Burnley Grammar School

One of my lads started secondary school in 1996 and was bothered by some of the things discussed here, especially the prospect of a PE required shower. I remember writing three short notes in quick succession hoping to help him out only to receive a note back myself from the school that no more of my own notes would be accepted any longer and that he and I must accept the rules of the school and the teacher in charge.

Unusually perhaps for me and the time I was at school, when I had been a teenage schoolboy at the start of the 70's our PE teachers had a quite casual attitude to showers and most of the time let us decide, and there was none of this chasing boys down to take them if they hadn't. Most boys did at some point still take the showers because we had no choice when splattered in mud from the football pitch or cross country run, to avoid was just foolish in that circumstance. My mistake was to think everywhere else was like my own place and clearly it was not.

Shirtless PE was not the standard gym appearance for me but we certainly did our own fair amount of it when told to.

Comment by: Graeme on 6th June 2025 at 15:18
'Would a modern class faced with a sudden instruction to all do PE bare chested comply as quickly and quietly as we once did, or would there be more said, or even active resistance?'



The way some used to say no to things in school was by bunking off Graeme. I did that a few times myself for a while. Would 2025 be any different to 1975, I don't reckon so somehow. I think they'd still do it. The real difference is parental reaction and possible running off to social media to sound off and gain attention.

My own parents wouldn't have had the slightest problem with my PE teachers telling me to go shirtless any time or place they saw fit to tell me to.

In a misguided attempt to save time after PE at our school our head PE teacher once tried using what he called a "car wash" method of post PE showers for our quite large thirty or so boys PE class. This involved turning all the shower heads on throughout the entire communal shower and making a line of us walk very slowly through them one by one, soaping up our whole body and rinsing off by the time we reached the last shower head. At least in theory that is how it was supposed to work. The idea was a joke and was longer, not quicker. In the end, it was way too awkward for all of us, wasn’t effective at cleaning any of us and saved no time but took more and left us loitering about naked outside the showers being told when our turn to do the walk through was. That idea was quickly abandoned and we went back to the usual stripping off as soon as we got back and in for the usual free for all together as one group, which is how such things are meant to be anyway.

If he wanted to save time he could have just said skip the showers at least once in a while but that was the one thing they never considered letting us do after PE. I think "going in the showers" must have been the most mandatory thing any of us used to do in school, other than uniform. Whilst I was pretty calm about such things I do agree with others on here who have come to the view that the near obsession that our PE teachers once had about getting all children naked in front of them for showers was a touch extreme.

Perhaps what's most shocking is that I can still remember what many of my old classmates and friends looked like naked even over 30 years later and quite a few of their penises too! Is that just me being weird or can anyone else do that? LOL

I'd like to see the reaction that might be given in a school in the here and now of today with no recent history of doing any PE in the gym shirtless if a new PE teacher came into the job and took hold of the class of 12 year olds telling them all they must all do the lesson in their bare chests whether they liked it or not.

Something like this happened in my school at that age in the late seventies with a new teacher who overturned the way we had normally done things. At that time we all just did it without a murmur because you could not say no very easily to a teacher, no matter what they asked unless you were spectacularly brave or stupid. In my opinion boys PE like that split into two halves, boys who didn't care, mind or liked a chance to bare their chests for a while doing gym, and the other half who did not want it for a whole host of reasons, shyness, self consciousness, body dysmorphia of some kind, and maybe just that vulnerable exposed sensation that many get when shirtless, especially in school PE.

Would a modern class faced with a sudden instruction to all do PE bare chested comply as quickly and quietly as we once did, or would there be more said, or even active resistance?

"........Comment by: James on 6th June 2025 at 11:19

.....
I considered that the statutory requirement of boys just wearing shorts for PE and games was sufficient to maintain discipline.Of course the length of the shorts that we wore were considerably shorter than those that we could see in the pictures and we weren't allowed to wear anything underneath them.Like you,showers were done in the nude and if boys objected they would receive the plimsoll or cane...."


