blame anyone for thinking like that at all.

If I can offer a little reassurance. There will have been safeguards taken in the middle school involved at the time, even 45 years ago. I'm sure the primary age boys involved were informed fully and their parents too about all aspects of what was intended and what took place, in school grounds, in their gymnasium and the contentious changing room area. I'm sure they were not actors as someone suggested, but the genuine children at the school, there was a thankyou to the staff and children at the end credits. I'm certain as I can be that all took part on camera voluntarily. There is no good school that would have made demands that children must take part in something such as a film of that nature, especially the more private situation shown with the showering.

It may have also served a further purpose as a primary school programme, in introducing schoolchildren who would watch the programme to aspects of school that they would likely encounter later on for those who did not already do personnal hygiene after a games class, and a majority in primary school did not do so until secondary education. Until I reached the end I had thought I was watching the first years in a secondary school rather than what looked like the top year of a middle school as described. Many primary schools even nowadays don't have a proper gymnasium set up within them. This appeared to.

It's always interesting to see people respond to old films involving them when they appear online. I'm surprised none have in this case with the popularity of You Tube and the way word of mouth spreads nowadays among people. Comments from those directly involved would be valuable in the then and now context.

As far as inpections go in those days, offering and even expecting or mandating showering at a middle school would have been seen as another positive aspect of a good school and as majority primaries did not offer this even in those days this school and others like it would have been noted for this.

I see the shower scene from that programme has been in discussion again following Terry’s 16th February link. I didn’t want to watch it again, but remembered its content. I wish they’d take it down really, as I expect do some of the now men filmed around 50 years ago; I don’t suppose they ever bring people’s attention to it. The film crew would have been predominantly men back then, so I suppose it’s understandable that they chose to film in the boys’ changing room, but even before that it’s also predictable for so many of the usual reasons. I’m sure that all boys featured in the foreground of that scene, and indeed all children with speaking parts in the film, would have all agreed with their parents to be included before any filming took place.

I wouldn’t have been long out of school myself at the time of this film. I think everyone has to try to understand that most adults of that time really didn’t give a damn about child nudity, unlike today where it seems everyone is so uncomfortable about it, to the extent that some schools don’t even want their kids to shower on the premises; completely unheard of at one time. In the mid-seventies it would have been adults who wouldn’t be shown fully naked on tv, with the reason being that there would always be a possibility that children might see them(!); whereas today, no one seems to care whether children might see some hideous attention seeking adults who happily parade themselves on that awful channel 4 dating programme. What an upside down back to front society we have now chosen, compared to how we considered things should be in the past. Today’s media seems to have a total disregard for how developing minds might view and perceive the adulthood all around them, these very adults who are otherwise suppose to teach and guide these children in how to behave.

Janet on 21st February.
It seems you did want to watch this film again and to forward memories of your old class’s reaction to it. It was interesting to read your children’s reaction, but predictable really; how else could a mixed class of similarly aged children react to this footage, sprung on them so unexpectedly? I’m sure this same reaction would have been repeated up and down the country, with boys trying to camouflage their own awkward embarrassment with affected laughter, while finding themselves having to sit through this with their similarly aged girl classmates; the girls, likewise, would be giggling in disbelief that they were freely permitted to view this, shown by their female teacher in charge. I’m also sure that the girls shown with the boys in that same gym class in the programme enjoyed the opportunity to see and giggle at their boy classmates too. The usual double standards displayed here really aren’t they, which I remember becoming so fed up with myself at that age. Just out of additional interest Janet, had the tables been turned for once and that scene had unexpectedly showed the girls in their changing room and shower, would this have been okay to you?

