Burnley Grammar School

Rather agree with the girls comment from the previous female contributor there.

That invasion of your person is completely unacceptable Graeme. It's easy to visually see if someone is wet without resorting to some kind of pat down like you describe. The same thing used to happen in the girls showers at my school 35-40 years ago with a far too overfamiliar and overbearing middle aged PE teacher we had who didn't respect anybody's personal space and thought she had the right to touch and inspect anyone she wanted.

I don't think I'm exaggerating it to say that there was not a girl in PE who liked or wanted to shower in our early to mid teens, especially when in the class of the teacher I've described above. I always thought that boys had a very different view to girls and took to school showers together like ducks to water with total gusto and enthusiasm compared to girls who found the whole experience of compelled enforcement of school PE days with year group nakedness quite dreadful.

I still remember the shock I felt when I arrived in the UK for my year-long exchange program in the 1980s and found out that the standard PE kit for boys in my new comprehensive school was short white shorts only, no top, no shoes, barechested, and barefoot, inside and out. As a German boy who was used to wearing a normal shorts and T-shirt kit or even tracksuits and trainers during sports lessons, this was a completely new experience for me. When it came to my first PE lesson, I was taken aback by this shirtless PE kit, but as I looked around, I realised that this was the norm, all the other boys were shirtless and barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.
To make matters worse, the girls in the school were allowed to wear tracksuits outside and a leotard inside, which made us boys stand out even more. What a sight is must have been to have a group of thirty boys lined up outside the sports hall in jus their white shorts. The girls often made fun of us for our revealing and minimal kit, and it only added to the pressure I felt to improve my physical appearance.
I started working hard on my body, focusing on building up my pectoral muscles, as I wanted to prove to myself and the other English boys that I was up to their level of physical fitness. Our sports teacher was extremely strict, giving orders to us boys by shouting or using his whistle. He did not tolerate any bending of the rules and demanded a lot from us.
Activities often included endurance exercises or gymnastics, as well as team games such as football or basketball. The cross-country runs were particularly challenging, but we were proud to complete them successfully no matter if it rained or sometimes even snowed. We were encouraged to push ourselves and improve our performance at each session.
Although the shirtless uniform may seem too harsh today, it had its advantages. The shorts allowed freedom of movement, which was essential for sporting activities. In addition, the absence of shirts and shoes allowed for better air circulation, which helped to keep the body cool and dry, even on hot summer days and it helped us boys to better focus on our technique and form. It was liberating to be able to move around freely without any extra clothing getting in the way.We also learned to toughen up and push through the discomfort, which helped us to develop mental toughness and resilience.
Looking back, I can now see how this experience shaped me as a person. It taught me the importance of discipline, hard work, and perseverance. It also gave me a greater appreciation for different cultures and ways of doing things. Although it was tough at the time, I am grateful for the experience and the lessons it taught me.

Many of my own PE lessons now seem to amount to sustained abuse by the revised standards of today and what is acceptable.

I don't know whether anyone else had a similar kind of experience but my regular outdoors PE teacher was an insanely strict unbending man with quite an intimidating physical presence simply because of his own height and build, he was a big man. If we didn't pass his "wet test", his name for it, where he ran the back of his hand across the body and down the leg to check, we'd be sent straight back in the showers to go again. Half a dozen times he got me for that.

Someone once joked with me that if he wanted to be that thorough it was surprising he didn't jump in and help us with the hard to reach places.

The things we schoolkids had to put up with in the 1970's and 1980's beggar belief don't they.

I don't think anybody would actively choose to run city streets like that Alan to be fair. It's the kind of thing that seems to get done more in the open away from the kind of hazards you mention if one or two of the films I've seen online about it are anything to go by that I glanced after the subject popped up on here.

Whilst there are many people who have memories of shirtless cross country running on here, sometimes taking in more urban areas, I don't think any schoolteacher would ever have been daft enough to expect a class of lads to actually traipse the cross country in the manner and kind of areas you describe, although I note what Bernard says here.

On the topic of barefoot running. My only advice would be not to do it in London, or at least the London Borough I live in. They gave up on street cleaning long ago,and you will often find broken glass (and shattered bus shelters) smashed to smithereens, laying in the street for weeks- especially on grass verges. Ldt's put it this way -I can'ti magine any school in my area would encourage it, still less demand it, in these days of health and safety and compensation claims.