Sorry James, but whenever anyone mentions the "D" word, I feel like responding with the "F" word.
It must be a bottom of the barrel teacher if the only way he can control his class is through humiliating and threatening boys. Some boys are going to cause mischief, and cause mischief they will, whether dressed or undressed. Likewise, well behaved boys will remain well behaved if they are allowed a shirt. We are in the first quarter of the 21st century, for Christ's sake.
I strongly suspect that some lads become juvenile delinquents BECAUSE of this ridiculous last century discipline which jars on most modern thinking people, b y the teenage years now they are growing up and don't need such ridiculous rules  - and I see you cite the good old cane in the last paragraph for boys who were shy or reluctant to use the showers.
The good old days, eh, James?. Too bad we can't send them up the chimney  anymore. 


Yours Truly:  I should imagine that with all the Health & Safety laws today that untrained older pupils would not be allowed to conduct classes for younger boys - there was an example of a teacher - a public servant, for that is all they are, - sitting back getting paid for  doing nothing and those he delegated to, doing the job for nothing. Of course, as you say the teaching pupils will not have any degree of responsibility, patience or tact, but then, a lot of teachers didn't either!.

Simon.
I considered that the statutory requirement of boys just wearing shorts for PE and games was sufficient to maintain discipline.Of course the length of the shorts that we wore were considerably shorter than those that we could see in the pictures and we weren't allowed to wear anything underneath them.Like you,showers were done in the nude and if boys objected they would receive the plimsoll or cane.

Comment by: Donald on 5th June 2025 at 20:46




".....But young men like my brother who was ten years older than me once had to leave school and at the age of 18 do national service,....."

Hi Donald, I have in the past mentioned that, and have admitted that the school nonsense was, perhaps, a good introduction and preparation to what the poor devils would go through at 18, - BUT - National Service ended in this country in 1960 - the last of the press gang would have left compulsory military life in 1962/63. The last national servicemen would have been born in 1941/42. That is, NS ended 65 years ago and it's last youngest "recruits" would now be 82/83. That should put school into context. Some of the ghastly old waxworks that run them still think it is 1950-something. Unless Rachel From Accounts grows another magic money tree, which would need the IMF to provide the compost, it will not return, because it is unaffordable, and most military men would not welcome forced labour for two years for unwilling recruits, so for the past 62 years lads have been put through this doctrinaire crap at school for no good reason at all, except to massage the egos of control freaks, and provide free entertainment for men who like looking at naked lads and getting paid for it. . There is no justification for it at all. It is an entirely different question whether this country would now be worth fighting for, when you consider our former "enemies" are a lot better off than we are.

Hi Chris 1970,

' when you're a sixth from student you are volunteering to attend school, you no longer have to be there. The idea is you are specialising in a handful of core subjects only, so unless one of them is actually PE at A level I fail to see why it should be mandatory to carry on if you don't want to do so, and as for showers and shirtless with it, what happened to the idea that being in the sixth form gives greater freedoms at school and less hassle over rules you once had to follow?'

You put that so well. By opting to stay on into the sixth form you are contributing to making the school's performance figures look better, especially since the introduction of school assessment tables in the early '90s, and for that alone you are entitled to some measure of privilege in return.


Hi Christine, Alan, Damien,

Further to PE in the sixth form, at my school it was not only required but sixth formers were even pressed into service taking classes instead of teachers.

I mean - was this even legal?
It was utterly inappropriate since mid-teens do not have the sensitivity and maturity to deal with younger children, which is exactly what I found out in my first ever Games lesson. Furthermore, given that they would not have undergone proper training, training, surely this practice was contravening at least one health and safety or even an employment law. Perhaps Christine could shed some light on this one. Did this happen at anybody else's school? Because I'm smelling a rat here.

It's a good point Donald. Makes school, even the kind of sixth forms some here went to, seem very appealing in comparison.

I wonder if anyone ever failed one of those medicals because of their testicles!

Comment by: Alan on 5th June 2025
To put men through compulsory P.E when they have no interest in sport, is in my view a punishment. Hopefully, these days, any sixth former, male or female, would refuse to comply with such ridiculous rules.



But young men like my brother who was ten years older than me once had to leave school and at the age of 18 do national service, I well remember my brother explaining how difficult he found the training where he had PT (PE) sessions all the while, without a great deal of say about it which would leave him exhausted. These men were sent away and had to do these things, and as he told me, on day one within the hour of his induction he was standing around with something like 50 other young men, none whom he knew, all completely naked waiting to be looked at and then had a complete stranger grab his balls too without permission for the draft medical. Shared barracks, shared showers, shared everything, no private life for a year or two and a lot of PE on top and then a posting some place.

