Burnley Grammar School

Dean on 24th March 2023 at 18:39



That is how it should have always been in all schools, Dean and clearly your school was modern in outlook to be so relaxed that early. Wherever it was, I wish I had been there .

One or two on here might have preferred to attend my senior school during the years I was there from 1972-78 where the gymnasium PE lessons were basically a come as you wish so much of the time.

I don't remember any kind of set kit in colours or style that we had to wear. Boys all wore shorts of their, or parents choice. The same with the footwear, mainly old style black or white plimsoll types, and varying tops or not.

It was a right old mixed bag come to think of it. You were completely at liberty to go to PE in an acceptable short sleeved top of any kind or just go with none on at all. Although you were not allowed more than the one layer if you wore your top.

I reckon most of my gym lessons were roughly half and half. I can't visualise many PE lessons where we all had shirts on at the same time or either all were shirtless at the same time. The same applied on footwear rather a lot too. I always wore plimsolls no socks and the majority did so but there was always about a quarter of boys in PE who opted the barefoot style and I did used to wonder why they liked that choice.

I used to chop and change a lot depending on the time of year even though we were inside.

My favoured option was always white plimsolls, no socks, white shorts and I was easy either way on a top or not, shirtlessness was not a major anxiety for me personally but I get why it is for others.

My PE teachers were all good guys and nothing like the typical stereotypes.

Okay guys so you might want to hear my somewhat memorable introduction to the whole skins against shirts thing in school. It was a game of basketball within the first month of starting secondary school and I was 12 years of age. We go back 44 years for this. Our basic gym kit was red and white short sleeved t-shirts, all our PE tutor said was - okay boys we'll do a bit of basketball now, sort yourselves out into a couple of teams - and as he went off to sort the nets out our whole class organically just seemed to split easily in half and without that teacher telling anyone about being a skin, many of the boys just instinctively took their PE t-shirts right off on one side and others followed their lead. I was a shirt that day and had never heard of two teams doing a shirts and skins game like that but obviously some others knew in some way already and acted quite keen. The term skins and shirts was not something I heard used though. Whenever we did team games we just got told to sort our teams out ourselves nearly everytime and before you knew it one side was already casting the t-shirts off. I think the teams often split along similar lines.

Nobody seemed to be forcing anyone to do anything like taking their shirts off in PE, it kind of just happened with no fuss pots among boys in our year group. I did my fair share I think but I never had my teacher for gym actually tell me to remove my top in gym in those circumstances. It would not have bothered me if he had told me directly to, and why would it have done, as soon as we finished up we'd be straight into the showers and he definitely told us all to do that! 1979 in school meant you never missed the showers whoever you were.

I think the skins in PE is a fuss about nothing really.

Justin B: I wasn't especially gifted academically, but the school felt it had to have a hard reputation because of where it was. Middle class Radio 4 listeners (they must love it more than ever these days with all their pseudo-intellectuals posing as experts) seemed to think if you came from a "problem area" you were a problem child, or at least likely to join Fagin's gang. and that was the mindset of ILEAs and I guess LEAs in general. That sadly is still the pathetic idea these fossils had. Remedial treatment and punishment before you did anything seemed to be the idea of such people, and of course they loved their authority.. You were guilty even if you proved yourself innocent, and the lack of trust never deserted them. Everyone was treated like dirt - the really clever kids the worst of the lot. Luckily for me I was just an "average"

I pity really clever and intelligent youngsters who end up in the kind of places you describe Alan.

School for me wasn't so bad but PE was hellish at times. Our school did rigorous PE twice weekly, forced football or rugby outside in all weathers throughout winter, forced cross country at any time of year. Lack of ability not allowed. For gym it was come along shorts only, even the odd chance to wear trainers seemed like a privilege. Not a PE top in sight in the gym all year round, just a collection of boys forced to be bare chested, which really wasn't a look that suited me at all anywhere. There was a collection of guys in school who were nerdy, wore glasses (which also had to come off), were quite tall and thin and just looked so out of place in the gym like that as if it was always the last place on earth they wanted to be. I was one of them and I'd much rather have been in the science lab with some of them. But despite that I did get some good write ups from my PE teachers who seemed to like putting some of us types into shape.

