Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 5th September 2023 at 20:30


I think you said Nathan, that while the performance f those young boys was acceptable, the music used during their act was not, because I thought the music was irrelevant (such as it was). Perhaps if Soho strip clubs used Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No 1, the acts would be less tawdry. I dare say those stage struck lads quite enjoyed exhibiting themselves, not that it makes the performance less repulsive or squalid.

I grew up and went to school and university in the United Kingdom but have resided for the past 10 years in New Zealand's south island in a town called Invercargill.

Back home a number of years ago in around about 1988 I think it was, I went with a group of friends from work to a hypnotic show in Dunstable despite having no belief in it at all. I remember being tried out but finding I was not a good candidate to be placed under suggestive hypnotic thought. I knew that already. But we had a friend with us that day who did get chosen for one of the hypnotic trances, although he thought he couldn't be put under. We were then asked what things he would least be likely to do and among the answers given was he would not be likely to open his wallet and flash the cash or buy a round of drinks, and also he would never take his clothes off and definitely would never just casually take a top right off. As I didn't believe in hypnotic suggestion I thought he will never succeed in any of these things. But somehow he not only made our friend take most of his clothing off, his trousers and shirt, he made him crawl on the floor having done it and start treating the chair he'd been sitting on as if it was an attractive woman he wanted to date. We were all in our thirties at the time. When a sound was made he snapped out of it in an instant and I have never seen anybody in my entire life look so panicked and fumble around trying to dress again so fast. I remember thinking, what just happened here, because I still couldn't believe what I'd seen could possibly be for real. I just don't believe he was the kind of person who could have passed it off faking it though and he always insisted he never realised what he had done.

I'm afraid I cannot remember what I said now in the missing comment of mine, sorry. Back to school tomorrow, rotten luck with the timing of the weather.

Mike on the 4th.
Yes I was referring to Nathan's post where he discussed that film.
I always find his comments, as a contemporary PE teacher, interesting.

Goodness me what a piece of film that was. I think many of the parents might have got caught up in the moment and then walked away with a different view. Why would any of them wish to sexualise their boys like that, it's really rather terrible isn't it. I know kids seem like they grow up quicker nowadays but all the same, did those boys act like that without any adult encouragement at that age.

My boys, I have had 3, now all well into adults, could go to school and do P.E like that and I would always have been relaxed about them being asked to do so. The ones in the film could have been fully dressed doing the same movements and I would have been equally disapproving.

re Comment by: Rob on 4th September 2023 at 19:39

I recollect that post myself, but I just cannot remember the exact occasion we had to wear PE kit in drama, so I did not put in my contribution at that time. Amazingly I found a file on an old laptop with the answer:

Danny C on 22nd December 2020 at 03:17.

and the discussion around it.

Lance - thats the one.

Thanks for posting it!

This I think. Some misguided strip show for their parents. Beyond odd in my view.

https://youtu.be/bTW1iJlSEV0?feature=shared

TimH what is this gross video you are referring to?

Ian says - <Youth drama has also a lot of instances of lads wearing very little, playing parts like “Puck” and “Ariel”. (A lot of my friends were Drama/English teachers and I've seen the production photos).

I can vaguely remember my involvement in school drama (I'm no actor!). Our drama teacher believed that just before the final rehearsals in costume, we had to get used to not wearing our uniforms – so he had us strip to PE shorts. A bit disconcerting, but the worst thing was getting black feet from the dust on the stage.>




Ian, you were talking about drama classes there and it took me back to some comments I remembered from a couple of years ago right here from someone who put a few things on here about being forced into shirtless drama lessons as well as in PE. Does anyone remember who that was and when it was put on here, I'd like to read it again.

I think we have lost Nathan's post that you're referencing Tim have we not? What a shame, there were some decent comments in just those couple of days.

Welcome Back!

To follow-up Ian - I pretty much agree about the film on Youtube. It depicts a performance by a 'Circus School' in the Netherlands - they're long established with a pretty impressive website & Facebook page.
Its old footage - but interesting (there are other films from them on the www).
The boys' trunks are what I would call 'continental style' - they cover all that needs covering - I've worn similar in younger days. I must admit I didn't notice the collars & arms & leg 'decorations' - I wouldn't read too much into it - its a 'performance' & this is just decoration.

What I would say, and it follows on Ian's second comment - on this very warm day I've seen boys/youths enjoying the last days of summer holidays, kicking footballs about, and the lads playing footy were pretty much all stripped to their shorts - a long summer with their friends has given them confidence in themselves and in their bodies. I suspect the same might well apply to these two Dutch lads - a summer working towards a goal at the 'school' and gaining the confidence in themselves to go and do things like this in 'public.

And Thanks to Nathan for his comments on the link to that totally gross film that someone put up last week

There are quite a few missing comments that were posted 30th August to 1st September on here aren't there.