At my grammar school in the 50s no boys would ever have been expected to express discomfort around such things as not wearing a top for PE or sharing the showers we had. But I am pleased I missed national service but had the call came for me too I would have been well informed about what to expect.

When I took my A-level exams two of the subjects I wanted to study were not done by my comprehensive school, one of them was politics, but it was done by another secondary school in my same area a few miles away, so I had a decision to make, do I leave, do I stay at my comprehensive and change what I wanted to do to fit what they could offer me or do I switch to the other secondary school to take up the subjects I wanted to do. In the end it was easy really, I knew what I wanted to do and so I had to make a switch, which I did in 1976, enjoying a glorious summer between the two schools, but it was not a great age at which to change schools and make new friends, even though I was still in the same area and seeing all my old ones too.

I remember my comprehensive school not being thrilled I was leaving and not continuing with them in subjects they were offering at A-level, which was a bit rich of them and they did try to encourage me to stay but if they didn't offer me the two A-levels I wanted out of the three I took what was the point.

So I went off to the secondary school a few miles away to speak about their sixth form and the A-levels available with my parents, gathered all the details I needed about coursework and everything I could imagine and was set for my September start. I was more nervous about this new school than I was aged eleven doing the big move up from a small primary to a huge comprehensive.

When I left my comprehensive school after my O-levels I certainly thought I'd seen the last of any school gym or team games on the playing fields or any type of PE in any form. That comprehensive was I think completely typical of the time, although we did wear vests in the gym much of the time but with occasional shirtless days with skins and shirts and all that obvious stuff, and other random shirtless lessons under various teachers. Nothing outside was ever done shirtless. The showers, like everywhere at the time, were to be taken always without excuses. All quite unremarkable I think and I had a normal average attitude to PE and just went with whatever they did with us.

When I joined the sixth form at the nearby secondary school I remember immediately feeling an outsider and had to make quite a bit of effort with everyone to fit in, as a new boy, a funny thing to say at sixteen in school. But at least I had my subjects.

This was when the surprise happened. I was in the sixth form common room being filled in on my role in school and what to do and were to go and what time etc, when I found out they wanted me to do some PE there. I couldn't believe it. When I had been to talk about joining their sixth form with my parents I'd been given all manner of details about sixth form and study periods and subjects and clubs I could join but at no point in the conversations about it had anyone from the school ever suggested, spoken or written down any mention of physical education being on the agenda in the sixth form, and not expecting it I had not even thought to ask either. But here I was being told I needed to stick a PE lesson into my timetable on a Tuesday and Friday. I was absolutely livid, and as I had not been a pupil at this school I wondered if this meant I would have to even buy some kind of compatible kit. It was a question of, what do I wear for all this then, and what am I expected to be doing?

Well like many men here report of their schools, this secondary I'd just joined for my A-levels was one of the mainly shirtless gym PE type of schools I soon found out. A PE teacher dropped by into the common room and had a few words with us and I approached for a personal chat as I was from another school.

Luckily I already had generic shorts, white, that most places used and a pair of short white socks. But he wanted the boys from the lower sixth from in the gym on Tuesday late mornings if it didn't clash with a subject I was taking, and it didn't, they checked this up for all of us. So I did gym PE that day for my lower sixth year, switching it to another day in upper sixth the following year and I remember packing a T-shirt top for the PE despite knowing they did a lot of PE with tops off apparently, and when I changed nobody put a top on and so although I had one I didn't dare even attempt to put it on and that was my debut to shirtless PE being made to do so in sixth form of another school I'd only joined because my old one couldn't offer me the right courses. If I'd had the guts to put that top on I think I would have been told to get it off anyway. It was a bit surreal.

My parents when they found this out actually thought it was an excellent idea that I had to do yet more PE!

On Fridays after lunch it was outside, mostly we seemed to cross country among ourselves and chat as we went along. Nothing on my A-level syllabus clashed with that time so I had to do it. In the end i didn't mind the outdoors so much, but could have done without the other gym lesson which mostly consisted of what I can best call aerobics or sometimes handball, basketball, volleyball or even just kickabout inside no rules football, all without tops on us, the occasional bib got produced but not often.