As regards as to whether it is a fetish or not - Craig and his topless running etc - it is his free choice as an adult, the same for barefoot runners. You are imposing it on yourself, not inflicting it on others, so I wouldn't say it was a fetish - just potentially hazardous and I hope you never end up in A & E.

Paul - I wouldn't have thought of exercising in a kit you find comfortable whilst still decent as any kind of fetish. Our barefoot cross country running was for practical reasons - we would have wasted a lot of time pulling plimsolls out of the mud and putting them back on our feet. Having said that, I'm pretty sure that most of us came to enjoy running like that.
I'm glad you enjoy running in a minimal kit though I can understand that you are not keen on being seen like that, especially on your own.

I completely disagree with you Paul. Late 50's, so what, if you are within normal looking range and not morbidly obese you'd look as sensible as at any earlier age. Tonight at 8pm I got in from my latest bareskin run and we had eleven on it tonight, just a shorter three mile go as it was a bit fresh for the time of year but it adds to the fun of doing it. I always come in from doing so with more energy than I go out. Our oldest with us tonight was 61 years old and looked every bit as good as a couple of guys half his age.

Bernard.

Would you say a liking for running barefoot is equivalent to a kind of bodily fetish of some kind? The reason I say this is because when I left school at 18, where I ran cross country in full PE kit top and trainers by the way, I kept up regular jogging around where I live often going out after dark to do so. I'd always leave my parents home in trainers, shorts and t-shirt but when I got to a quiet area once on a late night jog for some reason I wanted to feel how it would be to remove my trainers and carry on, which I did, deliberately running through some squidgy wet mud at one point and getting enjoyment out of the sensation. Hoping nobody saw me and they didn't, the area was quiet, and dark. I put my socks and trainers back on for the final stretch back home around the streets proper. My mum then questioned me about how my socks were so muddy on the inside and I had to think of a quick excuse. I did this a few times and stopped for a while and then picked up doing it five years later again for a bit in the Aspley Guise and Woburn area. I would also sometimes remove my t-shirt while doing the same jogs to experience jogging like that, once again in the dark hoping not to be noticed too obviously as I went and always returning home with the t-shirt back on. I kind of liked jogging like that sometimes. I rather wish like some of you that I'd been able to give it a go like that at school, I think I'd have taken to that style of jogging at that age. I'm not sure in my late 50's I could get away with it and look sensible giving it a try now though.

It's good to read such a positive comment about PE teachers for once.

The trouble is the self conscious unsporty kids in school tend to outnumber the rest and that rather leads to the overall more negative remembrance many ex pupils have of doing PE when they were at school.

Alan & the Radio 4 programme, I will give it a listen later.

For me history was the worst lesson at school. I had a history teacher in 1968 who was quite literally crackers. He had the most extreme mood swings you could imagine, one minute laughing and smiling, seconds later volcanic with rage. He also had rather an unorthodox method of punishing us which involved picking up a quite sizable book, often hardback, asking you to hold both hands right out and slamming the book hard down on them. I saw it happen to a few in my history class. He actually broke a boy's finger doing this in our school and didn't seem remotely sorry.

By contrast PE was great. Fab teachers (one was a D-Day veteran), really interesting men the lot of them, who encouraged and listened to our problems if we had any. Nobody was made to feel worthless even if it was clear they were never going top be the next Pele or George Best at the time. We did all the things everyone else here has already mentioned, the gym lessons were predominantly without any kind of top on, so shirtless and the boys all seemed quite athletic and energetic, very able and keen in the most part. Boys always looked smart in gym, all turned out completely identical, the same white plimsolls, no socks, quite short black shorts and our chest out. Strange as it may seem I also recall how neat all our haircuts seemed to be, perfect side partings were common, and some boys managed to keep their hair fully in place perfectly after a whole class. Nobody sat the classes out at the side or made excuses for not taking part. We would all enthusiastically strip off and shower at the end without needing to be told. As a boy with two much older sisters I quite liked the chance PE gave me to judge myself against others my age. I can only say it holds no poor memories for me. I even thoroughly enjoyed the cross countries.

