Burnley Grammar School

At my old (mixed) grammar school in the 1960s I often had to remove my plain white t-shirt to be one of the "skins" during games or P.E.

The decision as to who was made by the teacher to differentiate the teams, in an entirely random manner; often simply according to where in the gym one happened to be standing at that moment.

I never had the slightest notion of being 'subjugated' or feeling embarrassment at displaying my upper torso on any of these occasions, and, so far as I could determine, neither had any of the other boys.

Then as now, I regarded my chest as one of the most uninteresting sights in the world, and would be beyond surprised if anyone ever thought otherwise.

My main concern was at the end of the session, in recovering the correct t-shirt from the 15 or so identical garments thrown into a pile in one corner of the gym.

I've never forgotten the day back in January 1979 when I was walking the family dog through a cold snap with freshly laid snow and walking near my son's school at the time where you could see the whole playing field in vision through a wire fence quite easily. I suddenly saw a collection of boys running in the distance, not thinking a great deal about it until they got slightly closer and I did a double take, knowing they were not wearing the normal navy blue school top I knew my own son had for PE. What they were wearing was much lighter. I stopped with the dog for a moment and when they all got much closer I did a double take because not one of them was in any top of any colour, they were all, it must have been about twenty boys, were stripped down to their bare skin topless and one of them was my own fourteen and a half year old son. I remember waving at him but although he looked at me he pretended not to see me and didn't seem to react much through typical teenage boy embarrassment in front of a parent. I then just carried on my dog walk off and away.

Later that evening when he was back home I asked what that was all about and he told me the PE teacher had decided to give them all a bracing two or three laps of the sports field before putting their navy PE sports shirts back on, and he told me I hadn't seen the best bit when they stopped and the teacher had told them all to do a rolling exercise on the ground in a few inches of snow. Is he bloody mad I said, does he want to put a whole class out of school for a fortnight having gone down with flu or something, if you fall ill in the next few days I'll be having words.

I remember asking how common this was and it turned out to be something done regularly, although not in such severe conditions. I was a regular dog walker at the time on a certain day in the week as I worked weekends and had a weekday off, but didn't normally route myself past the school too often, so I hadn't seen much else. So if the weather was a bit miserable on my weekday dog walk I'd sometimes re-route and see if I caught anything again similar and about three or four months later it was a bit wet and cold and I did see the same thing again at the same point in the day, my son not part of that one.

That summer I did also see a lot of athletics taking place where most if not all boys were without any tops on.

I will be completely honest here with you and say that I never even thought to question my own son about his feelings when it came to doing things like stripping to a bare skin topless in PE and he never drew attention to it himself or commented openly. He wasn't a young man who I saw very much of around the house without being dressed properly with his favourite tops on and liked his bathroom privacy, always locking the door. Unfortunately I lost him suddenly at the age of 56 to covid so am unable to speak with him anymore like I would dearly wish to. We never spoke much about his schooldays after he left and so I'm left wondering if he might have had any of the thoughts that some of you gentleman on here elucidate now who would be his age today.

There is a caricature vision of a sadistic PE teacher. I had one who liberally thrashed boys for trivial matters with plimsolls, belts and a stick just for not being able to do something like vault to an acceptable standard, a bit like jockeys whipping the horse furiously to get it over the line first. That's clear cut, but then there is such as I described seeing on my dog walking days which is less so and blurs the lines a bit more.

When I had been at school 65 or more yeras ago now I had always worn a quite smart white t-shirt in the gym or for any athletics, and long sleeved shirts for winter. I myself did no PE at school, even in the gym, without a t-shirt on. Obviously we were all made to shower together afterwards with no clothes on though, that went with the territory always and was compulsory to do.

I started teaching in the late 70s and early 80s, my first job was the only one to have older-style kit like this. Classes were mainly gender segregated but then we started to combine, not the best decision in my view. I mainly taught girls' classes before they combined.

Uniform was strict, the standard t-shirt and shorts for most indoor classes, for boys and girls. But for gymnastics girls had leotard-style gym suits, while boys had to wear just shorts, as they also did for fitness drills.

I don't recall widespread issues with the older-style uniform, until classes became mixed when sometimes boys would ask to wear t shirts, but in general they just got on with it. We did discontinue the leotards at that stage though as they were unpopular with the girls in front of boys.