Not many people start a new school at sixteen and a half, have to make new pals, and get an intro to shirtless PE they never did before, all while getting stuck into serious study with A-levels at the same time, but it worked out for the best in the end and became enjoyable over time.

Comment by: Christine Sanderson on 5th June 2025 at 15:47

Thank you for your reply, Christine. I still think this particular rule is inappropriate - for young men (or women) after 16, because, as Matthew said, his friend, some months younger than him was at work and no longer treated like a child, and dictated to. If it is necessary for school hours to be made up, I would have thought that they could, for example, spend two or three hours a week in the school library (especially kitted out, as they are these days, with computer equipment). To put men through compulsory P.E when they have no interest in sport, is in my view a punishment. Hopefully, these days, any sixth former, male or female, would refuse to comply with such ridiculous rules.

Schools can insist on rules they decide on subjects and dress/uniform, including on PE if they wish to also use that as a mandate for continuing further education beyond 16 although how common or uncommon this now is or once was is hard to ascertain easily. I don't think it hurts to continue doing a bit of PE while you remain at school but after 16 I'd favour it being an optional add on rather than a demand. Schools do like to make sure the week is filled appropriately without excessive non lesson time, aka free periods officially blank on the time table and physical education can be seen as easy filler for those not studying enough subjects to create a full enough timetable.

Comment by: Matthew D on 4th June 2025 at 22:34


"Further to the comments previously raised about physical education into sixth form.
I was required to maintain PE alongside my A level studies when I stayed on in the sixth form of my school in 1983-5 and this was a school where PE kit for boys was only a pair of black shorts in the school gymnasium wholesale for the lot of us regardless of what year or class you were in and that even carried on in the lower and upper sixth, including mandatory showering, communal and nude. We were not allowed to dip out of that continued requirement at the time which did rub quite a few of us up the wrong way I recall. While I was at school a friend who was eight months younger than me was doing a job, getting a bit of money to spend and seemingly growing up while I was still in school doing the things he'd left behind......."


That is unacceptable even for 45 years ago Matthew. There was some consternation at home when I said I was leaving school at the earliest opportunity, and some pressure was put on me to do extra years at the "new" school, but I new it would be the old fascist regime in a new building, despite the assurances that it would all be be big, better, modern, and I could study subjects that interested me. I did look into it, but I just knew I would still be as miserable there than I had been at the dump. I made my excuses and left, as the Sunday papers would have it. I must have been almost contemporary to you, so even if I didn't know it before, I know now I made the right decision. Parents often don't realise the misery they put their kids though, because of course we didn't talk about. I strongly suspect I would have gone through the same scenario as you did, especially as our P.E teacher was the youngest at the old school, and would probably have gone on for a few more years, and I just hope that this compulsion is not inflicted on today's sixth formers. Perhaps Christine could tell us?.

I was privately educated at a quite well known school in London and was made to live with my grandparents in Finchley during the week so I could attend it, before being driven home up the M1 to my parents on Friday evenings and then driven back on Sunday evenings ready for the new week. I hated Sunday nights, they were my least favourite time of the week as a schoolboy. PE was the following morning. We did so much PE it was insane. Shirtless PE was the majority of it at the hands of any of at least six named teachers, one of whom ended up with a final warning over his behaviour.

I felt very uncomfortable every PE lesson for 5 years, I'm not saying that half of the teachers were perverts but them being in the showers with us three times a week to "check" we were showering properly was humiliating and degrading.

Pupils who were reluctant to shower were bullied/beaten and humiliated in front of the rest of us, and belted or plimsolled and whole lessons seemed to be more about shouting and humiliating us then about sport with many of these men.

I really hated PE at school due mainly to the attitude towards us, It was a pity because I enjoy playing sports and set school records in some of the athletic events, many which were done in forced bare chests including sports day.

This was 1967-1972.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 3rd June 2025 at 01:20
Secondary school imposes more than enough challenges on vulnerable young people without forcing them to strip nearly or actually naked.

Comment by: Matthew D on 4th June 2025 at 22:34
I was required to maintain PE alongside my A level studies when I stayed on in the sixth form of my school in 1983-5 and this was a school where PE kit for boys was only a pair of black shorts in the school gymnasium wholesale for the lot of us regardless of what year or class you were in and that even carried on in the lower and upper sixth, including mandatory showering, communal and nude. We were not allowed to dip out of that continued requirement at the time which did rub quite a few of us up the wrong way I recall. Eighties schools loved the shirtless look in PE!








