Burnley Grammar School

Paul, cold showers were common all year round and was the preferred method of punishment.Only the PE teachers were allowed to be present We always wore shorts but no undies and there were two shower heads one for your chest while the other was adjusted for the water to hit your shoulders and back. There was no escape and the showers were on full blast. It was quite common to be kept under the showers for longer than we should have been. It wasn't an easy way out.

On the Old Tamensians Facebook page there are warm and heartfelt tributes to Mr Daplyn from many of those who were taught by him and who actually knew him.

Nothing about this kind of TV is very genuine. Definite hamming it up. - I bet Joe was even wearing his shorts in the shower. Like you said Mike, not one of them was even doing any bare chested PE despite the associated B&W clips showing that was how fifties PE was mainly done and even many boys like us lot on here who were at school decades later in the seventies and eighties spent most of our gym time not allowed a top of any kind, an endless succession of men have come on saying it.

Mean/caring was the oxymoron Alan.

I wonder if you misread what I said.

I think many of us will remember a teacher at school who might have projected a fiercely strict, hard faced, no nonsense persona to the class but scratch beneath the surface and they were actually very committed and caring about those they taught.

I also know that some teachers were just outright swines with few redeeming features, obviously. Like politicians.

I do not agree with your comment about the PE teacher in the programme, and I have defended some of your comments previously - voyeuristic and an aggressive bully. I just don't think it needed saying about an actual individual like that on here. Perhaps the part where you said 'acting' was correct. I have a feeling they were acting up to stereotypical roles of the 1950's rather than being their true selves.

Comment by: Tanya on 16th June 2023 at 14:51
Thanks for the info Tanya - I know they say don't talk ill of the dead and all that, but either this man was acting the part of an aggresive bully, or he was a Beta male who could only kid himself he was an Alpha by bullying people who couldn't hit back because of rank.

Either way, he was a loser, because as that article suggests he was an object of ridicule to the boys he taught (or tried to teach)

I am sorry he died as he did, but I don't retract a word of what I wrote

The headmaster in the programme wanted our friend Joe to feel 'uncomfortable' but not to be frozen.

I've just looked the details of this throwback school programme up and it took place back in July and August in 2003. One of the hottest summers we have ever had. A cold shower would have made the recipient very comfortable surely!

One can't even begin to guess what the true motivation for these kind of petty punishments once was.

Interestingly one of the teachers in this series, Simon Warr, who had a bit of a profile, was subjected to false allegations of abuse in his real teaching career and later cleared.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Warr

The fearless investigative reporter Roger Cook who many may remember actually looked into the school Mr Warr worked at as a teacher in 1982 regards corporal punishment, and years later the actual head of that school was jailed for sexual abuse in 2010.

Quite a little backstory once you have a delve.

Oh come off it Alan, that is quite the OTT reaction making such a baseless judgement on somebody you don't even know.

https://thatllteachem.fandom.com/wiki/Mr._Peter_Daplyn

Comment by: Mike on 15th June 2023 at 22:53


With all due respect, Mike, are you joking?. Why should boys of 11 being confronted by PE teachers who think they are drilling the Royal Marines be expected to "understand" them?. Most kids don't understand themselves, let alone the complexities of unpleasant individuals who think their main job is to humiliate and demean them.

On the Joe McCready tape, I'd say Joe, well done for standing up to the bullying. I notice that though the teacher accompanied Joe to the shower, and remained more or less outside, he couldn't resist the urge to cop a look at him - what did he imagine Joe was going to do on his own under a cold shower?. This man was clearly voyeuristic, and enjoyed inflicting humiliation. It is one of the reasons I would ensure that all teachers were made to undergo some sort of psychological assessment before they were employed. There are some very unpleasant types (or were, back then and into the 1980s), who should never have been allowed anywhere near a classroom.

1950's teachers seem oxymoronic to me - mean caring types. Does anyone agree?

It really was the era of tough love.


I wonder if many people on here who say they disliked their teachers just misunderstood them.


I've watched the second part of That'll Teach 'Em and they got them doing some PE at last but all the boys were given white vests to put on whilst actual clips shown alongside from the real 50's showed the boys PE being done with bare chests.

Joe McCready.