Jon W (12th Feb): So you played Murderball regularly as part of normal Games lessons? Wow - please tell us more! We only played very occasionally - usually as an end-of-term "treat" - from the second year in secondary, I think - when we thought we were a bit old for Pirates and enjoyed something a bit more exciting and risky. From what I remember, there was far more punching than slapping when we played, and although there were no officially imposed rules, there seemed to be an implicitly understood set of what was acceptable and what wasn't - there was never any hair pulling, grabbing hold of each others shorts, or hitting below the belt, for example.

As I attended an all boys secondary school, I did not get to experience the fun (or misery?) of doing PE shirtless regularly in front of girls. That being said, we had a fair number of female teachers at my school who wouldn't hesitate to have you strip to the waist for PE activities, or even unrelated rule-breaking. Once in a while though, we got to go on cross country runs through the town and nearby park, usually with our shirts off. I recall passing by the girls' school and if they were outside having PE lessons of their own, we'd hear them giggling and calling out to us as we ran on by. No doubt the sight of a bunch of sweaty shirtless teenage boys would have been the highlight of their day. I don't doubt a few boys were mortified by the experience but I know more than a few of us would have loved to hang around a little while longer and chat them up while dressed like that.

Just the other day I went for a shirtless run around my local track wanting to recapture feeling of those carefree days but it just isn't the same. You can never go back!

Hi Alan,

To be fair to Deborah she found a mild-mannered way of asserting her authority over those boys and it worked. (Of course it's perfectly possible that a different woman teacher might have felt uncomfortable taking a class of half-naked teenage boys running on testosterone and attitude.)

Her male colleague's suggestion is the baldest admission I have come across that making boys do PE bare-chested was really about subjugation rather than any about practical reason to do with the activity itself. It was always the way, and no doubt it persists today in more covert and subtle forms, that teachers of both genders felt that girls could be 'worked with' but boys had to be 'worked on'.

In fact there was a post on here, quite a while back now, telling how the poster had a female PE teacher stand in on their lessons for several weeks. He said that although the girls had said that she was kind and approachable she was an absolute tyrant to the boys, running their classes as if they were borstal inmates, keeping up a very gruelling pace with constant barked commands, using a whistle and even sometimes making them take the lesson outside, in November, in nothing but shorts. Given that their kit was already as minimal as it could get she found a different way of humiliating them. Like seemingly a lot of schools used to do, there was a 'no underwear' rule, although he said the male teachers never bothered to enforce it. This woman used to start every lesson by having the boys stand at attention while she went down the line pulling out the front of each boy's shorts in turn - not the back - to check that this rule was being kept to.

It may well have been that her whole sergeant-major persona was because she felt the need to defend herself by undermining the boys. But this was a glaring case of overstepping the mark. Even forty-odd years ago and as a woman I am very surprised she got away with this. Those boys should have complained to their parents or the head teacher and she should have faced a disciplinary hearing.

As I have stated before, I see no convincing reason why any school should have a mandatory PE kit anyway. It is merely taking the uniform thing too far. In the school gym or out on the playing fields they are away from the public gaze, so this argument about uniform 'representing the school' is invalid anyway. Surely the point of school sports sessions is to get them moving and their cardiovascular systems working? Any kit that allows full freedom of movement and does not infringe health and safety rules is surely appropriate? If this or that boy is happy to do the lesson without a top that is fine but it isn't a reason to inflict the same condition on other shyer boys.

Deborah that PE teachers comment to you probably comes as no surprise to many of us who were in gym classes under teachers who instructed us to do their lessons shirtless. I was in one such school with a number of PE teachers who did this, at a guess I'd say easily the majority of my gym at school was done while stripped from the waist up. This method of dress for PE was never down to one's own personal preference and was always imposed.

I can see why some boys may feel punished by such demands and why teachers think like that. For me I didn't give a toss if my shirt was on or off and nothing a PE teacher was going to say or do to me was going to get under my skin for long.

Your replies make me realise how lucky I was to go to a school in the 1960s where the headteacher had a firm grip on his staff.

PE was awful for this non-sporting person, but bullying and abuse by staff members were, so far as I knew, minimal.

I remember the head saying that if you had to raise your voice or resort to violence you have already lost the argument.

Working in the courts a few years ago I was reminded of this by a district judge who had absolute control of her courtroom without ever raising her voice.