Yours Truly I agree with you, and what you didn't need was a teacher like mine who I previously mentioned dragging me aside without a stitch on myself and reading me the riot act over an innocent mistake I made regards PE equipment. Who wants to deliberately pull someone over and give them a bollocking in a changing room without clothes on, not only is it unfair and unjustified but it smacks of wanting to add a touch of humiliation as well. If you're a kid in school and get treated crap by your teacher then how are you supposed to give back the respect they automatically expect you to give them. Even children and teenage boys deserve a little bit here and there.

Matthew when you're a sixth from student you are volunteering to attend school, you no longer have to be there. The idea is you are specialising in a handful of core subjects only, so unless one of them is actually PE at A level I fail to see why it should be mandatory to carry on if you don't want to do so, and as for showers and shirtless with it, what happened to the idea that being in the sixth form gives greater freedoms at school and less hassle over rules you once had to follow?

Further to the comments previously raised about physical education into sixth form.
I was required to maintain PE alongside my A level studies when I stayed on in the sixth form of my school in 1983-5 and this was a school where PE kit for boys was only a pair of black shorts in the school gymnasium wholesale for the lot of us regardless of what year or class you were in and that even carried on in the lower and upper sixth, including mandatory showering, communal and nude. We were not allowed to dip out of that continued requirement at the time which did rub quite a few of us up the wrong way I recall. While I was at school a friend who was eight months younger than me was doing a job, getting a bit of money to spend and seemingly growing up while I was still in school doing the things he'd left behind. Lots of boys used to get hauled into the Head of Sixth's office over issues around PE. In our sixth form we were expected to join other classes once a fortnight on a cross country run too, some of which were shirtless. Eighties schools loved the shirtless look in PE!

Comment by: Ronnie on 2nd June 2025 at 22:47

It was an unusual start to that last junior school year. When our new teacher came into the class she made everyone get up from their chosen places and line up along the back wall. She then placed everyone where she wanted starting from the rear desks, girl boy, girl boy until all boys were seated, except me and quite a few girls still left. She then placed these remaining girls together, and then the last girl at the desk right in front of hers. I was still alone at the wall then, so she summoned me to sit next to this girl, so that’s how I ended up sitting there. There seemed a couple of rows of girls behind me, and with all my friends towards the back, so I felt a bit isolated and didn’t like this arrangement at all. I thought it was a bit unkind of her to do that, but I got used to it.

I’m not sure she was infatuated, but she certainly singled me out right from the start. It seems a bit silly to try to think this through after all these years, but they’re just childhood memories of how things were. Around that age of 10-11, I think we’re just starting to become a little more self-aware and learning who we are in the world, and it was certainly around that age that I started to become just a little bit self-conscious during certain moments: swimming lessons in front of her and the girls for instance. But, I do remember that early childish feeling of thinking she liked me for some reason, so quite liked something of that, but also found this new feeling mixed with awkwardness during moments of extra attention in class at times. Mixed up early emotions I suppose. I do remember one girl who sat behind me saying, ’She likes you’ and a few other girls calling me, teacher’s pet, which I certainly didn’t like as I never thought of myself as that sort of kid at all. I would never have brought her an apple! One time when we were on a school trip where she’d arranged a football match against a boys’ boarding school, we were all practising the day before the game when she came up to me and said she'd only selected me to play because I was tall. I remember this hurt me a bit because I’d done quite well at school football, being only one goal behind being top goal scorer and captain of our team. Slightly odd she said that to me I suppose.