Yours Truly on 20th and 21st February, I don’t know of the photo you refer to, but it’s not the one I’m meaning. Our male gym teacher always waited for us in the gym, probably looking at his watch and waiting to blow his whistle for us all to run in. My memory of it is that his whistle sounded so loud and shrill as it resonated within the acoustic of that large, hard, empty space. We’d all be expected to be ready in line at the door, waiting to run in and start our two laps around the gym perimeter as a warm up before things properly started. Any stragglers would be in trouble, usually by giving them an extra two laps to do as the rest of us got going on whatever he had in store for us. The girls’ gym teacher usually decided to walk through our changing room during anytime as we were getting completely undressed and into our gym kits. She’d then walk through into the gym where our teacher would already be waiting for us, so I don’t know whether he ever said anything. Seemingly not, as she continued to do this until we found the brains to just lock the door. After she'd walked through and into the gym, she’d walk halfway down until she came to the girls changing room to gym entrance; about the same distance she could have walked outside, but without having to walk through the gym.
I realised that Deborah was a new teacher. I just thought that to ask why she had been asked to monitor a boys’ gym and shower when men teachers were available, should have been her reply, especially when it seemed everyone was just trying to cover for everyone else. To me this just illustrates the usual disregard for the boys, even by the men in the school, and all persisting with this for their own reasons. I know there’ll be both men and women who’ll disagree with this, but that’ll also be for their own reasons.
I very much doubt the shower clip film would have been as you assumed, and nothing would have happened ‘out of the blue.’ A visiting film crew to a school would have taken a lot of arranging and organising. The head teacher would have been contacted well before the filming date, so would have had plenty of time to discuss it with whomever he thought necessary. I’m pretty sure parents would have been notified long before the filming date, being told of the subject matter plans from storyboards including the various ‘chapters’ intended to be covered. It's likely that any children with speaking parts, identifiable from middle distance shots, and definitely those featured in the shower scene, would all have had to have parental consent and/or model release forms signed. Parents would have had time to discuss all this with their children and worked out with them how they felt about some scenes. People thought differently back then, and therefore so did some children, though I’m sure no one would have minded had some wanted to opt out of foreground shots.

Matthew S on 20th February
Matthew, I was intrigued by your comment about William Cecil becoming interested by weighing himself, and then seemingly becoming further intrigued to check the weights of anyone else he knew, then to log all this down in his, ‘Notes of divers kinds’ scribbling book. It made me begin to wonder what sort of weighing device would have been used in the 16th century, and whether people even considered their weight as having significance during those times. I’m sure very few people would have had access to such a machine. I suppose people thought anyone overweight would illustrate an indication of wealth, as they’d be obviously regularly well fed, and probably without a need to do manual work. I expect a very large balance scale of some description would have been used, requiring very large, or very many, counter balancing weights. I was wondering, did his writings mention how or that he constructed such a device in his home following his interest in body weight?

I'm surprised boys see barechested exercise as a form of punishment. At my school there was simply a knock on the door a name called out and escorted to the changing room. Remedial PE was always performed with one or more lads stripped to waist and in shorts outside running laps of the field followed by sit ups, press ups and a cold shower until you were deemed to have learned a lesson. Any teacher from any subject could "sentence" lads and this was normally done at some point the following day. We all performed PE barechested indoors and very regularly outside too but being taken from class everyone knew that was for punishment only.

Just this once, my sympathies are with the teacher in this ludicrous case:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14432275/Teacher-sacked-35-years-joke-whacking.html

But it constitutes a warning not to be ignored. If a teacher can be dismissed on such flimsy "evidence" (I totally disagree with the verdict or the notion that she was being serious), it just shows the very youngest children are likely to become more inclined to report them. Watch out when they are 8/10 years older.

Comment by: A Yorkshiredad on 24th February 2025 at 11:54
School PE policy for the boys is that they will still be required to work bare chested during the summer term but at other times of year it is their choice. Hardly any boy has taken up this option however which suggest that making them work that way would be a punishment and deterrent if required.



I do remember you mentioning when you first posted that you had concerns about your school's decision (head teacher?) to require a shirtless summer PE kit. How has it worked out since this happened and what's your view now compared to when you first posted about it. Was this an outside PE kit you referred to, or just inside, or both? You seem to be suggesting that when given their own choice at the other times they are all shirting up rather than any of them being shirtless.

Have you noticed many boys yourself who you think might be the future men on forums like this complaining about being told to go shirtless in PE lessons at school, just by body language, demeanour or comments. Any resistance at all, what was the introduction to it like when it happened.

Other than those who did full time shirtless PE, the Danny's of this forum for example, the feeling of being 'punished' in PE if told to have a shirtless body appears quite a strong emotion, for those where more often than not a shirt is worn in school.

Can you just remind me what the reason was for the summer term policy change in the first place?