Hi Deborah,

I think it is certainly true that teachers have to prove that they can be tough and women teachers have to do it more so, especially with boys. Otherwise the consequences can be severe. There is a tacit rule, understood by all concerned, that you can start out nasty and become nice but you can't start out nice and become nasty, because the kids just won't believe you that way round.

One of my sisters' friends became a teacher and her very first morning in class she heard someone mutter "She's young . . . " She said she felt a moment of pure cold terror before she just cracked on. She ended up being a popular, well-liked teacher, but I think she could be tough when she had to be.

In our third year we got a new Biology teacher. As well as being quite cute, in a kind of Sheena Easton-type way (if you're under fifty you'll have to google her) she was quite petite, standing barely taller than us as a class of thirteen-year-olds. The first lesson started out like a gestapo interrogation and within the first half hour she had dished out several detentions. We got the message. Over the following several weeks, as she came to feel reassured that we weren't actually going to eat her alive, she eased up and actually turned out to be a personable and engaging teacher, but it was a definite case of first impressions lasting.

My second- and third-year Maths teacher was a well-intentioned and conscientious teacher who was prepared to go the extra mile to make sure her class understood her subject. Predictably, she was shown no mercy. For some reason she would never dish out detentions or send unruly pupils out of class and her usual sanction was to make people move places. Her lessons used to be like an unceasing game of musical chairs as she moved pupils - usually boys - around the classroom.

But at least she escaped the experience I heard happened to another woman Maths teacher at another school in that same era. This woman turned round from writing on the blackboard to find a twelve-year-old boy standing behind her, exposing himself to her. She was so shocked she burst into tears. She got no sympathy from the rest of the class, who started pelting her with biros and balled-up bits of paper, and she just had to get out of the room for her own safety and sanity. 'Tween'-age kids can have a killer instinct. (And, believe it or not, this school was one of the 'better' schools in my home town!)

Bullying is always irrational. Most people can probably remember from their own school days the fat kid who was bullied. Quite a lot of them might also remember the fat kid who was a bully. There was no logic to how victims were singled out. I can think of other teachers who were just as mild-mannered as my Maths teacher but who never had a problem from their class. I can also recall one male music teacher who was very tall, quite overweight and had an explosive temper. His lessons were a running battle as various boys (again, not girls) inexorably wound him up to the point where he would bellow and scream at them. Physically, he was a very threatening man, tall, bulky and with a temper that you just knew you didn't want to tinker with out of school hours and away from witnesses. None of this saved him.

The thing was, he used to turn purple in the face when he really lost it. What he was never aware of was that there was an experiment going on among several of the nastier boys to see if they could, by winding him up, induce him to have a heart attack.

This was all back in the 1980s. I really don't know how teachers cope in the era of Gen Z.

I'm reminded of a time early in 1982 when there was a teaching strike interrupting the smooth running of the school I was then working at as an English teacher. Many staff had walked out leaving the school to be run by a skeleton cut back group of non union staff members, one of which was myself. Some lessons were cancelled but most went ahead with stand in staff. The head teacher at the time was determined to keep the school open and running as close to normal as he could for all pupils there. Other schools actually shut or finished early.

Before I left for home at the end of one working school day, the night before the first of a series of strikes, I was informed I would have to stand in on a PE lesson for one of the male staff members in his lesson next day, which I was happy to do although a bit nervous.

I was 32 years old at the time but looked much younger than my age and was worried about controlling a class of energetic teenage boys effectively doing something I was unfamiliar with. In the staff room among all the chatter I asked their teacher for some lesson information and about any potential pitfalls I may encounter as a young looking female outsider teacher who didn't really know what she was doing with these boys.

His response to me was to - Get their shirts off their backs, that will show them who's boss, we call it skins in PE. This was not what I expected to hear and I think I laughed. I wondered if it was normal to do such a thing and he told me it was.

So in the morning I was assigned to the school sports hall to look after two consecutive boys PE classes, after I had been given a basic outline of what to do with them. When I appeared for the first class of the morning I could tell I might face a few issues almost immediately so put the instruction into action on the floor of the sports hall, and told them they were to be skins that day and asked them to take off their top. I remember there being a few oohs and ahhs and even wolf whistles, some showing off behaviour and 'she's strict' comments at first but they all did it and seemed to settle down fast after that. These were early teenage boys. An almost identical situation happened with the second lesson of the morning that I stood in for.

