Burnley Grammar School

I am not a fan of shirts against skins in school gyms. Far better that school PE is done in tops of some type that everybody is expected to wear, or otherwise if school wants skins then make sure that the whole PE structure in gym is clearly set out as that and everybody does it.

I was often singled out for shirtless PE when others weren't and it does create division and some feelings of unfairness that's for sure. Children always want to feel things are being fairly applied. In my case one day I annoyed my PE teacher over something to do with accidentally kicking another boy in gym and he thought I'd done it deliberately and I was told to remove my shirt for the remainder of the PE lesson as well as spend a period of time sitting at the side on my own just watching until being allowed to rejoin after ten minutes or so but without the top on, my top half bare. Then there were other times when there was a tiny minority of about three or four in PE out of 25 or so who were shirtless just because the teacher had said so, not forgetting the team skins things like everyone else seems to have been roped into at some stage.

Not all, but some PE teachers used their ability to make boys go shirtless in PE as a device of discipline and control, I feel certain of that considering my own recollections of such situations in draughty school gyms of the 1970s. When you're suddenly shirtless, especially if everyone else around you isn't, and it wasn't your choice to be that way, then you are instinctively feeling vulnerable even if you are a normally quite assured young person.

I was in secondary school from 1981 to 1986. Games kit was rugby shirt, shorts, socks and boots. PE kit was the above substituting boots for trainers inside. I think the idea was to save parents money given the rugby shirts had a school logo and could only be bought from one shop.

That PE kit lasted the first year. Then the school had the gym floor redone and I presume to prevent scuff marks etc, the indoor kit went to bare feet and at the same time shirtless. In addition to the existing school uniform another pair of shorts was required, colour depending on which house you were in.

On the whole it was popular. Sharing the same shirt for rugby and indoor PE presented laundry turn around problems and as we mainly played basketball as well as doing circuit training indoors, it was a bit hot for that. The different coloured shorts also removed the need to bands etc for indoor team games as the different coloured shorts depending on house easily differentiated one team from the other.

Unusually for the time, PE was also required in the sixth form with the same kit.

Barney - you make an interesting point about footwear. I don't think trainers had appeared when I was at school in the 60s so the only footwear available would have been plimsolls. However, just as we never wore tops so too we never wore footwear. This would seem to have been an even better idea when trainers appeared as there may have been the possibility of those with richer parents showing off their trainers while those with less well off having to make do with plimsolls. Good to see there are still schools with a shirtless policy and masters who lead by example.

Kenny - I think my school may have got it right - no-one ever wore a top for any p.e. so there was never an opportunity for any-one to feel victimised. It seems a lot fairer if every-one wears the same. We wore coloured bands in the gym to differentiate teams - outside we wore black or white shorts which was better.

Jeremy - I agree with what you say especially if it is standard practice and, as I said above, every-one is treated the same.

Does anybody agree with me that it's good for boys to see each other barechested in a physical education class?

If it encourages a heightened sense of body awareness then that is also a good thing, possibly making them not just competitive in the sports being done or the tests undertaken but among each other about what they look like.

That was always how I looked upon things when I was at school and it made me want to strive to look my best and place more effort into what I was doing to attain it.

Simon, my school generally speaking sounds like yours. The splitting of the class into half who had to go shirtless and the other half who didn't was frequently done, the skins and shirts, and it never failed to cause one or two boys resentment from memory. Nothing made some boys feel more victimised than finding themselves skins on successive lessons when others weren't. Doesn't that suggest shirtless is more of a big deal than has ever been generally accepted?

But we also did fitness tests once each term, about three times a year and on the days we did these, just like you, the whole class went into what seemed like the fitness test uniform of going shirtless skins to do this. Generally speaking, with one or two exceptions, these tests were the only time that come easily to mind that the entire PE class would be wholly shirtless as told to be by the teacher.

I've just walked home from my usual morning gym session and in doing that I walk along the boundary of the sports field of the school I attended in the 1960s, then a boys state grammar school, now a top performing, independent boys school with very high success rate of Oxbridge entry.

It's a beautiful crisp, autumn morning and what better morning for a run so I was pleased to see two classes of lads out doing circuits of the field accompanied by their sports masters. This was something in my days there I did more times than I could count and I loved it and all other aspects of PE.

I stopped to watch and as I did, it occurred to me that really at least on the surface, little had changed. There were two classes of lads, running, attired in white shorts and trainers accompanied by sports masters attired in black shorts and trainers all looking a picture of health. It was a fairly tight group so no laggers and keeping a good pace as they went. I wanted to go and join them but I doubt now I could keep the pace even though I'm fairly fit.