At least they spared your blushes in the cold shower punishment Joe, nice bit of evasive camerawork there and you were only seen from the back anyway. Compare that to the middle school boys seen in the schools tv show last year placed here, with no censoring of any kind. A good example of how changes to privacy evolved rapidly over about 25 years from the late 1970's to the the early 2000's actually.

I re-read what you wrote a few weeks ago Dennis and then looked at the McCready item, nice one Joe thanks for the share there, and that was an amazingly accurate comparison but can there ever have been a dumber punishment than sending off for cold showers like that. It's not painful or especially humiliating is it but that is probably what it's meant to be.

Only one shower a week at a 1950's boarding school though? I couldn't believe that. I still find that very unlikely in an age back then.

I was at school myself in Switzerland for a short while back in the early 1950s, spending the summer term at Schule Kirchenfeld in Bern. We did PE (Turnen) several times a week, generally in our ordinary everyday clothes, which at that time of the year was usually just shorts and short-sleeved shirts, minus shoes and socks. Occasionally, when it was very hot, we moved outside onto the grass field, and went topless. There were no showers, so we usually went back to lessons a bit sweaty and grubby!

None of the ginger hair nicknames are ever very original are they - Copper Top, Duracell or Carrott in this case.

My three kids went to school in Switzerland where the school starting age was 7 years old when the first started in 1977. Whether they do nowadays I've no idea but mine were showering in PE from the day they started school age 7, that's one son and two daughters who did the same and I always thought it was a happy, healthy and well run school environment and had no complaints ever, and none of them ever have had.

One thing that sets you apart in school is being born with red hair. I was called 'Carrott' at school in the 1980's. I was very ginger and met with never ending comments for years at school which peaked in secondary school. Now I've never known why people born ginger find themselves targets while other hair colours don't, it's always been a bit of a mystery to me. My PE teacher at school even wrote a report and referenced my hair colour when he put pen to paper. But even worse than the hair on my head was the piss taking I got in the showers at school for having bright ginger pubic hair when it came through at 13. I could handle myself quite well and was quite athletic and able in PE especially at gymnastics but I barely went a month without yet another comment, like everyone was surprised I wasn't just ginger on my head and always found it funny down a bit lower. Being ginger in that area seemed to give the boys I shared PE with a good excuse to openly and directly check me out in ways they didn't with others. While other boys probably worried about their actual penis size in the school shower I was conscious of the hair around it. Nobody else non-ginger ever gets that. Having that hair colour also gives many ginger people paler skin tone and that was me, and even my nipples were exceptionally light coloured to the point of almost un-noticeable and I had to put up with comments about that too, even from one of my teachers. Being ginger haired and pale skin tone didn't in itself make me self conscious at all, I was what I was and okay about it. Luckily I didn't have too much of the other likely ginger trait of excessive freckly skin, I was just mainly very white pale. Taking a shower in school was not something that caused any concern to me and neither did the times when I did PE without a shirt, but it was just the comments simply for being a certain skin and hair tone that became so tedious after a while and did get to me when I was around my mid teens. I remember asking them what was so funny about being ginger and of course there was no answer. Even now as an adult with less dazzling but still ginger hair I come across comments, but school PE was were they came the most.

Bernard - What is it with mothers and vests?

My own parents were regular vest wearers throughout their lives, Mum, in particular being keen that I followed their example even, like you, until my early secondary school days. Occasionally during my primary school years even she had to admit, albeit reluctantly, that vests were overkill on days when the mercury soared above 80C, but it was not until the summer following my tenth birthday that I went vestless from the start of the summer term until school went back in September.

Of course, when I wasn't wearing a vest during the day, it didn't make sense to wear one under my PJ top at night, as I had done up until then, so I didn't, but omitted to broadcast the fact. So when July produced a heatwave, and Mum told me to leave off my PJ top, expecting me to be wearing a vest underneath, she inadvertently introduced me to sleeping topless, although she didn't realise this for a week or so. She and Dad saw the funny side of this, and nothing more was said until school restarted, when she insisted that I needed a vest again. I reluctantly acquiesced for day-time, but surprisingly, neither Mum nor Dad batted an eyelid when I didn't go back to wearing vests and PJ tops to bed.

Full liberation came when topless PE was introduced during my 2nd or 3rd year in secondary school, the unintended consequence of this being that I, along with most of my class, soon stopped wearing vests altogther. Although Dad thought the topless PE bit was a good idea, Mum wasn't quite so sure, although she did see the benefit of not having to buy me vests any more.