When it came to the changing room I obviously had to stay stood outside the door just listening. I'd been told to make sure they took a shower so all I could do was ask someone to put it on and listen to the sound of the water and hope they were doing as they were told. As I stood there on the second lesson another male colleague appeared and threw the door open to check for me. He told me it was safe to enter if I wanted to, like a fool I did this and it wasn't safe to do so at all. Sometimes the staff could act like big kids themselves.

All in a days school work.

We had a great PE teacher and I still see him around my hometown sometimes and he had the best way of dishing out punishment without doing it himself. During games lessons we would play a game called murder ball ( basically no rules rugby). you would know if you upset him or his fellow teachers that weeks as you would be in the team wearing skins ( bare chests) then during rucks, mauls, scrums as you would call them now, the kids would slap you as hard as possible across your back, chest, arms etc etc at every oppurtunity....payback was a bitch if you was in skins the following week. That PE teacher loved dividing up our class in to skins boys and shirts boys and not just for teams, just for the hell of it and was always doing this every week. You could see the fear on some boys faces if they didn't want to be skins and became one for that lesson and the aww do I have to be again type. He definitely thought bare chests were a good sanction against some boys.

Me and a friend who's a teaching assistant at a school in a 'run down area' were only on about a lack of discipline in schools and her's in particular these days, the other day. She told me of children as young as 7 telling her to f... off and refusing to do as they are told with one even saying "If you talk to me like that again I'll sue you". We compared this to my secondary school's PE teacher in the 1970's who let you join his 'red hand gang' if you wanted. His words were "If you want to join just simply upset me". When you joined he smacked you as hard as possible on your bare back with his flat hand or even the front of your bare chest, leaving a glowing red hand mark. Me being a bit of a teenage rebellious young male "joined" his 'red hand gang' more than once, including being smacked so hard on my stomach that he winded me quite badly as well as his red hand mark standing out on my white skin. Her was legendary in our school for this in all his PE classes, smacking shirtless boys across their body with his hand. Imagine getting away with that these days.

Does anyone here have any somewhat diffewrent or unusual thoughts on their physical education years?

For example, I had one PE teacher who used to take us for football and rugby in some right old rough weather out on the playing fields of my school who would inspect our PE (football) kit before we went out, make sure our shorts were correct, our socks were pulled up to the same length and our boots were clean. I remember Mr Whishaw as an unusual teacher of the subject because he seemed to have a thing about cleanliness. When we played football he used to get quite annoyed if he saw any deliberate diving which got us muddy. Even when we very occasionally played rugby he was a bit like that, which is funny when that's a part of rugby. Actually I don't think he even liked rugby but had to do it with us sometimes.

I remember him being a very polite man, and quietly spoken, which was not like the other PE teachers I had. His entire persona seemed very different, almost rather classy. When we used to come in from the playing fields after a really wet afternoon's play out there, he would even help some of us remove our football boots just pulling them off our feet on outstretched legs, pull off our wet socks or even pull our soaked clinging tops over our heads! He made us all take showers like all PE teachers did but he never stood guard closely looking in at us but did encourage us to clean properly and to take time and not rush.

Mr Whishaw also had no time for bullying behaviour and made this very clear one day in our changing room about the need for respecting each other. He was kind, thoughtful, clearly educated yet was far from a soft touch.

He used to keep the boys watches in a bum bag during PE, we were not allowed to wear them. He accidentally sat on his bum bag one day on a changing room bench when it was full of our watches and cracked the screen, it was a fairly basic analogie Timex of the time at the beginning of the eighties. He instantly offered to replace it for me and asked what type of watches I liked. Well I said I was hoping for one of these new fangled snazzy digital watches for my next one, and within two days I was at school and asked to pop along to his office and he handed me a lovely new boxed Casio digital watch that cost a lot more than the one he had sat on and cracked. I was absolutely thrilled and even wrote him a thankyou letter.

So let's hear it for some bloody great PE teachers out there. They m ay have forced you to play football you disliked, to go skins in basketball when you wanted to be a shirt, to do gym in bare chests all the time, or made you go into nude showers against your wishes, but some, infact many, were still thoroughly decent guys and doing a job that was harder and more skilled than many of us probably understand that needed a lot of patience with some of us.

