Burnley Grammar School

David on 28th November 2023 at 18:34

Oh dear, I suppose you would rather have been taught by poor, ineffectual teachers and failed to pass any significant exams as long as your teachers were friendly? Well there are always some lifetime losers around.

If you troubled yourself to read Mr Chips' post, you would see that he has old boys still in touch with him, that indicates so many years later how much he was valued don't you think? Perhaps you don't think?

Mr Chips on 28th November 2023 at 15:03

Another informative post sir.

I remember in the fifth form our PE teacher telling us that as we were now 'developing' we needed to start wearing a jockstrap for rugby and other vigorous activity and where we should be able to buy them.

Usually, I had to ask my mam for money for things for school but I just couldn't face doing that so I managed to get my dad alone and just about managed to explain to him with my face burning what I needed. He just laughed and gave me the money to go to the sports shop. When I got there, I was so relieved it was a man on the counter where they were for sale.

Cut to the next PE lesson and we all had them and felt so grown up putting them on before our shorts. It was the start of a long association for me, after that, I always wore one for rugby all the years I played. I did give compression shorts a brief try when they were new but found them too restrictive, they might be better by now, and went back to my jockstrap.

These days I just do weight training in the gym so things have come full circle and it's back to commando as it was at the start of grammar school, perfectly practical and comfortable and it keeps the laundry down.

I will doubtless find myself as disliked as the man who shot Bambi's mother, but I wonder how "Mr. Chips" would cope with teaching in today's classrooms, where he wouldn't have the option of using his cane (with alacrity, it seems to me?). He talks of caning boys severely so they would'nt "re-offend", but as he enjoys his retirement in France, I wonder if it ever crosses his mind that he might have caned some lads in error?.

I am not by any means comparing him to the late Mr. Boreham at my school, and his twisted fetish, but Boreham got great pleasure out of caning and it was a matter of indifference to him who he caned. I will give one example. One day in January during my school years we were in his science lab (he taught both Technical Drawing and Science). I had a cold at the time. At one point in one lesson Boreham yelled at us to all stand up and remain silent with our hands by our sides and he told us the first person to move would be caned. This went on for about 5 minutes then I wanted to sneeze and as a reflex action I moved my right hand to my face. He caned me with six strokes. Even one of the other lads pointed out I had a bad cold and Boreham countered by threatening to cane him to for "insubordination". How can anybody have any respect for such a man?. I suspect though, teachers who used the cane to do their talking, were only respected out of fear, they were probably, at best, thought of as cranks and at worst, despised. By the way, if I ever met one of my old teachers there is no way on earth I would address him as "sir". Would anyone?

On the subject of surnames only, though it might be true that in the services this outdated mode of address is still used, schools are not a division of the armed services, despite the fantasies of some martinets who work in them. Most businesses these days refer to their employees by their forenames and even the police use forenames (I know a man who is a copper and he has told me they are very informal these days). Why prepare kids for a way of life that hasn't existed for 50 years?. They are very outdated institutions if they carry on like that today.

I've just seen the comment that David has picked up on from the gentleman going under the banner of "Mr Chips" as an elderly teacher.

As a teacher of 40 year standing myself from 1975 to 2015 in various schools and in different countries for a time I'm quite taken aback by that comment "It wasn’t my objective to be friendly, it was my objective to teach".

The very best teachers of all can actually be friendly, authoritative and respected in equal measure. This isn't about being best mates with your pupils or anything like that, there is obviously a professional distance to be maintained of course there is. There is a difference between friendly and friendship. Although I have to say I do have a couple of friendships with former pupils now both in their mid 40s who I meet socially and share a drink with if I see them in our local and have the numbers of after we reunited many years after they left school.


A word for Craig. I think you've done well to attract a group of similar minded people such as you have. I'd be prepared to join you and be your oldest member if I knew you. One of the best lessons in life is to keep active and your way of running is a perfectly healthy option. When running it's not actually the cold but the excessive heat that is the biggest problem that would see most shirtless runners going out in and that they would need to be far more careful running long distances in.

Quote from Chips - 'It wasn’t my objective to be friendly, it was my objective to teach.'


Really? So being friendly isn't compatible with an ability to teach? Cobblers to that!

I'm 74 and had some very friendly teachers, even in PE guys, who were some of the best and taught me really well. One of the old unfriendly bast*rds in Maths was the worst for teaching and discipline.

Nobody is going to argue about surnames only on the back of shirts, although the only reason for that is a commercial decision to milk money out of the sad sheeple who slavishly buy all the new latest shirts from teams every time they come out each five minutes. That's all named shirts are about. I never understand why so many people on sports clothing allow themselves to be ripped off quite willingly.

I've also read a story today about kids in a school not being allowed to wear supermarket own brand black trousers to school because they must go to one certain shop which is far more expensive. Some of these schools are now run like little dictatorship fiefdoms, and actually some supermarket clothing can be really rather good. No school should have any right to make such demands of parents about where they can buy a perfectly decent pair of plain black trousers as long as they fit and are smart and the right colour.

Paul on 26th November 2023 at 21:09

Thank you for your response to my question. I suppose a life at school being addressed by your surname prepared you well for life in the navy. I wonder, in terms of fitness you achieved at school, were you also ready for Dartmouth or did you need to do more to pass fit for entry? I know the navy has high standards, I’m just curious, did you meet them with ease?