In my day, it was the same except we wore plimsolls on our feet - trainers then, were very new and very expensive and my parents certainly couldn't have afforded them for me, we wore white shorts and the masters wore black.

Back then of course, there was a dose of the slipper for any lad who hadn't made enough effort and I guess there is a 'modern' sanction for the same thing now. Back then, a dose of the slipper or the cane was certainly a message to 'buck up' your ideas and for me at least, it always worked.

I hope those lads are as content and getting the same benefits from sport as I and my friends did because on top of a successful career (now retired) I have a very good sporting life thanks to a good grounding at school and I don't miss my daily gym sessions.

The comment from you Greg about your spell many years ago running shirtless and your reaction to that nowadays caught my eye here, as did the follow up reply about being both shy and confident which is a really great angle to develop because it is kind of true in a lot of cases.

It might come as a surprise but not everyone in our whatsapp bareskin running group, which has now hit 20 members, is what I would call the easily identifiable outgoing confident kind of man. Some are but a few among the group are definitely not. Infact I'd even say we have a few introverts among us but that has not stopped them joining a group of men who like to keep fit and active, go running, feel the environment across them and doing so bareskin, or shirtless/barechested as is more commonly used. Everyone that has joined the group has returned and done it again, except for our newest member who I'm sure will do so, they just haven't had time yet. Nobody who has joined us has regretted it and everyone seems to come away highly motivated and positive and having enjoyed the shared experience. I certainly don't think any one of us are doing it to be noticed on purpose by anybody and that is not the reason the group was set up, although obviously you can't avoid somebody reacting if you run bareskin past them if they feel some need to, but with us that has not been a factor other than what I would say have been some quite positive approving smiles or some more quizzical looks wondering why a group of men aged 25 to 61 are doing so. Our average group bareskin run is about 5 to 7 at any one time out of the group of 20 we now have.

Really interesting and long thread. Only skimmed some of it and seems PE during the 50s and 60s was austere, to say the least.

I went to a boys private school during the 80s. PE and games lessons were normally conducted with tops on, though it was standard practice to divide into shirts & skins to identify teams.

This pattern was established from day one when, during my first rugby practice on a warm September day and much to my surprise, I was told to be skins. Being eleven-year-olds, many of us didn’t get it until some of the prep school lads started pulling off their tops. Then the penny dropped!

From then on, it was rare during a PE or games session to NOT be either a shirt or a skin at some point.

The few times where everyone was skins were again rare. Once a year, we had an annual and gruelling fitness test in the gym that was conducted without tops on.

And the annual CCF camp was the other regular occasion. Here, we were “beasted” by regular army PT instructors with a daily pre-dawn two mile run, clad just in our army boots and trouser fatigues.

Overall, some great times. I can appreciate that being shirtless isn’t for everyone, but I can honestly say it did me no harm and boosted my self-esteem.

I often find your comments really thoughtful and interesting Greg and your last one is no exception.

You said that you were surprised by the amount of boys that were troubled by going shirtless in school. It does not surprise me in the least, as boys won't openly show their opposition to such things will they. You used the word 'troubled' by it. I'd add words like 'uncomfortable - anxious - shy - embarrassed - unconfident'.

You didn't like drawing attention to yourself and I was very similar when I was young, and you chose to run shirtless to keep fit, so did you see that as drawing attention to yourself at the time or is that just something you think nowadays. Among the words I listed above I do think it is quite possible to be both a shy personality and confident alongside it.

When I went swimming with school I don't remember being bothered in the least by it, although I stopped at the age of eleven, I feel if I had carried on swimming in school until later that could have changed because I was definitely no fan of being told to do PE shirtless that's for sure and if you were to ask me directly why that was all I'd be able to come up with is because I was shy, which sounds like a cop out a bit I suppose.

I’ve never thought about school showering so much since reading on this site. In fact my main memories about it are from when it all started. The following years of routine school showers, I can’t remember much about at all. Presumably I was so used to it by then that it all became a none event. Surprising really, as it was still going on, though I do think it wasn’t so closely monitored as at the beginning. I do remember one time-table where our last lesson was gym, so I think most just went home at the end of the lesson to sort themselves out. My memories of showering following school team matches, which were always out of school hours, seemed optional as well for the same reason, unless I suppose we were all particularly muddy.