Stuart K" It was a rough dump in East London. coming to the end of it's existence so the only teachers were old men hanging on for their pension and a few bargain basement younger teachers who wanted to impress the old timers, for some reason, so they behaved in the same way. Once it was knocked down they built a supermarket on the site, which I am sure is of much more benefit to those who lived there.

Thanks for reply Alan. Is your comment of 21st March 2023 at 17:55 meant to be more or less a defacto description of your regular 1980's style PE lesson at school there then, you make it sound more like a young offenders boot camp if so. How much PE did you take shirt free and did that play any part. I myself never saw any boys mocking anyone else about their physical appearance in PE lessons and changing areas.

I'm sure that the kind of humiliation Harper was talking about was not quite the kind of humiliation Alan you might be thinking of. I think Harper was meaning (and please tell me if I am wrong) the kind of humiliation of not doing a sport well enough or making a fool of yourself doing something in PE, because he followed on with the feeling quietly proud alternative when you maybe did do something well by trying at it. That's my interpretation anyway.

For the record I was also completely unfazed either way, shirts or not. But there are some who find the simple mandating of a PE bare chest to be humiliating in itself. Rather sad to be so overly sensitive and self conscious about oneself I think but I'll never denigrate someone else for those inner personal feelings. We are all different and many of us with big differences were thrown together in one class with a same size fits all approach, I get that.

John 20 March. I was beginning to think perhaps I was the only one who enjoyed barechested exercise. Okay it could be hard outdoors and I wasn't "good" at most things (basketball was the exception due to my height) but I joined in and put in the effort to try and make up. Though the official kit included a vest and t-shirt it was made crystal clear vests would only be worn outdoors and even then we'd usually be told to "drop our vests" at some point. I'd do it all over again if I could.

Stuart K: Yes I read it, and I am afraid I don't agree with much of it. Nobody should ever be humiliated and for teachers to behave in the 1980s as if they were 1940s drill sargeants was appalling. I have recently seen some reruns of a terrible old comedy series from the 1970s called Get Some In, which was about a group of RAF recruits undergoing National Service in the mid 50s, and their pig of corporal played by the late Tony Selby. He used bullying, demeaning tactics, not for any reason of character building or improvement, but just because he was an unpleasant, insignificant little. man, belittled by his wife and despised by his superiors , and he knew it . It made him feel better to make others feel worse. That applied I think to many teachers, and probably still does, especially now they don't have the threat of corporal punishment to back them up.

Alan, did you read that excellent comment on 13th March 2023 at 03.13am by Harper last week by any chance, because after I read it for some reason many of your previous comments came to mind. I wonder if you think there is anything in what he said that you could agree with and use for your own evaluation of your time in school by any chance?

The section - "sometimes find yourself completely humiliated and sometimes feel proud of yourself quietly in a little way" was a lovely well written line in my opinion many of us will have related to quite easily.

Lucky you, Chad. I have said it before, but there is a lot of difference in choosing to do something of your own free will, and being FORCED to do it. Especially when you are in the difficult teenage years. I am all for free choice in everything, and though you might have preferred it otherwise, I am sure there were many lads at your school, who, for whatever reason, were glad they were not made to feel uncomfortable.

I'm struck by the irony of someone going to school in one of the nicest coastal seaside resort areas of the entire country where you could quite reasonably be expected to strut your stuff all summer long like you said you did but at the same time be perhaps one of a small minority of people to come on here and say your schools never went with any type of shirtless PE, quite unusual for the 1980's as that sounds to me.

Replying to Chad Estep,
It makes a refreshing change to hear from a guy who would have enjoyed being allowed to exercise shirtless at school. I did PE shirtless at Primary School so the shirtless PE rule at Senior School wasn’t an issue for me. There were a few lads who had been to Primary Schools outside the Borough and they had been used to wearing a top for PE. It was obvious for the first few lessons that they felt a bit awkward doing PE wearing only shorts and pumps. After a few lessons they appeared to be perfectly happy doing PE bare chested.
It seems to me that ‘fear of the unknown’ was the issue for many lads who’ve posted on here. At my school most lads were perfectly happy doing PE shirtless once they’d experienced it.

I'm now 50 and you couldn't do a shirtless PE lesson no matter how hard you tried to at my comprehensive, circa 1984-9.