Danny C, I remember our teachers making similar comments while having us barechested along with "making men out of you" and especially "lads don't need vests on" Even though games tops were for outdoor use both teachers preferred us out in vests but we were usually made to strip off Both my parents always fully supported the teachers decisions have me strip off both in the gym and outside saying it would benefit me. I've got to say I've never actually regretted being put through such a rigid barechested regime and also felt every lad respected each other more with us all going through the same thing. It made me feel more confident that my rather slim frame really did fit in

This BBC story on icy cold water swimming aiding the immune system rather reminds me of the PE teacher I caught up with three months ago at a reunion of my old "Class of 84" school year. We got talking about the whole barechested PE issue which my own school was notorious for, and especially the liking for my PE teachers, including him, to take our large group of boys out on cross country runs barechested in the 80's minus any tops on even on quite unbelievably cool days in autumn, and he mentioned running barechested in those conditions as being healthy, especially for the immune system. I remember at one point we spoke of cold water swimming and the wild swimming that some people now do and he maintained it was also very healthy as an option. I asked if he did any of this and he said no, so he talked a good game but didn't back it up by doing any of it himself. I remember saying to him, if you think it was so good for us why did I never see you whip your shirt off and lead by example on these barechested PE lesson cross country's. He just laughed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2m8d44v4go#:~:text=%22There%20is%20no%20evidence%20that,fewer%20colds%20or%20fewer%20infections.%22


Yes Robert I relate easily to you running where you say you did. Although our cross country runs were primarily in quiet areas and lakeside places and trails, we did have to use a public road and street many times if entering back into school through the front rather than back through the rear. I can't claim to have noticed anyone ogling us through the windows though! But I do remember running into a couple of my mums lady friends one day the other side of the road and seeing their broad grins looking right at me. I couldn't believe the timing. This was quite early in my secondary schooling and I hadn't even told her I ran cross country like that. I think I felt ashamed to admit a teacher was making me do that or something, even though it wasn't my choice. She wasn't bothered anyway, even when I did tell her, and she knew I was the rather self conscious type. Our parents in the 80's allowed our teachers to just get on with it even when they made us strip shirtless and run down the road in schooltime on fresh October days!

James you've asked about any schooldays photos, especially related to PE. It's fine to ask in my opinion, and yes is the answer, all my photos and those of my brother are from school sports days in primary and secondary, mainly the 80's. The primary ones are quite inoffensive and tame really, but both me and my brother have entire class barechested photos to camera from age 13 upwards on sports days. I have 5 such photos out there somewhere but am only in possession of the one from when I was 13 at the moment. I recently discovered my brother has a couple of his too. I'm also in the process of trying to find anyone with any other good photos of my own school days, with the emphasis on the PE sports days as some others I recently aquainted with at the reunion are also keen to find any lost gems from the 80's out there using various social media pages like school facebook memory boards and such like. My own PE photo, with 40 or so barechested boys and me has already resurfaced with an ex female classmate who had a brother in it, along with a variety of comments by now fifty something women about who they liked the look of the most at the time. It was the same three months back at the reunion when a couple of these kind of barechested PE group photos were on a memory board attracting comment - 40 years later, I can still remember the comments I got from some of them at the time!

I certainly feel it is nice to see the photographic and video archives of schooldays. I admired the secondary school boys in the British Film Institute video. I looked at them and wondered just how capable I might have been at such strict choreography and movement synchronisation within a large group like that. Although my own PE lessons were just like those boys, I have no recollection of ever having to do anything choreographed like they did. Did anyone do anything like that?

It's a disturbing feature of footage from before the 1990's, the scarcity of noticeably overweight people. It's alarming how the change in eating habits (according to a recent study the amount we eat & our level of physical activity today is about the same as it was in 1970s) has seen the situation almost reverse with 'normal' bodyweight steadily becoming the exception rather than the rule.

Has PE failed a generation or two. Possibly.

My own schools were both compulsory bare chests in the gym, both at primary and at secondary, so that was about 7 or 8 years worth of PE. We all got well used to this. Boys such as myself (in the eighties) were made to confront our bodies and those of others and it made us think about how we looked. We might not have liked our bare chested state being ordered on us by school rules (I knew some who got very agitated by it) but I do think on balance it might have been more positive than not if it made sure none of us would easily start getting a bit podgy at a young age. And if you are a little bit overweight and have to do such lessons hopefully it acts as an incentive not to make things worse or even to return to a good weight. Many tubby lads in school will lose it later anyway, as someone has already mentioned they did.