I haven’t got around to checking the Communal Shower website Nathan linked to. I’ve never showered communally since school, and never had any desire to do so. I never bothered joining any public keep fit club etc, though I have done exercise routines all my life, been interested in nutrition, so kept myself slim and fit. I did go through a jogging phase for many years, starting in my 20s, and can even remember running alone without a shirt during the younger years when it was warm, and thinking nothing of it. I find this strange now thinking back, as I always hated drawing attention, but somehow this went right over my head at that time, though I do remember a few remarks by teenage girls etc as I ran past back then! I never realised how many boys were troubled by shirtless gym lessons, but perhaps this was because I’m not sure we ever did it. Though I do remember being more self-conscious having to wear swimming trunks during mixed swimming at school, when others have said this never bothered them, despite this obviously requiring you to be shirtless, as well as everything else. But, we’re all just who we are I suppose.

It's a long time since my own children were at school now, that was in the 70s & 80s so what I'd like to know, perhaps from the PE teacher on here, as a follow up to Sean is whether parents need to provide active consent to school showers in those places that still conduct them such as where he is working.

Question for Nathan who posted the Communal Shower website, which by the way I do not agree has any fetish content having looked through it. That angle is only in the eye of the beholder in my opinion. If you want to see something like that within it then you are going to find it, it seems to me.

The part about persuading people to shower communally has a point, how for example do you persuade a large amount within a class to shower communally, maybe Nathan could answer that himself?

Another question for Nathan, just how many communal showers do you actually supervise yourself each day as a PE teacher, or each week on average? Maybe it's not as many as we think if you share it out between other teachers?

If it's anything like my days in school then rather a lot of PE lessons, mainly the ones we did outside, had two PE teachers with us but only one would bother to be in our changing room keeping an eye on us as we sorted ourselves, showered and dressed.

My view of school showers was that I just tolerated them and went with how things were, but wasn't enthusiastic about going in them so often after PE, and it really was after every single PE lesson without fail.

As an only child I had never seen another boy without clothes until I went to secondary school when I was twelve and suddenly I was confronted with a lot at the same time. I do remember being absolutely fascinated by the sight of some people I knew well suddenly fully undressed before me and noticing everybody around me and how they looked while naked and some of the differences.

We were certainly not all the same, and unlike what the chap from the army said on the You Tube clip, yes people do wonder what others look like in communal showers or naked changing situations so that was a bit of a fib in my opinion. When communal nudity is mandated as a requirement in somewhere like school you get to see not just the physical body but the actual body language of those who are the confident ones and those who are not rather starkly.

Forgot to mention -Speedo's seem to be back in fashion. Nearly all the guys were wearing them. They look great on good bodies, less so otherwise. They are also practical, as you only have to carry a small amount of wet cloth around.
I did not like them when they were introduced in PE in the early 60s but have worn them throughout adulthood. My PE teacher was right again.

Communal showers are GREAT!!! Just been in one at the local leisure centre. Umpteen complete strangers stark naked together. Very sociable - got chatting with some other guys I've never met before. I don't do that at a bus stop, fully clad.
But somehow they work. Yes, there was a bit of tension - but that was mainly about whether I would get in and whatever the elaborate rubrik was over lockers etc. Once I was standing there naked in the changing room, I was amazed just how relaxed I was. It felt so supportive, even though I am well past my prime.
I've seen so many sports centres ruined by the installation of what I believe is termed "village changing" - changing cubicles, shower cubicles, lockers. Most people I know just want to change, shower (prior to swimming), get their kit on and go, without the extra effort of going in and out of cubicles. Then reverse the procedure at the end. And ideally have showers which are part of the changing room, so as you can keep your eye on your stuff.
We certainly do not want desk bound (our home bound, because of COVID) idiots, who never see the inside of a leisure centre from one year's end to the next telling us that everyone wants village changing.
One pool I use regularly made one shower position into a cubicle. Of course, it is hardly ever used.
When my nearest pool was going to adopt "village changing" from large single-sex changing rooms, we put up a protest. Yes, some village changing is needed and most definitely must be provided, But they went for a large village changing area and two tiny same sex changing rooms. The village changing is hardly used and the single sex changing rooms are crowded. I believe that fewer people use the leisure centre now.
I can't explain why communal showering is such a pleasure. Yes, we see each others willies. And some wonderful manscaping! However, I do believe that the main reason is hormonal - the generation of endorphins, the reward and pleasure hormone. It is also generated during exercise and - this really surprised me - by corporal punishment. I always wondered why, after an often hellish gym period, I felt wonderful.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging people to try communal showers. If they don't like it, well and good. That must be respected. But I am glad that we had to take communal showers at school.
Best wishes to the "Communal Showers Association" - I wish we had something over here to prevent the few leisure centres we have left being ruined by "woke-ism".