Reading some excellent posts here lately. Looking at Oliver's one and I think personally that PE teachers did things such as your barefoot running simply because they could do so and nothing more than that really. It's the same with the whole shirtless thing too, some PE teachers had a penchant for that kind of thing and others didn't seem to although it does seem that in the general eras of many here in school it was the done thing a lot of the time. Given half a chance if it was acceptable I'm certain some of them would have taken PE in the ways of the old Greek Olympics a couple of millennia ago.

In view of the interest on school discipline, I heard on Radio 4 Extra in the early hours of Sunday morning, this "comedy" show, made in 1961 and written by Frank Muir, Denis Norden and David Climie. Clearly it is exaggerated, but just imagine somebody writing something ike this today and getting it broadcast.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b06713l2


You have until the end of the month to listen to it

Like you Bernard I had a grammar school cross country teacher who took us out for cross country in quite small groups of about 15 boys at a time, never more than 20, in a period overlapping your own actually, my period goes from 1968 to 1973, I left 50 years ago this summer. I was at school down in Devon at Torquay Boys School. Where were you at if I may ask? Our tutor would also insist many times that the lot of us run barechested. That in itself did not seem too out of the ordinary, although I personally didn't like it at first. It's an acquired taste, especially outside going running the locality. I could never understand why we would randomly get sent out to run sometimes in our totally bare feet though. Where we ran was mostly soft grassy ground anyway and it wasn't actually as bad as it sounds to do so, but the question I never remember being asked was why we were asked to do that sometimes.

In the school gym we used to mix it up with sometimes wearing plimsolls and at other times going completely barefoot, depending on what we were doing. But I remember the first time we did a cross country actually outside like this and thinking our tutor was actually joking or that I'd misheard or misunderstood what he'd said because it sounded just a bit illogical. Running bare feet and seeing so many others around doing it like that was a very strange experience and felt un-natural at first but I think it took about three goes until it kicked in as not so bad. We did only run along on grass and slightly muddier patches, nothing else hard or stony. I'm fairly certain the tutor kept his footwear on. He definitely never ran with us barechested like we did.

I do most certainly think if you have someone who wants you to run like that then they have an obligation to show some leadership and set the example themselves and do likewise. Like so many of their ilk this did not happen. If you were to ask me what I think of it looking back I'd say it would be more sensible to offer the chance to run like that rather than tell us to. It certainly didn't do my feet any harm. Barechesting it made me notice my lack of arm muscles and slim physique I suppose, and I was very blond and pale skinned with freckles across my upper chest and back.

I've read all the previous comments on the bareskin running thing and also the earlier ones on the barefoot running having benefits. Our schools must have been well ahead of their time in that case.

Another thing I remember about the tutor who took us for cross country running (and rugby) was that he'd sometimes jump right into the showers alongside us all at age 15 and it was possible to find yourself standing right beside him doing so and even being made to talk while having a shower with your tutor. The one who took us seemed fairly young. No other tutor did this, possibly because they seemed older. It's something that would never be tolerated nowadays.

There's certainly nothing inherently wrong with this kind of PE and these kind of mandates we were held to. PE was fine for me whatever they threw in front of us. I'd have a go at anything.

I now reside in Perth, Western Australia but pop back to Britain every one to two years and a little bit more changes every time I come back. I barely recognise the place I left in 1986.

I was a sixth form school prefect in the upper sixth during 1984-5 as a seventeen year old. The head of the sixth form used to hive off duties that one would expect to be the sole domain of actual paid teaching staff onto responsible and trusted upper sixth students. Among some of these duties would include getting posted to the canteen for half of a lunchtime to keep an eye on things and the younger years and report back any trouble. Often there was no teacher even in the dining room at all. We had no choice and it was an instruction to do this. I found it a right bloody liberty I can tell you. Another was spending time with the younger year classes if the weather was bad and everyone was staying inside. Being assigned these roles around school was considered to be a privilege, it felt like no such thing. As this is a primarily PE based discussion, perhaps one of the most incredible things we were asked to do was become changing room monitors over the lowest two school years where we would find ourselves filling in for absent PE teachers who didn't want to hang around changing areas on some occasions and also on the school sports day when upper sixth prefects were sent to be shower and changing room monitors and were put in the very awkward position of making sure that the younger years not only behaved themselves but did all the rest, like shower. As I was a naturally very laid back easy going chap nothing like some of my own PE teachers this was something to avoid. I felt I had no right to demand younger pupils do anything that I remember feeling awkward about but would be in trouble if I didn't do my prefect duties properly. Being a prefect was my first taste of having authority over others and it did come as a surprise to me at the age of 17 as an upper sixth prefect just how easy it was to make those 12 and 13 year olds do as instructed and they always did as I asked. But although being an upper sixth prefect sounded good on paper it really was just free labour filling in for other teachers who should be doing the job they were paid to do.