When I refused to take my shirt off I think she tried to encourage me saying, ‘Don’t be soft’ or something like that, until she gave up and asked another boy who sat along the wall to my right near the back. I think she’d written out the various body parts on the board and expected a boy to stand there while she pointed at ‘muscles’ or ribs etc. while everyone stared. Absolutely no chance I was having any of that. It was yet another example where a boy would be expected to just strip off in front of anyone on demand, while being confidently instructed to do so by any teacher, wasn’t it? As though it was expected all boys wouldn’t or shouldn’t have a care in the world about such things, while all the other kids, most likely the girls, giggled along. Strange how many adults always tried to condition boys to believe they should do this in front of anyone without a care, when in reality there was absolutely no truth in it whatsoever...I just happened to mention this to my brother some years ago as he’d been in her class four years before me. Apparently she’d asked him to do this too, and he’d also refused. He mentioned the boy she’d replaced him with, and it was an older brother of the boy she'd told to do it in my class! What a déja vu moment this must have been for her, though she didn't mention any of this at the time. There are other things I could say about this teacher, but nothing that would be too concerning to most I suppose, just unusual, though she'd have to be more careful today. Most thought she was a really great though unconventional sort of teacher, as do both my brother and I

The school thing perhaps was a bit unusual perhaps, but I’m not really sure. As I mentioned previously, I'd actually done really well in my final year in her class, it's surprising what receiving some extra attention can achieve, even though there were other aspects of all this that I didn’t like at times. It was thought a better school than the more local one, though I hadn't planned to go there. I didn't go for that long in the end anyway, before I realised it really was too far as I was still limping about at that stage. I still have a vivid memory of the family discussion, and it being left to me to decide whether I would prefer to transfer to the nearer school. I think it was only the distance that swayed my decision. I have a memory of lying in bed looking at my new school uniform on a hanger on the front of the wardrobe, and thinking it would have to be changed again as I fell asleep.

One or two short points.

First to Romy, I have never found it necessary that any teacher should be needing to keep any type of register like you describe, which I have heard before too. Eyes and ears should be the register and paying attention. A register for school attendance is obviously a vital tool but I cannot see why something marking pupils down for showers is and do not approve personally with that approach. I also do not approve of some teachers who would create unofficial little 'period books' for girls either, something I have come across over the years, mainly longer ago.

I do believe a fully functioning school should be offering showers to pupils after PE, and this is still a legal requirement to have the means to shower after PE available on the school site in working order.


Greg I am interested in your teacher wishing you to move to another school alongside her. Was there any pressure applied to do this? At face value I am not agreeable to teachers acting like this but there may be far more to your story so I will not be too judgemental. Was this teacher so exceptional with regards to your own teaching that she was vital to remain part of your education at the time, if so, how was that? I think it is a reasonable point already made that she might have taken a liking to you beyond the purely educational. Asking you to remove your shirt in a class may be indicative of her feelings.

Teachers and pupils of all ages have long been known to have crushes on each other.

Until this thread I hadn't thought about school showers since I left but now I think about it they may have had a bigger impact on me than I realised. I have huge self image issues mostly due to being over weight (loosing it tho, thank you weight watchers) but even if someone tells me I look good for what ever reason I don't believe them, in my head I just can't understand that someone would find me attractive. Unsurprisingly this had led to no self confidence which affects my social life (or lack there of). Being so embarrassed and self conscious of my body at that age could have been the beginning of all this crap.
Our girls PE teachers even kept a shower register and ticked us all off into them, checking our hair and the wetness of our skin on the way out, we got looked at and touched, so I agree with the dignity thing, it was girls too. We all lined up to shower and felt so insecure doing it.
Not saying it's the only cause and I'm not fishing for any sympathy, but I thought it was a point worth raising. We all know how self conscious developing young women are, little things can really affect your whole life.

At least we didn't have the added concern about going topless doing the PE lesson itself.

I think Jason describes what is very typical of the PE teacher style of approach, pretend that everyone who is a young male at that age is basically the same and likes the same things and feels much the same. Would it be fair to suggest that most PE teachers, I can only judge from my own ones of course, played to the stereotypes of expectations they had out of us boys in school.

Dismissing any concerns as unimportant if that teacher has obviously noticed something is the reaction most here would have expected themselves I suspect.

I can recall one of my own PE teachers being fond of using the phrase 'knock you into shape'. What this seemed to mean was he would try damned hard to make you like doing rugby matches, and I remember he wanted to see all the rough and tumble that goes along with rugby playing. I remember being open to giving rugby a go and seeing if I liked it when I was at school but it soon became clear to me that it just bored me and it held no interest for me at all but we got sent out to play rugby games a lot over winter. It was obvious one of our teachers liked the physical contact sports like rugby and encouraged some rough and aggressive play, even approving of some of the scrapes that happened and showing little concern by a grazed knee or two.