Nathan, Can you not see the fetishistic nature of that site?. Take for example the opening comment in the section on "persauding" others to use communal showers (I gave a link to it in my original response). Unless he is taking the gypsies, what prompted Sam T to write that he felt he needed "to communal shower now". Another couldn't wait for `'more content".

Why try to encourage others to indulge in what is generally seen as a private and personal activity?. Why should it concern a man of 66 (the final comment in the section) that his "brethren" (?) join him in his ablutions?.

Charles - Chaos followed you said but excruciatingly you didn't elaborate further just what that meant. That's just one of those things that you are bound never to forget isn't it. Some people are so unbelievably selfish and lacking a clear line not to cross. I was at school with a boy with autism who would do some highly inappropriate things like helping himself without asking to other people's food at the dining table. I've never forgotten that.

Sharing the bathroom with your siblings seems alright to me even at fourteen. Did you mean the bath? That's common in large families isn't it.

Circa 1965-71.

Gym teachers really do leave an impression on you don't they. Take one of mine for example, he was keen to let us know his views on everything and one of them was that "shirts are for cissies" and he would never tolerate anyone wearing one in what he called 'his' gym at school. But he wasn't a hypocrite like some teachers get called out on, he actually did take many of our gym classes stripped off to the waist like we were. Nobody else at our school did that.

When we had other teachers they were very different and we would sometimes actually wear a vest. We were never allowed to wear an actual t-shirt even with these teachers though, it always had to be a vest, a simple plain white vest with nothing on it at all.

When I looked at the clip that was left here a few days ago of the army induction and the physical training that they do, there was one thing that I noticed and it was that recruits could come to the gym training in a variety of kits and that there was no actual uniform noticeable which you might think there would be in the army. So that means that school was stricter than the army for PE because we always had to turn out uniformly the same as each other to gym without any significant variations and I think many schools were like that.

I'm not surprised that a lot of people found school showering to be the big deal with PE for them. We had a fool in our class who never stopped clowning around and was always a disruptor. He once got to the shower first and decided to urinate across the floor of the thing before any of the rest of us had been able to use it. The teacher had not seen this and came in the door moments after he did it. Obviously nobody wished to then use the shower and so we told our PE teacher that this person had taken a wee in the shower all over the place. The reaction to this was amazing, the perpetrator received no rebuke at all and all the rest of us were told it didn't matter and that we still had to step in there because it would probably be good for our feet. Chaos followed.

I never minded school showers and found them easy enough to deal with because I wasn't bothered by my nakedness or being seen like it, perhaps because I'd grown up in a large family with five brothers and a sister and privacy was a luxury that I never really had at home. I was still sharing the bathroom with some of my younger brothers when I was 14 years old out of simple practical necessity, not choice.

I have placed the content on here in good faith. If you feel there is anything about the content that I left from the Communal Shower Association that delegitimises it in any way then can you please specify the precise areas that have caused you the problem that you claim. Thanks.

Interesting read on the communal shower association website. There's a site for everything it seems.

James asked what was it about the 70s & 80s. Going to school myself in those days and hearing my own parents, especially my father often talking about his own days at school in the drab and austere 50s as he memorably used to describe it made me feel grateful I was growing up in the 80s when things were so different as it then felt compared to my parents. He would tell me stories of getting regular classroom beatings and made it sound quite fearful at times.

I still think I'd rather have gone to school in the 80s rather than the 50s but like William said, he has thought about things after a while and so do I now kind of revise my opinion in parts about my own decade defined era in school which suddenly looks more in tune with the 50s than now. I've always thought of everything that came after 1970 as being more enlightened and modern compared to before then.

Geoff - you are, of course, absolutely right though I think Jason knew there would be the one dissident voice. Indeed - the comment had already been made though not published!

Tanya, That's an ineresting question. Nowadays if a boy of 15, with practically nothing on, were held down by other boys of the same age and his genitals daubed with shoe polish it would count as peer on peer abuse. I'm glad nobody told me that because I might have worried about it, but the mindset in the 1960s was so different. Then it was regarded as high jinks, an initiation that was a bit of fun provided it didn't go too far. Thanks to the 1960s attitude and the fact that "blacking" is at the mild end of the abuse spectrum, it honestly didn't trouble me. On top of that, school and upbringing had inculcated in me the idea of taking things in your stride and not making a fuss, and that included some nudity at school.
A 15 year old today might be more likely to find such an initiation traumatic. There are plenty of resilient youngsters around but they live in a society in which (1) they are acutely conscious of their rights, (2) strident protest has become the norm and (3) stoicism is out of fashion.
I'm not suggesting that the past was better. In many ways it wasn't but I was better able to cope with my experience because of the prevailing attitudes of the time.
I am certainly not condoning what happened even though I laughed it off. The problem with that sort of pranks is that if a malevolent boy had been in the group it would have been easy to subject me to a serious assault. But it was over very quickly and nothing of the sort happened.
I hope that answers your question.