Lance on 26th November 2023 at 22:00

I refer to your response to another poster but were you not required to do other things at school that you detested? I don’t know too many lads who loved algebra or Latin or indeed many other things. Was your dislike focussed specifically on PE or were the other things?

Danny C on 26th November 2023 at 23:13

Surnames for boys was just a tradition that was rarely if ever broken. I was addressed by my surname as a boy, as a teacher, I addressed boys by their surnames. It wasn’t my objective to be friendly, it was my objective to teach. I didn’t see it as a matter of authority or anything similar, it was just the way things were. You make a point about surnames and being uncomfortable, I would say the same applies to first names which tend to have far more variations and alternatives than surnames which remain constant. You cite this very clearly yourself in the examples you give and for what it’s worth, I know a Daniel who hates being Dan or Danny but he never minded being addressed as Murray which is his surname.

Greg2 on 26th November 2023 at 23:18

I’m so glad you enjoyed Goodbye Mr Chips; it does belong to another age and was old when I was at school but there is something about Mr Chips in the film that I admired in that he always wanted the best for the boys and I hope that’s what I did too.

I think I was valued by boys I taught – remembering that the youngest ones are now around forty and the oldest are in their late seventies, in some cases I taught a boy and his boys but any school master of long standing would be able to claim teaching more than one generation of a family. There is something very satisfying about it and it’s quite amusing when the then father comes to parents evening and calls you sir.

I don’t think I ever caned any boy frequently as you put it, if a boy was caned by me, I always attempted to make it sufficient that he didn’t want it again in a hurry and it seemed to work. I always caned more in the first two weeks of any school year than thereafter just to set the tone that my classes were about learning and discipline and failing in either regard would have a stinging consequence. It worked, lads behaved for me and worked hard almost without exception and those few exceptions resulted in a few more canings but rarely the same lad twice.

There are a few ‘old boys’ I still hear from though in retirement we moved away and are settled in Brittany, just west of Roscoff where I speak French every day, probably now my first language. We haven’t been back to the UK for quite a few years.

Original Andy on 27th November 2023 at 09:19

Ah, another one who being addressed by surname prepared well for the world of work. There are clearly still some settings in which there is more formality and the forces and the situation you cite in the court are clearly two of them.

I must say, I dislike the degree of informality there is these days though here in La Belle France, more formality still exists and I’m unfailingly addressed as Monsieur.

Marco on 28th November 2023 at 04:01 & Ivan on 28th November 2023 at 11:40

Certainly, I wore short shorts as did the boys I coached for rugby but in the nature of rugby, clothing is far tougher than it needs to be for other games and there’s also something about making it difficult to get hold of – remember the England shirts introduced in secret for the Rugby World Cup in 2000? They certainly helped England win when no one else had them but of course now everyone does. I can’t help but wonder on the rare occasions I watch football or tennis if the length of shorts doesn’t in some way impede movement, I think I would find the length extremely irritating.

The no underpants rule which was there when I was a boy and there all the years I coached was more relevant at the beginning than the end. My mother did all our laundry by hand, she really didn’t need any more to do and apart from anything else, we didn’t have many clothes, most things were one off and one on so it was sensible to take off underpants for PE when they could be dirty and sweaty as a result of the lesson because you wouldn’t have had a spare pair. Even after my mother had her first washing machine, a single tub that had an electric propellor which swirled the clothes around before she had to pull them out and put them through a hand wringer it still took her a day to do the laundry and she still didn’t need any more.

These days with automatic washing machines, we all tend to think laundry is an easy job and so it is but it wasn’t always like this and equally, we didn’t have lots of clothes. These days there is sport specific underwear which no doubt many choose to wear though while I played rugby, I have to say, and this was now forty years ago, I preferred a jockstrap over and above anything else – support in the right place and freedom to move for the biggest muscles in your body but they seem to have gone completely out of fashion unless someone knows something different.

Tony on 28th November 2023 at 13:47

I’m not sure that men are ever referred to by sports commentators in any other way than by surname and these days when names are often on the back of shirts, they are only surnames. Clearly it’s here to stay!

On surnames, Danny that was a good surname to have (Bob Champion the 81 National winner lived up to his). Pity any lad called Pratt though. You're quite correct that whatever your surname is can make a difference to how you feel about being referred by it only. The piece about the science teacher reminded me of Wimbledon tennis where the umpires only refer to the male players by surname, for example when it's at advantage points in a game or who wins each game, whilst the women, or should I say ladies as they call them at that are referred to as Miss. I wonder why they don't feel the need to use Mr for the male players. Good points though.

In reply to Marco. re the style of shorts they are much longer than the ones I wore at secondary school 1961 to 1966. The style most of us wore we similar to those shown in the pictures of the 1966 world cup. If Iremmeber correctly quite tight and no underwear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can an employer demand you go to work naked?

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

Lance on 26th November 2023 at 22:00

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

Mr Chips on 26th November 2023 at 18:55

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

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

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


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

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

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

Mr Chipping.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I never handed homework in on time Mike.

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


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

Mr Chips on 26th November 2023 at 18:55

Interesting question.

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

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

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

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

Mr Chips - surname use.

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

Craig on 25th November 2023 at 23:16

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

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

Kevin on 26th November 2023 at 02:19

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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




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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steve B on 24th November 2023 at 18:06

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

Grant on 25th November 2023 at 02:35

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

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

Robbie on 25th November 2023 at 04:06

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

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

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

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

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

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

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