Do I think slightly overweight or even fat kids should have been given a pass on PE lessons done without tops on, well no, because all that would do is emphasise to them that they should be ashamed of their bodies and so covering them up would actually be the act of body shaming, not the expectation of them to be bare chested like the other boys in a class.

The power these teachers had over us to tell us to strip off (shirtless/naked) came with responsibility in my view and should have been used respectfully. I don't think boys should have ever been singled out as lone shirtless members of a class for instance, or sent into areas beyond the PE remit, such as being sent to get things in other parts of school in such a state like someone mentioned with the teacher's whistle. I will just about make an allowance for my own PE teachers who took boys out running without our shirts along the surrounding domestic roads surrounding our secondary school. I can actually remember seeing net curtains twitching as we went past, from bored housewives I always imagined them to be getting sight of two dozen fairly fit fourteen and fifteen year olds.

Comment by: James on 9th February 2025 at 20:41



"....... such things should not be seen or used presumably extends to the very black and white photograph that is used to accompany this discussion too doesn't it?..........

I think the use of a still photograph for illustrative purposes is OK as it does conjure up those awful times for those who were not around, but it is like seeing a photograph of a bomb site as compared to seeing a film of the carnage which caused it.


",,,,,If I had any record of my time in school doing PE like that I would be quite pleased to see it and proud of myself if I looked and did what the boys of 1936 did.....".

I don't know how to break this to you, James, but if you had been one of those boys from 1936, I don't think you would be feeling anything, as you would be dead. 89 years ago, - say the youngest boy there is 11 - he would now be 100, and though it is not a pleasant thing to think about, a five year war three years later might well have terminated some of those young lives.

".......Out of interest while on this line of thought, does anyone actually have any photographic or film record of their own schooldays, especially physical education related?"

One word, one question - WHY?

(This site is text based and has no capacity for including photographic or filmed material)


Comment by: Terry on 9th February 2025 at 21:25




".......That seems unusual, did your school not have its own sports field, meaning you had to walk the streets like that? I'm surprised your teacher didn't just factor in a cross country run to get down to that place if you were in kit! ......"

To be fair to my school, we were in a run down part of East London, Terry, not leafy Kent or Surrey so no we didn't. It was a Victorian building. When it was knocked down to make way for a bomb site not long after I left, it was rebuilt as a Tesco store.

You have to bear in mind, that not only was our teacher a sadistic old sod, he was also quite lazy. If we had run - he would have been forced to as well, and he much preferred to swagger about in his tracksuit and bark orders. He didn't feel the need to do any actual exercises, except "supervise" the changing area and showers for the older boys.

As regards East London then, as compared to now, where old factories on the Thames have been remodelled as "Loft apartments" ("luxury" of course), this piece of film might give some idea for those who don't know it. This was filmed in Brixton, which is in South London, but it is very similar to East London of the times, and is contemporary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpMBcnbFAzc

Comment by: Alan on 9th February 2025 at 17:17
'all Wednesday afternoon was "sport" often in in the park, quite often involving a degrading walk down the high street, being drilled by our loudmouthed teacher, usually kicking footballs about when we got there.'



That seems unusual, did your school not have its own sports field, meaning you had to walk the streets like that? I'm surprised your teacher didn't just factor in a cross country run to get down to that place if you were in kit! Why was it degrading Alan, did he sometimes make the PE class do the walk while shirtless or something?

I agree with Mike Swift here. There is nothing wrong with archived school days imagery or films of PE lessons. The argument being raised here that such things should not be seen or used presumably extends to the very black and white photograph that is used to accompany this discussion too doesn't it?

If I had any record of my time in school doing PE like that I would be quite pleased to see it and proud of myself if I looked and did what the boys of 1936 did.

Out of interest while on this line of thought, does anyone actually have any photographic or film record of their own schooldays, especially physical education related?