If you was to look at the collection of boys in my PE class who went out to play rugby for instance, there was no doubt that the majority of them probably held the same view as me, and not only did they not really want to be playing it, they probably didn't even want to watch it on television either.

Comment by: James on 3rd June 2025 at 08:23
Your Truly,
and
Comment by: Yours Truly on 3rd June 2025 at 01:20



Speaking personally, I could just about accept that we all went through the humiliations 40 or 50 years ago, when educationalists and teachers were frankly more ignorant, as had generations before ours, but what really incenses me is that young teenagers today have to go through the same situations, now that schools are supposed to be full of child psychologists, "pastoral care", and virtue-signalling teachers who read "The Guardian" and espouse any right-on nonsense, trying to give the impression they are "caring". Kids mature much earlier these days and the fact that some teachers still infantilize them, bossing them about as they did in the old days is a very poor reflection on how teachers are taught at teacher training college, and their ancient standards. Perhaps our gormless looking Education Secretary would be better advised looking at that, rather than worrying her little head about teeth-brushing.

I never will have children, but had I have done, I would have ;paid for private education so they didn't go through the terrible state system - and it has been terrible for decades, regardless of which party has been in power.

Your Truly,

I agree it was demeaning for boys to strip naked for showers and just wear shorts for PE and games,especially as we were going through a period of adolescence.I don't think our feelings or opinions were ever taken into account.Wearing just shorts for PE was just considered our uniform and we didn't warrant any privacy.

Hi Jason J,

You were at secondary school at a similar time to me. Your PE teacher sounds like a typical example of the breed. What was unimportant was your feelings and that was the agenda. I really do not think teachers should have the power to strip children, and certainly not children going into their teens, like that.

When I was eleven Mondays, with their inescapable football matches and the degrading gauntlet of the showers afterwards, hung over my head all day and weighed me down with this sense of dread and depression.

It was all to no avail. It was no character-building. It did not make a man of me. It just made me needlessly unhappy.

What did the girls wear for PE in your school?

Secondary school imposes more than enough challenges on vulnerable young people without forcing them to strip nearly or actually naked.

Greg, your teacher sounded infatuated by you!

How did she react to your refusal to take your shirt off for her at the front of the class. To be honest I think I might have done the same. What did she hope to show off to them for heaven's sake? Did she choose someone else who had to do it, or even get a volunteer, I bet not a volunteer, even confident lads would probably pass on that one in many cases. They wouldn't do the same for the girls anatomy would they!

Wanting you to follow her to her new school feels almost creepy to me Greg, I'm surprised your parents went with that if you already had a school lined up that was nearer and the more obvious choice. As you say, it didn't work out. Do you think she took a bit of a shine to you, it seems like it doesn't it. Kids in class know when teachers favour others or become the teachers pet type of thing.

On one of my first ever secondary school PE lessons that was done shirtless the gym teacher we had that day actually picked up on my reticence about leaving the changing room to go down to the gym for PE in his required bare chest style kit with white shorts, no plimsolls, and told me to stop worrying myself over things that were unimportant. Well it was unimportant to him but a quite big deal to me at the time because I had never been shirtless in company for any great length of time and was a natural top wearing kind of boy, it didn't matter what kind of top, any would do, I preferred a t-shirt but a vest was fine, however a bare chest felt huge to me and I think I felt slightly intimidated by everyone else being shirtless around me too in PE gym classes at school. Like many things at school, going shirtless at my secondary for PE was compulsory, boys walking to the gym often passed the girls going to their PE as well and got seen. I was never 100% comfortable being a bare chested "skin" in PE even after five years doing so, and the same went for showers, there was a total lack of personal dignity involved in the way school operated the PE showers and demanded their use for everyone. My school years were 1985-90.

Greg 2, I went through a similar thing to you,my form teacher who was also my maths teacher,when we registered and gave our names she enquired how many boys were wearing short trousers and I put my hand up along with one other boy who we became close friends,Like you we were ordered to sit at the front of the class.Of course I was made to do simple chores and run errands for her.She was very keen on playing tennis and I with my friend were made to be ball boys.