Some guys with too much self liking do I think love peacocking in gym situations.

Joe.

Well done for noticing my comment on 26th May there.

So you did that there, magnificent.

We have something very much in common. A good looking cheeky chappie. The exact similarity to my own memory I told last month is uncanny down to the precise detail isn't it. I was a bit younger though. As I said last month, I didn't think I was alone having what was known as a "cool down" and seeing it being given in a programme drawing on the ways of the 1950's proves my commented opinion correct that I wasn't alone in receiving such discipline.

There was just no tolerance at all of any backchat 65 years ago in school. Sometimes it didn't even have to be words but simple demeanour that got you in trouble. You were very similar to me. The shame is that there was this desire to try and remove a lot of personal individuality at school in those days and that didn't suit me. We should want to let all our unique individual qualities flourish in our youth don't you think, not suppress them.

That looked like fun. I see there are other parts to watch. I shall enjoy seeing how it went in the follow up episodes I can see are also available.

Nigel
I think that you have made a valid point when you in the sense of overall attitude to our bodies and the different generations. I also used to attend a small gym , and the changing facilities were rather confined. Like you I would undress get changed for the gym and afterwards change into trunks for the swimming pool. Over time I observed that when the younger generation entered the room
when they saw someone else changing they would go into the toilet cubicle and change in there. Also when using the showers I am wearing nothing and there have been other people present.
Never though have I had anyone make a comment to me such as you received, and I understand that you were offended.
I to have now changed to another Gym because it is £20 per month cheaper. The facilities are larger and the changing rooms much bigger.
There is more provision for those who wish to to change in private which suits the men who prefer to do so.

Enjoyable viewing thanks for sharing that Joe. I watched the whole episode.

I'm not so sure how the cold shower was much of a punishment that year if that was summer 2003, which was a phenomenal record breaker for heat that many will remember. Cold showers would have been a treat to cool off with and relief in those conditions, not a punishment. What a silly headmaster. I liked the reaction afterwards.

I see they were going for total 50s authenticity there but commentary stated corporal punishment had finally been made illegal in the late 90s. I always thought it was mid 80s, but anyway even if it had still been legal only 20 years ago I very much doubt they would have gone that far with authenticity and started dishing out corporal punishment and caning modern kids 50s style, not with any real force anyway.

That matron was just awful!

Chris - unfortunately it was several years after that that I managed to persuade my mother that I didn't need to wear a vest and haven't worn one since. The vestless boys at primary school had no effect on me other than making me somewhat jealous. We had to wear our underwear, however much or little that may be. Just because a couple of other boys never wore vests didn't mean that I or any other vest wearer could remove that item for p.e. - it seemed totally illogical but that was the way it was.

Comment by: Dennis on 26th May 2023 at 17:07

Take a look here Dennis. Something identical to what you described happening to you in your school took place in this retrospective TV programme That'll Teach 'Em shown twenty years ago when kids in school around the millennium went back to the 1950s for a bit.

I should know - it's me! I'm now nearly 37, time flies. I was in school 1998-2003, this was just after our GCSE exams, this was our summer holiday that year.

View 37 minutes in but there's a lot more other stuff. I failed the challenge. There's a load more stuff you can find out there about it.

Cheers.

https://youtu.be/vv_V5Sh27nc?t=2241

Interesting discussion.

Taking it away from school for my comments which I feel are valid in the sense of the overall attitude to our bodies and the different generations.

I'm a regular gym goer and have been a member of three over the past twenty years or so, Fitness First and also David Lloyds. But a few years ago in 2012 between those two I was also a member of a slightly smaller gym closer to home not on the scale of those two. That gym had an old style shower area for anyone who wished to use it afterwards, which I would do sometimes, I was paying for the facilities so made full use of them.

After work one evening I did my usual evening session like I'd do once or twice a week and afterwards decided to take a quick shower. There was nobody else using the area at the moment I began using it. I was completely minding my own business using my shower gel with my eyes closed just going through the usual routine and thinking about my day at work when I found some guy suddenly talking to me a bit abruptly and accusing me of not being very discreet. I begged his pardon and he told me I knew what he meant. He'd come into the shower area in his shorts while I had nothing at all on. That was his problem unbelievably. I'd done the same many times before and although some people did come in wearing shorts, mostly much younger guys, the majority over thirty took the gym shower in the manner you'd expect in such a place, wearing nothing. I was mid forties at the time and my accuser was no more than late twenties at most.