Comment by: Mark on 9th February 2025 at 15:58

I didn't have any problem with the various capers we had to get up to. Mark, but I never really saw the point of it. For example, all Wednesday afternoon was "sport" often in in the park", quite often, , involving a degrading walk down the high street, being drilled by our loudmouthed teacher, usually kicking footballs about when we got there.. I would rather have been doing something practical that might be useful to me after I had left school (technical drawing for example, with a teacher other than our old perv), or English. I frequently played truant on Wednesday afternoons, you would be amazed at the number of "dental appointments" I had!. I was never a Muscle Mary.

Alan, they say that boys who are gay can't throw balls, is that true in your case? I've heard this said a few times over the years and always wondered if there is any truth in it, or why there would be. After all, gay men and boys can be every bit as fit as anyone else and many like to take even better care of their bodies and appearance than us straight guys!

Even staright boys have issue at times with PE lessons, being forced into showering or going shirtless, so I should imagine being gay and knowing it as a schoolboy piles on even more added pressures for some of you for very clearly obvious reasons with all the nudity, shirtlessness and general changing room hanging about.

I don't have any problem with films showing old PE lessons being archived though. I think they are useful to see. We can learn much from the past.

Comment by: Matthew S on 9th February 2025 at 10:46


Thank you for that Matthew - it is much appreciated. I think one of the reasons I disliked what I knew myself to be very young is that you fear you will grow up to be like the two men I have mentioned. I didn't, as it happened, so I was lucky in that respect.

Paul, Mike Swift,

Please do not think that of Alan. Please see his comment from 1st February, if you haven't already, which surely makes the reason for Alan's very strong views clear.

Perhaps we all have a tendency to judge by our own childhood experiences. His must have been the worst.

Please excuse my posting this, Alan.

Comment by: Paul on 8th February 2025 at 21:25

....and Mike Swift


"I was right" boasts our amateur psychiatrist Paul. - more than once in one shortish post. I am getting a bit sick and tired of your amateur pronouncements. You are also being a bit disingenuous. You say I referred to myself as a paedophile - on the contrary in your original post you floated the theory that "if I were a P.E. teacher". If what you said was true that would mean I would be teaching minors, so you were then - as now (the "over 18" bit is a very clever get out) , repeating your squalid and untrue theory, so YOU were the one who, without having the courage to say it in so many words, was the one who made the suggestion. You are at it again in the above mentioned post ("He realises if he was a PE teacher he could not trust himself"). I suggest if you really want to study psychiatry or psychology you take a proper course and not rely on those "made simple" books you can get on Amazon. I am NOT sexually interested in children. Clear enough - even for you?

I based what I said on my personal experience of having had to put up with such a teacher, for five years and even though he and our discipline festishist science/Technical Drawing teacher are now in all probably under the sod, it doesn't stop or excuse what they did and what they stood for, and the effect it had on me and others. The evil that men do, as the Bard so truly pointed out lives after them. Ask anybody who might have encountered such individuals. By the way, though you take great qudos in my admission, having read many posts on here, I think I can with confidence say I am not the only one. I am surprised that you, being such an expert, have not picked up on them as well.

Now, Mr Swift: That film is nearly ninety years old - what does seem strange to me, is the number of posters who trawl through the internet looking for ancient material of this sort. It is not something I do. I don't have the inclination. You say it was a "pathetic response" and describe the material in that old film as innocent. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn't as far as the teachers were concerned - I can only suggest the look on that old man's face looked extremely unpleasant to me,

Would anyone, except the oldest of old fogies use a 1936 recording of a lesson to teach in 2025?. Life has moved on and one hopes that attitudes of the teaching profession have moved on also. The world was a very different place before the second world war. Perhaps that upsets you, but I bet it doesn't upset the pupils attending school today.

Matthew that boy you noticed could have been me. I was the chubby lad in my own class of slim lads who all did shirtless PE with each other and although I was by no means fat, just having what they used to call puppy fat and looking bigger than others was enough in a shirtless lesson at school to fuel the self image problems. Yet when I was 30 I was a trim and athletic frame. It's just horrible that I wasn't when it mattered most to me, in school doing PE with my shirt off.

When you're in school being forced into shirtless PE situations any slight difference anyone has gets magnified ten fold in my experience. Boys were not allowed to cover up for PE at my comprehensive, which is all very well but what about those who have self image problems or are a bit chubby at school age. I'm talking 1993 here when I began comprehensive school at twelve. I would never have chosen to do any PE lesson with no shirt on by choice, ever at that age, but all of my own PE teachers decided that we boys should not be wearing anything on our bodies in PE during the gym lessons.