Comment by: Russ on 1st June 2025 at 15:18



The reason I mentioned those two cases, Russ, was to disabuse David of the idea that the teaching profession is made up of Pope Leo's and David Attenborough's. I find it frankly incredible that anybody can believe the teaching profession is as pure as TCP, especially where all boys schools and boarding schools are concerned. He reminds me of all those people, not just hysterical teenagers, who refused to believe that that the late Michael Jackson was a predatory paedophile, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Nick Baines;
<I suppose what I'm trying to say is that there was a remarkably normalised and accepting attitude to a large group of men and boys on a trip of this nature, many who didn't know each other, to just mucking in and thinking nothing of communal showering and all round general naked situations with each other, and none of us were naturists as far as I knew, just normal sons and dads on a week away during the summer out of sight of the female members of our own families. It certainly gave me a confidence boost in many ways.
In many ways this was the far more healthy attitude than the more paranoid mindset some people have today.>



There's nothing wrong with fathers and sons of any age sharing in this way like you stated, and I think you accept this, despite your admitted initial teenage misgivings. I'm 62 and go regular swimming with my 31 year old son and his 7 year old, my grandson. We always go into the same changing cubicle together and get out of our clothes and into swim shorts and don't waste time towel wrapping needlessly or facing away from each other, what's the point in all that silly behaviour.

Comment by: Gary on 26th May 2025 at 02:48

‘So you played on the school football team like me Greg.’ I did Gary, in fact I’d played in the school football team since junior school, so from around 10 years old or so. I did become increasingly interested in football, which amused my two older brothers as they had no interest really. I even went through several whole seasons doing all the matches and cup games with Subbuteo from the age of 12. I’m sure the continued calculating and adjusting of all those league tables, together with monitoring who scored all the goals -since I’d put little numbers on the backs of all the players’ shirts- really helped my maths in the end!

We didn’t have showers for junior school football, thankfully, as we were unusual in being the only school in the district to have a female teacher as our football coach. No girls were in the team then. She was my last junior school teacher, and on arrival in her class she made every boy sit next to a girl, probably to quell the boys' behaviour.

I do have some lovely memories of her final year class, but also a few moments I found slightly uncomfortable. In may ways she was a really great, if slightly radical teacher, but straight off she made me sit right at the front of the class, though next to probably the prettiest girl in the class, with our desk right in front of her desk so that it touched the back of it; somewhere I’d never have chosen in a million years. When she discovered I was quite capable at football, she made me centre forward and captain of the school team. Following this I learnt she’d also put my name forward to become a school prefect, which really surprised me. While sitting there she'd frequently ask me to the front of the class to demonstrate things, or to just clean the board, but when she ordered me to the front telling me to remove my top clothing to help display an anatomy lesson, that was the last straw and I flatly refused. There were a few other awkward moments; pulling me across her knee to playfully slap my backside as everyone in the class laughed along? But contrasting with this she'd always make sure I'd completely understood all she'd been teaching, which really helped my learning and enabled me to advance in her class from an average, mid-range, drifting kid, to attaining 5th position in class, from the final year grading exams, with this being written into my final junior school report. She then encouraged me to follow her to her new secondary school she was transferring to, even arranging that I be in her form. This school was acknowledged to be a very good school and I did go there for a short time, but it proved too far to travel each morning when still recovering from my leg injury that happened that intervening summer between the two schools.

So, I arrived even later at my 2nd choice secondary school, and school football did eventually follow, but had to wait, as did gym and games lessons, until my fractured femur had sufficiently repaired and healed. But, I can’t describe how great it made an 11 year old boy feel when I discovered that some of these new boys at the school had remembered my playing junior school football against their school teams, and so told me to get my leg better soon as they needed me in the school team!

You are quite accurate with your memory of the changing and showering and using their different facilities when visiting other schools. It was always a slightly odd experience to share all this with different boys and with their different teacher hanging around, and with all of them you'd just completed the competitive combat of school football. But boys as you'd inferred are naturally tribal, and so just like your school, we all stayed with our own when back in the changing and showering areas. But to be fair, I seem to remember we were left to our own devices quite a lot, and sometimes boys of the away school would make their own way home following the game as they obviously lived not too far away; some of us probably did the same on occasion when we'd played at our school ground, unless we were all particularly muddy...which sometimes could be the case after returning from our standard winter school football pitch!