I was incredibly offended anyone dared say something to me as if I was some kind of dirty old man just because he'd seen my whole body as he walked in and made my opinion of his comment very clear to him and before I left also did so with the management who even apologised. There was no signage to say anything about wearing anything and management confirmed I had done absolutely nothing incorrect in taking a shower in their gym naked. I wasn't walking around in any other area like that. It would never even occur to me to keep shorts on to shower.

When my membership came up for renewal I didn't bother and went off elsewhere.

Bernard

Did your transition from vest/pants to just shorts at the top of Primary School have any influence on your vest-wearing habit generally?
Equally, did the example of the vest-refusers in your class ever inspire you to emulate their example,either in PE lessons or in everyday life?

In my case, the introduction of full topless PE in my 2nd or 3rd year of secondary school resulted in me and all of my vest-wearing classmates, which back in those days was most of the class, giving up underwear vests completely within a very short space of time.

Bernard, back in the 70's my mother used to insist I always went out to play with a nice fresh t-shirt during the summertime and actually told me not to be like some of the other boys around who went without on days like ones we've just had. She kept hold of this view as I got older and even went so far as to tell me she didn't think boys who went outside were very classy! She could be a bit of a snob at times and I told her that over the years. I remember sometimes when I went out to play around the ages of 8 to 14 when I would meet up with friends and if one or two of them were shirtless, as sometimes they would be, I'd wait until I was out of range of home and also then take my t-shirt off as well and just hang it around my waist. One day I didn't do this and left it on the floor near a tree where we were hanging out at about the age of 13, but forgot about it as we moved elsewhere only to find my top had vanished and was no longer there when I went back to find it. This meant trouble and I knew it as I had to walk home shirtless with a couple of friends and explain myself. I got a clout for being so stupid and my friends got a dressing down for essentially encouraging me to take my shirt off! But after that she relented and just let me do my own thing. We have laughed about it since. It's a wonder I didn't have the shirtless fear indoctrinated into me by such a parent.

When it came to PE at school, shirtless PE was a thing for me both in primary around about half the time while I was there, and in my comprehensive the gym was primarily shirtless based, plus outside summer athletics often done the same way. My mother didn't think it wasn't classy to do that at school, she was fine with her little cherub showing up and going full skins in the PE lessons without thinking it lacked class. Although the shirtless PE was not a problem to me, doing it definitely felt different to hanging about voluntarily with my pals and a slight self consciousness could creep in now and again that I was aware of in some PE situations, such as when we did summer sports afternoon with parental involvement.

I also remember talking to my mother about having showers in school when I first began doing them and she was enthusiastic about me doing that, pleased that we were being taught good hygiene and always sent me to school with a bar of Shield soap wrapped up inside my PE towel. Two bars would last the whole school academic year from September to the following July, lasting me what must have been goodness knows how many showers at two each week, something close to eighty I'd imagine. I used to use the fact I'd showered in school as an excuse not to bother taking baths at home because school let us shower properly when we had PE last period. I liked that because we could take as long as we liked but others in class hated the fact they still had to go in the showers after PE rather than just go straight home. A common complaint elsewhere I bet for last period PE lessons.

Another reply to Dan - I too was happy enough wearing just a pair of shorts for p.e. both inside and out.

Recent comments have brought to mind a conversation I had with two other boys in my class a few weeks into the second year at Grammar School. I was about two thirds down the list in terms of ability in p.e; J was a little lower than me and G was right at the bottom, being rather un-coordinated. J had come from a different primary school; G had been at the same primary school as me where we had to do such p.e. as we did in our underwear. For most boys, including G and myself, this meant vest and pants except for two boys in the class who never wore vests so they did p.e. in just their pants. I remember thinking how grown up they were as they were not required to wear a top whereas the rest of us had to keep our vests on. In the last year we had a proper p.e. kit of a pair of black shorts which we wore without tops - this was to prepare us for secondary school. I was much happier with this arrangement but G was not as he had a slight deformity of the chest which only became apparent when he was topless - he got teased quite a bit over this. However, by the time of the conversation G was no longer the least bit bothered by shirtless p.e. - apparently it was mainly the girls who had teased him and the teasing had stopped completely when we got to our boys only secondary school.
At J's primary school boys could choose to wear a top or not to. J was a fairly timid boy and had never plucked up the courage to go without a top though he was envious of the more capable boys both in terms of their ability and also because it was largely those boys who were confident enough to discard their tops for p.e. J was much happier about p.e. kit at Grammar School as he had no choice - even if he was no better at p.e. at least he was dressed the same as the more capable boys.