But by the same token I rather doubt I would have wanted to be the only boy in my class who was wearing a shirt for PE just because I was a bit bigger and trying to hide myself from view. So either way I just couldn't win really. I remember when I was shirtless in PE I did my best to blend in and not be noticed but this wasn't an effective strategy. One day I got sent to fetch a whistle from the PE teacher office which was a walk through the school, some bright spark put the office nowehere close to the gym. I had to walk to his office and back shirtless across school. On the way I got stopped by a teacher and asked what I was doing and had to explain.

We did two mixed PE lessons each school year. Lads were barechested just like in any PE/Games lesson and the girls were very used to seeing us stripped to the waist indoors and frequently outside too it made little difference. There was lightheaded banter but never did that turn sexual even if you started going out with each other. It's only natural that girls like to see lads exercise barechested. People overthink things too much.

Mike it just goes to prove that what I said on 30th January was correct. He's admitted what was blindingly obvious, he's a gay man, and he is sexualising these gym situations in ways others do not. There are other clues within what he's written that suggest what he likes. He realises if he was a PE teacher he could not trust himself but is projecting it to others. I did not call you a paedophile Alan but you actually used that word against yourself, a very strange thing to do. I was right in noticing you were obviously a gay man and I am right in thinking you do like much younger males (over 18) and probably hate yourself for it or your sexuality. You definitely seem like you are a gay hater, despite your own admission. You've given much more away about yourself than you probably realise. Your comment today about a 1930s secondary school historical physical education video is quite crazy.

I agree with everything you have said Mike Swift. You've been getting away with so much acute self absorbed commentary.

Yours Truly observes a child may have been visibly embarrassed out of line of the cameras. Doubtless many of the children will not have minded in the way I did, or he or others did, but there is an unpleasant moment in the documentary A Yorkshiredad linked to (1991 is the date at the end), in a segment filmed in another school. An overweight boy does look uncomfortable, unsurprisingly, as he files out of the classroom in just shorts, past the camera, with the other children to their PE lesson.

Comment by: Alan on 8th February 2025 at 05:29
Gentlemen, whilst you wax lyrical about that film, can I just remind you that was 89 YEARS ago. The past, as Yours Truly so rightly pointed out, is another country. They did things differently then. That seedy mustachioed old teacher lying on his back fully clothed seemed to be enjoying himself with lads clambering over him., but would we want things like that filmed for posterity now?. I don't think so. Let's remember that we are supposed to be living in more enlightened times, aren't we?. Virtually every boy in that film will now be dead and it seems grotesque to me that material like that is still freely available for people to gawp at. In my view it should never have been filmed at all.




I disagree most strongly. What a pathetic response. It's your reaction to an innocent situation that I find quite disturbing and the words you use like "grotesque" and "seedy". What is the matter with you? Are you totally incapable of seeing something for what it is without drawing darker conclusions? You appear to be sexualising a simple PE class situation just because the boys happen to all be bare-chested. It's a perfectly appropriate style of dress and historical archive and there is nothing wrong with it at all. But there is something wrong with your interpretation of such situations and the record of them.

Comment by: Frank on 7th February 2025 at 15:37
Comment by: David on 4th February 2025 at 06:43

Gentlemen, whilst you wax lyrical about that film, can I just remind you that was 89 YEARS ago. The past, as Yours Truly so rightly pointed out, is another country. They did things differently then. That seedy mustachioed old teacher lying on his back fully clothed seemed to be enjoying himself with lads clambering over him., but would we want things like that filmed for posterity now?. I don't think so. Let's remember that we are supposed to be living in more enlightened times, aren't we?. Virtually every boy in that film will now be dead and it seems grotesque to me that material like that is still freely available for people to gawp at. In my view it should never have been filmed at all.


Comment by: Carol on 7th February 2025 at 21:25



Carol, I totally agree with you. It is disgusting, and rather dubious that a child of either sex should feel degraded, and you have to wonder at the motives and the mental capacity of any teacher for making children, regardless of age to have to parade around like that. If I had been a parent there would have been questions and complaints raised. People are far too trusting of "authority" even when the behaviour of that authority seems questionable,