Quite unlike so many on here who have written, I never went shirtless in any of the four schools I attended, an infants, two primaries and finally my comprehensive through to the age of sixteen. The comp was quite strict on the PE kit. You would actually be told off if you attempted to come to PE without a shirt on, I know this because I saw others not allowed to do a PE lesson because they did not have correct kit, including the PE shirts and having to sit it out fully dressed again including one time with two young guys in my class coming to gym ahead of the teacher not with a top on because they'd forgotten them and getting an almighty lecture on standards and sent packing.

I've found it quite funny really while reading through so many others who seem to be a similar age to me with a polar opposite experience in school PE to my one. Possible my school, a comp in Poole Dorset, was an outlier on that one.

Outside of school I'd often hang about with pals completely shirtless myself and sometimes the whole group of us, three or four as we went into town in Bournemouth and off to the beach and we'd leave and walk home or even catch a bus and not bother sticking anything on top when I was mid to late teens and while still at school even.

Yet no shirtless PE for me. I missed out big time there and would have embraced it enthusiastically.

It was much better to be a non swimmer or an unconfident swimmer, rather than a strong swimmer at school because the swimming lessons were so much nicer for those of us who were weaker in the water. I used to look across the pool and see how intense the other teacher treated the strong swimmers and it didn't look anything like as much fun, far too overly competitive when all I wanted to do was enjoy my time in the pool when I got a chance to go along in school time.

Swimming was far more enjoyable than straightforward gym in PE which was a drag half the time if it was something I hated. Jumping a horse served absolutely no purpose and had no practical meaning for me, stupid things. The gym horse and algebra go hand in hand as two of the most pointless things to learn in school for 99% of us.

Referring to the comment made by Fiona and the follow ups on that, those relies are sort of true. I never felt uncomfortable going to the pool with class and took to the water with ease, goggles and trunks on. The school gymnasium always made me feel less sure of myself, more so when we did it without t-shirts and went skins, mainly for team games but quite often the whole class went skins just because the respective teacher wanted it and I definitely felt very different doing that there compared to the pool so there is definitely something in this subtle difference that others allude to, no doubt about it.

Harper, I was a schoolgirl who used her bicycle to go to school from about the age of twelve onwards. It had a front basket for my bags. My journey was only a short five minute hop, but a quarter hour if walking. Actually I even used the same bicycle to turn up to my first menial office job in the year after leaving as well. Two sneaky girlfriends would have a quick drag of a shared cigarette in the lunch hour among the bicycles as I sat on my own saddle looking out.

I think you may be right though, mainly boys did this. Girls would like to walk to school in little groups of three or four and I'd often pass many of my friends like that, refusing to stop and carrying on as I got nearer school. Well there was no point stopping, getting off and then walking and wheeling along with them. I'd see enough of them throughout the day anyway.

Thankyou for the kind comments about my post. Yes my headspace was in the old school PE gym mindset when I recovered some of those thoughts and surnames were the thing of the old PE teachers were they not? Were anyone's gym teachers ever polite enough to address them on more friendly christian name terms in those days? I never heard any of them doing that within my earshot. I think they wished to create and maintain a very formal distance between them and us in complete contrast to others around school who wished to develop a close and friendly relationship if we were good at their own subjects.

In 1972 I got a wonderful raleigh racing bike for my birthday and would immediately begin to use it to get into school most days until I left three years later. It was a brilliant time saver. It was a ten minute trip in. I'd go home for lunch and bike back again so spent about forty minutes a day in four little ten minute trips commuting to and from school. The local roads were fine to navigate, and a few footpaths too. The only problem was how to carry my heavy schoolbag, heaviest on PE days with books and kit. Not many fancy lightweight rucksacks back then in evidence, I sat it across the drop handlebars and eventually did a work around so it hung off my back somehow and that way I could get my speed up on the way into school. My thirty to thirty five minute walk time was cut by two thirds at least. I already had a smaller and older less impressive bicycle that I would not have been prepared to come into school with for appearances sake. It's name escapes me but it was the same maker. You needed street cred by the age of thirteen even in the early 70's.

The school bike rack was huge and sat alongside the PE offices and one of the playing pitches. It was well used and always full with a lot of racing bikes. Very few girls seemed to ride bikes into school, it seemed a very boyish thing to do. I was impressed one day to see a bike with a speedo on it and a milometer saying it had done a couple of thousand miles. As soon as I saw it I wanted one too.