I have just had the opportunity to read Neil Wilkinson's post from last week and thought I would say how I would completely agree with his policy towards kit. Most often when a piece of kit is forgotten it is obviously a parental oversight and it would be greatly unfair to punish the child in such a situation. We have full sets of kit to lend. If the forgetfulness were to become a habit some sanction would be required and making the boy stand out in class by making him work bare chested would be preferable to me than a lunchtime detention or other punishment. School PE policy for the boys is that they will still be required to work bare chested during the summer term but at other times of year it is their choice. Hardly any boy has taken up this option however which suggest that making them work that way would be a punishment and deterrent if required.

Hi Terry,

That looks like a culture of violent abuse to me. Where has this phrase 'culture of naivety' been extracted from? What stood out about that article is that there were no details mentioned. It was very oblique. This 'Lady Smith' extended her sympathy - but what measure of any substance do she actually suggest?

Did this Lady Smith date this 'culture of naivety' to the 1960-1990 period because that corresponded to the age ranges of the victims that came forward? Because it is my understanding there were plenty of abusive and out-of-control teachers in the 1940s and '50s as well as well before that. Probably the best testimony to this is Roald Dahl's childhood autobiography Boy, which still seems to be widely read nowadays.

In those days it was held that character was developed through the experience of hardship. That made it easy to abuse, because you only had to claim you were doing it 'for their own good'. As for lack of care and abuse, well, I understood that they were ubiquitous in the private school system for the same reason..

Presumably this Lady Smith is herself from this private-school milieu and so as such, as much as she may genuinely sympathise with the victims, she still feels a compulsion to defend these 'bastions of education'. But when you launch into a child half your size and a quarter of your age with your full strength and your temper lost there is no naivety there, only intent to harm. 'Culture of naivety' just sounds like she was seeking to let perpetrators off the hook.

Your mention of the 'shower situation' made me think of something else.

Some time back I investigated my own old secondary school. I had to take out a facebook account to do it but hey, needs must. I had always heard of how my secondary school used to have an intimidating reputation for the level of corporal punishment meted out there back in the '50s, '60s and '70s.

Teachers in that era used to bleat about how they needed corporal punishment as a 'last resort'. What I discovered was that at my old school it was used as a first resort, with kids being struck for trivial things or nothing at all. One woman recalled having her head banged on the desk for not understanding a Maths equation while another woman said she was caned in front of the whole class for not knowing the capital of Peru. The headmaster had a cane. Any teacher who wanted to was allowed to tool up with a so-called 'slipper' - in reality an adult-sized gym plimsoll. In addition there was a second tier of teachers there, an order of nuns - catholic schools are strange places - who were armed with leather straps. It goes without saying that these were used almost exclusively on the boys. Numerous women on the group stated that the boys got it so much worse than they did, although they themselves were evidently not entirely immune.

Re the showers thing, there were two men teachers named whose preferred practice was to save up punishments owing for when the boys were coming out of the showers. These were not PE teachers but they would seemingly just march into the boys' changing room after the lesson and bellow out a list of names. Those boys named would then be slippered on the spot - i.e., stark naked.

One of these two teachers named was still there in my time. He had a shocking temper that could turn on a dime, although in my day he couldn't lay a finger on us. Perhaps that was what he was so angry about.

The more I think of it, the tyrannical micro-management by Ofsted, the relentless pressure and stress, the lack of respect, not just from pupils but from fellow professionals who judge you as a sort of failure for having entered into such a crap profession - all this is just the pendulum of history swinging the other way. Teachers in the past got away with far too much.

The savage irony of it all is, it was never necessary to spend the equivalent of a second mortgage to send your child away to a place where they would be irrevocably screwed up for life. There were always plenty of state schools that performed the same service for free. I know because I went to one.

Comment by: Gary B on 22nd February 2025 at 16:21


"I think people are just too sensitive nowadays. I've just seen what Janet has been talking about from the link Terry provided on You Tube and can't see a great deal wrong with it as far as it goes. That's something all us boys did at school in those days whether we wanted to or not, and alright we didn't get it kept for posterity like they did but is there really anything so wrong with a few boys quickly showering being shown even if they were fully shown naked skins doing so, it was no more than a normal everyday school day situation. If I could see myself doing that in my own school from 1976 onwards I think I'd have a good laugh at myself and my friends and see it as a rather unique snapshot not many others have....."