There was someone who wrote on here sometime last year that I remember who said he went to a grammar school but then the rest of his brothers went to a comprehensive. I've been trying to find that post on here tonight to refresh what he said in respect of Gary's question. I'm sure I read it on this actual thread.

Gary interesting question - I expect it varied from area to area.

I went to an all boys grammar school from 1964-1971. A friend from primary school must have had an off day when we took the 11-plus exam because he ended up at the nearby secondary modern school and I remember what he said about cross country there. It was a mixed school but only boys were expected to do cross country. They could choose to wear plimsolls and shirts whereas we wore neither. To start with in September over half the boys in his school chose to run shirtless and only a couple ran barefoot. By the end of term in December a few more were wearing shirts but hardly any were wearing plimsolls due to the muddy conditions. In the second form they were all told to run shirtless and barefoot just as we did at my school - I never did hear why the change - maybe the teachers felt their boys should be as tough as the grammar school boys or perhaps they realised that a minimal kit was more sensible. My friend took the 13-plus exam and joined us at the grammar school in the third form already used to doing all p.e. in just a pair of shorts.

You still have to sign in as an adult to see that clip, strange when it was made for the under 12's in the first place!

Comment by: Matthew S on 26th July 2022 at 00:12
Responding to - Paul J on 24th June 2022 at 14:59
I've just watched the Good Health video which I remember from years ago, I'm amazed it's still around.

https://youtu.be/NRRw-k7cGJs

Wow that's a memory brought back there. Our primary school class saw this in school, we must have been around 9. I thought it was unfair the girls got to see all those naked boys but we couldn't see the girls doing the same. Class got in trouble for sniggering, the girls mainly, I don't blame them seeing that again. After it ended class had to talk about what we had just seen and answer and ask questions it raised. Our primary had a shower area one side of the changing room which was never touched but within days of seeing this programme it must have sparked our teachers into action because they started turning the showers on and telling us to walk into them after PE lessons and suddenly we kept hearing about sweat and the term B/O became a big obsessive thing out of the blue. I blame this damned programme for that and for the fact that we started occasionally doing some of our lessons with a bare chest which we had never done up to that point either. It all felt a bit shit at the time. Obviously our teachers were in need of educating on personal hygiene issues and took the advice on this programme quite literally and implemented it on us.







^^^^Answering this old Matthew comment from last year above.^^^^

Watched this at middle school about 1982/3 completely open mouthed all those years ago. Watched it again 2023 this afternoon equally open mouthed. I had a very similar experience to the film and to the one you explained here. Wow.

I read what Harvey has said and over sixty years later it certainly does read as quite a hideous way for anyone to treat somebody. Inside the school gates seems like it created an immunity of some type where adults could effectively assault children and it was deemed appropriate whilst if say an adult had accosted you Harvey outside of school and done the exact same thing wouldn't that have been seen as a serious crime of assault even in the early sixties. Corporal punishment is one thing but on your hands and knees with no clothes being padded with a cricket bat in the locker room is surely designed as much more than a short sharp pain and moves into deliberate humiliation as well. I always worried about PE teachers who seemed to indulge in humiliation tactics. Whilst in is obviously unavoidable that a stroke of a cane might leave a brief reddening when it comes to actual bruising that is not right. Corporal punishment should not leave bruising.