Each and every day I was getting a respectable forty minutes of cardiovascular exercise just by going to school before I got started with a PE lesson. Many of us who rode into school had even taken the cycling proficiency test at the time as well. What happened to that I wonder. I still have my little red styled triangular badge for passing it.

Brett Harper.

Bringing up your points Fiona. Not sure I agree entirely with what you say. Why do we get comments from men here who disliked the whole shirtless requirement asked of them in school PE but they don't for example mention the showering requirement they also had as an issue which on the face of it would be even more bothersome if you got anxious over just not having a shirt. Square that circle.

Apologies for the half written unfinished sentence at the end of my previous Fiona directed comment which I have just noticed now it has been placed up. Completed, it was meant to say,

I went on some school trips that involved overnight stays of two to seven days in dorms somewhere and all I can remember is we all wore proper night time clothing for our ages and no memory of anyone sleeping over on those trips without a top, it was all PJ shirts or the odd vest here and there. One thing I cannot remember is how much free choice we had on what we wore or whether we had rules to do so or whether it was how we all just automatically behaved without specific instruction.

I think your point is false equivalence Fiona. Just not comparable. But I'll let you off as you obviously cannot have experienced it yourself. ;-)

Haven't there been earlier comments on here that say some people who were awkward with the shirtless PE rules simultaneously being reasonably alright with going swimming because it felt different even though quite obviously both were performed in the same state of bare-chestedness. I'd agree, swimming did feel different and less self conscious than doing proper PE in class without our tops on when we did so. Been there and felt that. Don't tell me why it was, that needs a psychoanalyst perhaps to explain away.

I went on some school trips that involved overnight stays of two or three days in dorms somewhere

Following on to Harper's post & subsequent comments, the following appeared in a national newspaper last autumn. I've made a couple of deletions.

We had a wonderful athletics coach, x-x, who had set the record for running from one side of America to the other in 60 days. He was immensely influential on my life because he got us out training. We would spend a lot of time on wet, windswept days on the Wiltshire Downs, building up our endurance, running longer and longer distances, taking part in county competitions and races, all of which taught me a lot about endurance and sustainability for the long haul.

The thing I liked most about y-y was the open-air stuff – the connection with the countryside. Back then, we were encouraged to have bicycles, and one day I cycled all the way down to Warminster and back – 90 miles – which was a big deal when you were 16. Also, I did a lot of cross-country running, which I enjoyed immensely: the freedom – and I say this ironically, given I now use a wheelchair – of being able to stretch your legs out and feel the miles of endless rolling hills and lonely copses flying under your feet was fantastic.

The author is Frank Gardner, the BBC Security Correspondent - the last few words of the first paragraph say a lot.

And by extension, I wonder how many of those same lads who complained about bare-chested PE were quite happy to sleep bare-chested in communal situations such as sleepovers, school trips or boarding school.

I too thought that Harper’s post was excellent.

With regards to being made to do PE lessons shirtless I wonder how many guys that have complained on this forum about their dislike as lads of their shirtless PE experiences have as adults removed their shirts or vests whilst exercising because they had become too hot?.
I still think that exercising shirtless is more comfortable than having a hot sweaty vest stuck to your back. I regard my PE teachers as being decent people that wanted us to be fit and healthy, be comfortable exercising and to ensure good hygiene by making us shower naked afterwards.

These young guys give quite a good explanation of what Greg describes doing for anyone who has never heard of them. When discussing how you take one of these onsen things there is a bit of modern day awkwardness even with three close young men on their travels and one even says - from 1m 50s to 2m 00s - he finds getting naked with the other two "a bit weird". I personally found that comment a bit weird really and a shame with guys who are close friends, open minded and travellers around the world.


Hot Springs in Japan: How To Have The Best Naked Onsen Experience.

https://youtu.be/I63STvrhNRE

Jason on 12th March 2023 at 02:10

What you are talking about there is something called an 'onsen', which is their word for a hot steaming public deep bath which could be either inside or outside. You cannot wear any item of clothing in one at all. Brits would simply think of a hot tub but onsen is far better than that.