Of course, Gary, you are entitled to your opinion, but let's just go back to when that film was made - there were no CRB checks on school staff, let alone outsiders coming in - there would have been, in addition to those poor kids, at the very least, a director, a lighting cameraman, and at least one camera operator in that changing room and shower area - the previous evening they might have been filming a Gary Glitter concert, or got a kick out of watching pre-pubescent boys taking their clothes off and showering. I can't imagine what possessed the P.E. teacher to allow that scene to be filmed, let alone included in the final cut - and surely the head teacher of the school should have had a power of veto over what was allowed to be filmed and broadcast. The school would have had the sanction (I know teachers love that word!) to have insisted on that scene being cut from the recording - and if the producer of the programme refused the Head could have gone to the ITA and insisted ATV(? - I assume for that area at that time?), and say that if the film wasn't edited they would withdraw their permission for the programme to be broadcast at all. ATV would have had the option of editing a couple of minutes out, or losing a whole programme.

This programme proves more than one point:

1) Like today, people will do anything to appear on television
2) That boys were treated as if they were in a cattle market
3) Though you might have been relaxed at the programme being broadcast, I bet some of those lads were not, and I can't understand why at least one of the parents did'n't raise a complaint.

Just the other day a minor actor in the soap Eastenders caused a scandal by delivering a racial slur, in character, on Radio 4 at lunchtime (a four letter word starting with "P") - not only did the presenter upbraid him for it, on air (the live World At One)there were several complaints to the BBC, and the BBC have since edited out the word from the Listen Again feature - I doubt many people bother to listen again to a topical news programme - it is like yesterday's newspaper. Just imagine if a director was stupid enough to film a scene like that today. It would be a sacking offence if it ever got to transmission - and I very much doubt it would.

If people ARE more sensitive today, that is no bad thing.


Comment by: Terry on 22nd February 2025 at 18:06



I am glad you picked this up Terry. At my school, our P.E. teacher was a definite voyeur. Even if you were lucky enough not to be his "type", he still enjoyed watching you shower, and though I definitely wasn't his type, I felt humiliated knowing he was watching me. I do remember on more than one occasion telling lads that they needed to use more soap, which showed how clearly he was looking. It was very noticeable that the older you got the more he was inclined to hang around.

I left school in '83 with one GCE in English. I was ungraded at maths, E physics and E commerce. I simply couldn't make sense of what was being taught in the school environment but three years after leaving I retook maths O level after paying privately (£5/hr) and re-sat as an external candidate getting grade B. It just goes to show how with the passing of just a few years and one-to-one education it's possible to do so much better. I once had a maths teacher who admitted she hadn't even passed her own O level maths herself, way to go! I went on to get a degree and qualified as a male nurse. Since 2020 I've come to realise that the world is not as we are led to believe it is and that most of what we are taught at school is useless garbage, and teachers are just as brainwashed as the kids they're indoctrinating to become slaves in the debt-based financial system. The middle-classes think they've escaped but they just enjoy a better standard of enslavement.

PE could be hit or miss. Mostly miss. I didn't need to learn the trapeze, I wasn't planning on telling the careers lady I wanted to work in a circus, although school sometimes felt like that. I didn't need to jump up and down on a trampoline trying to backflip and I didn't need to know how to cartwheel like an acrobat or climb rope. The rules of rugby and football didn't need to be drilled into my head endlessly, or the need to learn how to dribble a ball across a pitch, as I wasn't even going to watch those sports let alone play them from the moment I left school.

And you're all correct, what was it about all that shirtless PE they demanded in the gymnasium at school of boys and the almost religious need to get in the showers done with such zealotry whoever took you. The gym teacher was more concerned that you had your top off in gym or took a shower than he was about half the stuff you did in the actual PE lesson. Perhaps the one useful thing we could have learnt was to swim, but school didn't teach me that, someone else down a leisure centre did. We hardly did any swimming at school worth the name. Makes sense doesn't it.

Some people say they failed at school. No they didn't. School failed at them. It hasn't got any better, it's got worse. You have to learn to teach yourself in this world what matters.