I was at school fifteen years after you Harvey. My own anecdote does not involve corporal punishment or anything physical but at the time I found it to be unjust, very unnecessary and a deliberate attempt to cause division that served no purpose and it was something very simple and at face value rather harmless. In one of my early secondary school PE lessons we had a gym teacher who asked us to line up along the gym from thinnest to fattest, which we had to decide for ourselves. Nobody wanted to do it. He then disagreed with our decision and started switching a few of us around. No shirts on for this. PE was not permanently shirtless in the school gym but we did spent a lot of time like it across whichever teacher took us.

This whole exercise made people even more insecure in the PE lesson than they needed to be. Boys are insecure enough at that age. The same teacher made a comment to one of my friends about his rounded shoulders on more than one occasion in the gym. This lead to me being at home with him one day after school and the both of us standing in front of his mothers dressing table mirror in her bedroom with our shirts off trying to compare his apparent rounded shoulders with mine and being unable to see any obvious difference. We were basically much the same normal sized build for the our age.

In PE I was told that I ran like a cissy. Later the same teacher told me I even walked like one. I ended up walking past large shop windows trying to watch my reflection as I walked along to see what he was talking about and it affected me for at least a few months if not more.

Gary

You asked which had stricter kit rules, grammar or comprehensive schools (or secondary modern for that matter)

I think at the time I went to school (late 60's/early 70's), all schools had pretty rigid and strict rules about things like uniform/PE/cross country kit.

Grammar schools may have been more "traditional", and mine certainly was, but friends at secondary modern schools also had the same rigid rules as us.

We ran xc in shorts/plimsolls, always shirtless. We had to change and line up outside the gym ready, any boy with a shirt on would have stood out amongst 90 other kids all stripped to the waist, and he would have been told to remove it immediately. Later he would have been slippered, and any repeat offence resulted in a caning. Certainly boys in my class were caned for repeatedly forgetting pe shorts or not showering, so it was more than a threat

Comment by: Lee on 9th May 2023 at 00:00
Harvey: You might not have respected him after that but did you achieve more because of it?

We all need a good boot up the backside sometimes.


Harvey was clearly another victim of a sadist. If you have ever tried to teach your own specialization to anybody else, you have to reconcile yourself to the fact that however much you shout, swear and (in this case) beat, there are those who justdo not have the flair for the subject - whatever it is. You can't beat knowledge into anybody, Lee - what might be easy to me, won't be to you,, and vice versa.

I think a teacher who tries to wallop his subject into somebody else, is not only a bully, but a failure.

Where did you get the tougher PE back in the previous decades such as the 60s to 80s, was it in grammar schools or comprehensives?

My home town had 2 grammar schools, 2 secondary modern schools (late 1960's)

All of them ran cross country, and all of them made boys run stripped to the waist all year around. It wasn't anything unusual, it was normal.

As far as I know, they all did indoor PE, as we did, in just a pair of shorts

Harvey: You might not have respected him after that but did you achieve more because of it?

We all need a good boot up the backside sometimes.

Former Milton Abbey school pupil here from 1961 age 13. Now almost 75.

We had a PE teacher at the school who was a big cricket lover and expected all of us to follow his enthusiasm. Unfortunately I found cricket to be a total bore both to watch and play and found it hard to conceal my lack of interest. The teacher was quite fond of swinging the cricket bat at more than a few cricket balls. Henry Dixon-Perry liked his cricket bat making high speed impact with boys backsides both out on the field and back in the building. It was back inside while changing in 1961 he had me on all fours in the changing room with an audience of my peers, pre-shower naked, and launched his cricket bat at me three times in quick succession for the sin of non-achievement. Leaving me bruised on the rear. And this chap wanted me to respect him. It's part of the reason I resolved never to physically hit my own children, I have three, two sons and a daughter, and I never did so. All three have grown up to be decent well behaved human beings.

His view of PE teachers seems to be like women who think all men are rapists.

You're too hung up on this single issue train of thought Alan.

You have never once mentioned that YOU personally have been a victim of the behaviour you speak of. If so I would understand your stance.

Comment by: Joanne on 7th May 2023 at 11:59


I agree ALL teachers, regardless of sex, should keep their hands to themselves. I suspect in most cases of this sort the boys are wiling participants, which I think does lessen the crime. I think when you have a male pederast inflicting himself on young boys it is far worse, because there is always the possibility of buggery coming into the equation, which, frankly, I find deplorable.