When I was on my gap year in 1981 I spent that year's summer traveling around Japan with another gap year friend of mine, paid for by my parents, and taking in all the country had to offer. I made frequent use of onsen's and never a problem, very nervous at first but never needed to be. Everyone had impeccable polite manners. You actually clean yourself before you step into it at most of them. My view at the time and still would be there's no point going to these places for a prolonged period of time and not taking in all a different culture has to offer. It was a great way to relax when you leave our Brit ways at the door and temporarily adopt the place you visit. We used to find one late in the day to unwind for as long as we wanted, typically anything from 30 to 60 minutes.

As this is a school forum I would not have wanted to be a child at school in that country because they really do work children in school extremely hard indeed and have long school days with lots of work and incredibly high standards are expected of everyone academically. Quite what their physical education system was like over there I have not got a clue but I would expect it is equally demanding just like the academic side. But the place has virtually no unemployment as far as I know and a very low crime rate and I remember feeling very safe and only worrying about the ground moving, there was a bit of a tremor one day I was there.

TimH you got in before me because I was going to say the very same thing about the Harper post and agree with you, that was really rather well said, especially as Harper (first or surname used there?) admits he wasn't the greatest fan of PE at the time. If only we could all have hindsight in the present moment.

I thought Giles stuck something quite readable on here too about Worcester Grammar School and the foreign teacher and I always enjoy reading the night time missive's from Robbie who talks so much sense too. This forum has proved very readable in recent months, long may it continue.

Harper - simply: Well Said!

It's the job of a PE teacher, or at least it once was, to push you out of the comfort zone and discover yourself and what you can do and to do all the uncomfortable things you might not like, whether that's playing football, going swimming, running for four miles, climbing rope to the roof or doing cartwheels across the gym, doing it with or without your shirt and finished off with a group wash with your tackle out for a minute or two once or twice a week. That is the essence of what PE is. Are we supposed to have loved PE and what it got us doing, not so sure about that, but it was good for us and not everything that is good for us we end up liking. Much that I did in PE from various disagreeable sports, to what I wore or didn't, to being told to shower endlessly I took objection to at the time as an opinionated youngster with typical teenage attitude about the world and school but looking back can see it was everything it should have been and I needed it all to have happened.

I left school in 1975 and PE of that decade in schools was pretty strong stuff full of the rough and the smooth you all had to take on the chin and work your way through it all, sometimes find yourself completely humiliated and sometimes feel proud of yourself quietly in a little way. I had the good cop - bad cop teachers, the one we liked and the one we didn't.

Two things I discovered that I was very good at in school PE that I never would have otherwise, first was was running short track distances and winning with good times and also squash which I thought I would hate at first, turned out I was quite good at so enjoyed it and after leaving school I joined a local club and played for a further ten years or so on and off. Anyone who has played squash will know it is intense and I'd sweat buckets especially once we'd finished and I used to go voluntarily to the club's shower room and take one with others present, something I'd never have done at school if I hadn't been made to.

Yeah, so you do need pushing hard sometimes. You never know what you might find out about yourself and it can sometimes be unexpected. Your regular school PE lesson 1970 to 1975 would probably horrify even some of us who were there doing it at the time if we could go back and retrace our time all over again about how much we did, how we were taught and what we were expected to be able to do compared to the class of 2023. For example, my old school doesn't even have a proper grass playing field anymore, they had it covered in fake turf a few years ago now at considerable expense I would think. You couldn't get a grass stain on your shorts however hard you tried.

Giles snippet from 11th March caught my eye.

"It was the kind of place where if you struggled they wouldn't accept it and pushed and pushed until you somehow improved even at anything you had no talent for. This meant some boys tears at times in PE either through frustration, being unhappy or getting hurt in some way."


The above is everything that is wrong with PE in school isn't it. Nothing wrong with pushing kids to do their best or discover talents they didn't even know they had and try to get the best out of them, that's fine and admirable. But at the same time why do we try and pretend that everyone should be good at this and that in school without realising we each have our talents in particular things, whether that's various parts of PE or other subjects. If only school, and I speak from my own personal experience in saying this, could recognise when you had no ability at something and instead focus you on something sporting you actually were reasonable at. To drive kids to frustrated tears is hardly positive is it. Nobody can surely disagree with that.