When I left school in '83 I'm convinced a quarter of the teachers were thicker than three quaters of the school pupils there, and the street wise kids of any age knew for sure that one of our PE teachers was a salivating old closet perve over everyone. He liked rubbing our shoulders from behind in the gym to release tension without asking first. Those hands, ugh! A PE teacher with strong body odour who told US to take showers when HE needed one.

I was unaware you may have put that episode up before Terry. Good points by the way and worth thinking about.

Just wondering what people's views are on the kind of casual minor physical behaviour teachers, not just in PE, used to do to us. Another good example here before a swimming lesson, and also later in the gym. I never saw anyone told off for having greasy hair before. I found that a bit uncomfortable to watch actually, the way the boy was grabbed so suddenly for nothing. Also later on another boy gets thrown to the ground and injured, and yet again all that pulling at ears going on too.

This one is from 1981, where a PE teacher gets summarily fired. I know it's acting but my did it feel and look realistic. I've started it at the shirtless boys at attention for inspection ready for swimming.

https://youtu.be/03KIom_mKYg?si=_2BPTTNJB4HTkqXj&t=190

Within the article Alan has linked about Gordonstoun this comment was something that I noticed regards the timeline which matches what many on here have said particularly about their schooling, like mine, within the 1970's and 1980's as being a time where a certain culture developed.

It says - "Lady Smith described the junior school as having a “culture of naivety” between the 1960s and 1990s, but said new leadership at the senior school in 1990 brought positive change with a focus on child protection."

Also this article similarly added - "The lack of care and the abuse they experienced, which the inquiry identifies as being mainly in the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s."

There's another interesting comment - "The inquiry found voyeurism and indecent assault on both male and female pupils was revealed."

The description of "extreme violence" was deeply disturbing. That sound less like a high end school and more like a high security problem prison. I can only guess what incidents that might entail.

The above voyeurism comment is presumably a coded reference in part to such things as shower situations, much mentioned here on this forum. Sexual assualts are also mentioned within the article, and when you read comments like those of Paul last night many might think, did a head teacher or PE teacher really grab a hold of a boy's exposed penis/testicles/genitals in such situations, and the answer is clearly yes some people really did have no boundaries no matter how high up the chain they were, and these things did happen, if even a school the Royal Family sent an heir to the throne to can be riddled with such behaviour. Speaking for myself if a teacher had done that to me I think I would have frozen in terror and been in complete shock. The awful realisation is that your story Paul is not uncommon if it can happen even at "the best" schools. I suspect the follow up harm is when those are were on the receiving end of such behaviour then found it hard to be believed and so suffered again.

Obviously live in boarding schools were highly vulnerable to this, rather than regular day schools where most of us came and went from, but even these are not immune.

Many have come here and spoken of events between the 1960's and 1990's, and lots have spoken almost of a dark age of teaching as they see it. Could that really be correct, and did we who were at school in these years accept even minor things done to us that we should not have done.

I think I previously may have placed the same PE teacher Grange Hill clip on here a long time ago that you did Mark . It was certainly an accurate portrayal of the 1970's in school as I saw it. Constantly angry and exasperated teachers portrayed. Actually the PE teacher there was the most reasonable and likeable!

I think people are just too sensitive nowadays. I've just seen what Janet has been talking about from the link Terry provided on You Tube and can't see a great deal wrong with it as far as it goes. That's something all us boys did at school in those days whether we wanted to or not, and alright we didn't get it kept for posterity like they did but is there really anything so wrong with a few boys quickly showering being shown even if they were fully shown naked skins doing so, it was no more than a normal everyday school day situation. If I could see myself doing that in my own school from 1976 onwards I think I'd have a good laugh at myself and my friends and see it as a rather unique snapshot not many others have.

School showers after PE must have been a really much bigger deal to more people than some of us ever thought. I caught up with a group of old schoolfirends at a Weatherspoons a few years ago, men and women, some of us hadn't seen each other for 30 years or more, and when we'd finished talking about our modern day lives we began dissecting many of the teachers and a couple of the women began on their female PE teacher and how badly she treated them with showers which got the men and me talking about ours and before you knew it we were all having a discussion on school showers and PE lessons.

The only thing I will say on the subject is that many of the PE showers we took at my school after doing the gym were not essential or needed but we still had to take them and all this did was waste an lot of time going through the motions really.