Replying to Dan,
Like you I was perfectly happy being stripped off and just wearing shorts for PE.

I've not heard that one before Jeremy, striking a blow to the stomach with a plimsoll, surely that could be dangerous you might think. As you say, it was 1968 and looking at how things now are I think there have been massive changes in attitude since only 2008, never mind 1968. Some of these memories are becoming ever increasingly hard to imagine aren't they.

I was wondering why they couldn't just leave the doors open instead of actually removing them, it sounds ridiculous to me that.

Agree that PE teachers tended to prefer confident boys who were good at sport more than the reluctant non sporty types.

In answer to Dan;

Kids (and many adults) just don't like being told what to do very much. When you're talking about PE I think it magnifies it quite a bit, especially if you're asking, oh no I mean telling don't I, kids to remove clothing and go into showers with each other with nothing on or jump around the gym in only a pair of shorts, sometimes facing sarcastic ridicule.

When I was in comprehensive school (1968 - 1972) they had some really grotty communal showers covered in black mould around a window when I first started. Yes, there was a actually a window in the school showers! Only just above waist height too. Not even frosted. We were on the first floor, so that was the reason I guess.

The local education authority finally found some cash down the back of the sofa and decided to spend some of it on building us a new shower room fit for purpose which was a hell of a lot better actually. The great thing was the new communal shower actually had some privacy built into it for us. A pair of door on the front so we were not viewable to the wider changing room as we took our showers after PE, fully naked what else.

Were we supposed to be learning a life lesson with ordered communal nakedness of this kind? Even in 1968 so many boys hated it and it was always worse if you had an angry prat of a teacher on your case at the same time treating you like the local magistrate had just sent you down for a juvenile crime.

We used this school shower for about two weeks and compared to what we had been using it was a big improvement but then suddenly one day we came along and both the hinged doors on the front of our shower had been removed and taken away, so we were back on open view just like before, and it was all down to the PE teachers who wanted to be able to see us all clearly as we showered. They didn't even trust us to be the other side of a couple of closed doors in our shower room at school where they were easily able to see that everybody had gone through. Shirking showers never allowed of course. So the manufacturer/installer of the thing had done something for a small bit of showering privacy and the teachers took it away again.

Another thing I remember was when we went out on a cold day in our white shirts and shorts in the middle of an unseasonable cold snap and people in class were complaining that we were too cold with what we'd been sent out in. Those who complained ended up being told to get their white shirts off and throw them aside. When they kept complaining the rest of us had to do so, in order to appreciate what feeling cold actually felt like instead of just imagining it. I kid ye not. The main complainant then had the teacher approach him close up face to face invading his personal space and with both hands pinched and twisted both his nipples at the same time while saying in a quietly menacing voice 'when I tell you to do something boy, you do it'. That gentlemen, and ladies, is my definition of a complete and utter bas***d. He was the same PE chap who had our door removed for a better view in the school shower room.

I actually loved PE but just didn't like one or two of the teachers who took it. One was forever goading for reaction and I swear was disappointed when he didn't get it.

I remember being ridiculed by the one teacher I mentioned time and time again for nothing really. I could kick myself now for never once actually answering back with something worthwhile and letting him get away with it so much, but then to do so invited a swift and loud sounding swipe to the body from a plimsoll for even mild backchat. Our PE teacher was partial to doing this straight into the stomach. I remember this happening a lot in 1968 and 1969 but stopping after 1970.

The word abuse never existed in the vocabulary at that time.

Isn't school about having different experiences? I was very regularly told by the PE teachers to strip off both indoors and outside and it never really bothered or affected me one bit. I wasn't that sporty but always put the effort in. Surely I'm not the only one who didn't mind being stripped off??