Mike, totally agree with your comment.

I have just had a glance at the website Nathan mentioned. In my opinion it fair whineys with fetishism, for example:


https://www.communalshowerassociation.com/how-tos/how-to-persuade-others-to-communal-shower

It reminds you of those people who used to advocate naturism. I frankly haven't got the interest or will to read all of the site, but this gives some indication of it's flavour

Comment by: Jason on 17th October 2023 at 17:40
Mike proving the voice of moderate common sense on here.
I think almost everyone will agree.....won't they?



Don't be so silly Jason, the one someone I thought would not agree came out the starting blocks like Usain Bolt on steroids.

Alan, you have focused yet again on your pet project here but has it not occurred to you that Mike was not actually trying to defend so called perverts and was talking in more general sensible terms?

@ Nathan - Thanks for the input on showers. I made a few comments in a post on the 6th October.
T

Mike proving the voice of moderate common sense on here.

I think almost everyone will agree.....won't they?

Just in and before I forget this I'm just going to add it here for you.

Did you know that there is something called the Communal Shower Association. No, me neither. It is based in the United States. I have no idea if there is a UK equivalent. They also have something going called a School Shower Study. I came across it during the weekend whilst I was doing some looking into the issue after having received a bit of a hard time on here.

Somebody (sorry I tried to find the post to name you) a few weeks ago asked about the history of such things. Well there is a very interesting explanation on this website that I think some of you might find fascinating even if it does come from an American perspective. It suggests the first communal shower appeared in 1900, and that they really took off in the 1920's with very widespread use from the 1940's to the 1990's in particular and notes 1995 as a watershed year. Very specific I thought.

Now I had no idea about any of this but found that my own general ideas matched quite closely with the timelines suggested here.

There is some very good reading if you follow the links. I'm sure it will provoke some further comments.

https://www.communalshowerassociation.com/school-shower-study

Comment by: Mike on 16th October 2023 at 23:04
We must get away from this overwhelming desire to rewrite the past in the image of the present.

Surely we don't want the generation of the 2070's and 2080's rewriting our present in their present in another half century from now.


This depends, Mike, on not giving school students from today and the future, the grounds for feeling angry or aggreived at being treated like cattle, or worse, doesn't it?. No boy or girl should have had to endure being taught by paedophiles whether that was the 1940s, to certainly the 1990s, as we have seen in numerous court cases, especially not in situations like PE where the teacher has seemingly unlimited access to those pupils in changing rooms and showers.

Some teachers treated the pupils they had under their control abominably. You can't rewrite history to accomodate perverts, however "nice" you want to be, and understanding their times. A predator remains a predator whether it was 1950. 1970 or 1990 and should be dealt with in the same way through the courts.

Comment by: Steven on 16th October 2023 at 18:59


You write in part......

"Where do we learn about our personal hygiene, well it's at home isn't it, and that's the right place for it to be, nowhere else and from nobody else than the family, or maybe a medical professional in some situations quite possibly.

The rigorous implementation of school showers always seemed strangely obsessive to me at school and actually quite draconian. I used to see boys at school who were never any bother to anyone around school find themselves getting a roasting from the PE teacher because of showering after PE.

I would actually go further and suggest that the real issue was not the actual showering itself but the manner it was done by many schools and the practices such as close checking you were wet enough on exiting and things like having to lift your arms up to check armpits and all that nonsense we put up with. "

I agree with everything you write here, Steven - especially the final paragraph. Some teachers took it upon themselves at playing at being corporals or square bashing sergeants. This was absurd since nobody has been forced to join the military now for 60 years or more. There was, and is, no need to treat every lad as if he were a potential squaddie, or the inmate of a borstal. . Didn't Shakespeare have it? "dressed in a little brief authority".

Some of them were pathetic little men, probably hen-pecked at home, possibly in unhappy marriages, and their only way of feeling "big" was to make their pupils feel small. Perhaps they acted that way because, psychologically they knew themselves to be failures? - after all - "those who can, - do. Those who can't teach" Still doesn't excuse their conduct though.

Simply - I completely agree with Mike.