It's nice to see the glitch sorted out.

Does anybody know of or use any other historical sites that talk about PE experiences in the same way this one does?

Forgot to say =

The lads bring it off with such confidence. Anything less would have been disastrous.

Welcome back after the server failure. Congratulations! A weekend without PE reminiscences (mine very like Pete 28 August – I had six years of disciplinarian PE).

Circuses have always featured scantily clad young men, as well as women. I saw a young male contortionist on “Cirque du Soleil” on TV at the weekend, where a young male contortionist performed wearing only a pair of lycra tights that left nothing to the imagination,

Gary's link looked fairly tame – intially, at least. A definite role reversal, scantily clad males instead of females, dating back to the 80's or 90's I guess. The trunks covers all that's needed – I'd have worn them when younger. But – and maybe it is a big but – the lads are wearing collars and bands around their arms and legs. Hints of bondage gear?

Youth drama has also a lot of instances of lads wearing very little, playing parts like “Puck” and “Ariel”. (A lot of my friends were Drama/English teachers and I've seen the production photos).

I can vaguely remember my involvement in school drama (I'm no actor!). Our drama teacher believed that just before the final rehearsals in costume, we had to get used to not wearing our uniforms – so he had us strip to PE shorts. A bit disconcerting, but the worst thing was getting black feet from the dust on the stage.

The double standards where stark back in the day.
The female authority figures in my youth simply believed lads did not require any privacy. My brother was into many sports. What our American friends might refer to as a 'jock'.
He loved the attention.
I greatly resented having no choice in the matter.

Strange times indeed.
Just imagine of the roles were exchanged. Female costume designer I'd imagine?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RNo6UJTGT9M&list=PLRyPvjVvfxor9KsBkT1EpQTIKeFaS9QJ0&index=2&pp=iAQB

Jeffrey comes from what is known as "The Silent Generation", that's why people such as he refuse to revel in victimhood.

Think of the current Spanish Kiss furore. What started as just an over zealous excitable but inappropriate smacker on the lips in the heat of a happy moment has now tried to be turned into a sexual assault which she walked away with a smile on her face from by the way, instead of slapping him. It's a good sporting case of trying to create a dramatic victim mentality for something that just needed an apology and end of, lack of judgement and nothing more.

I hope none of the men on here who claim awkwardness in school revolving around the unremarkable act of having to take some barechested PE or a mandatory naked shower amongst their peers and watched by teachers don't conflate their legitimate awkwardness of such things with trauma or any kind of abuse. One or two appear to attempt it in my view.

That's very good to know Jeffrey.

I wonder if Alan feels he could learn from the example of your last line.

Jeffrey - I'm very pleased to hear that you do not feel you have anything to get over but I can see why Tanya thought the opposite could be the case. In your first account of the incident you make it sound quite traumatic and this is echoed in your reply to Tanya. I think you are probably of an age that you do not feel the need to be a victim - sadly these days there are far too many who want to feel sorry for themselves and blame their failure in life on some form of abuse, either real or imaginary, in their dim and distant past. Some counsellors seem to want their patients to relive their traumas over and over so that they cannot possibly get over them thus adding to the already increasing demands on mental health services.

Absorbing what you say here Jeffrey just makes me consider whether reading descriptions of such lessons and those 'family nights' is actually worse than the reality of doing it all in the end, like with so many things. At face value it reads quite extraordinary but many of us have an ability to overcome more than we realise even if we don't think so. When I think of the naked swimming there must have been boys who did so without a care in the world. Perhaps there are some comments out there from your generation who were told to do this and outright refused in a conscientious objector kind of way.

Thankyou for asking the question Tanya. I have never felt I have anything to get over. Placing my own direct experience in short essay form just adds my personal little bit to the historical record, and this is a history forum. I am an active 83 years of age now and the lessons I was given some 70 years ago have stood me in good stead for life. At the time my experiences took place the sensations could be deeply intense. Any young man at the time who may say he wasn't anxious, however short lived, is lying. We all were. In the early 50's boys were not expected to find our naked form at all concerning, even in front of the opposite sex but of course we did. Family night was the one night when the opposite sex, moms, grans and sisters could come and see us all perform. It gave me a strong constitution because I had to overcome any thoughts and in my case do my best to pretend it was any other time without them there looking down from on high. I think it was very difficult for boys once they reached the age of 14 to be doing this at a time in 1952 when boys that age were treated very much like young adults and in most cases looked like them too.

But I have nothing to get over and never have felt that way and am not in any sense resentful or suffering any long term trauma so thankyou for asking and allowing me to set the record straight.

To answer you Tanya on this whole naked swimming thing my take on it is that yes it was a real thing that happened for those people and must have been utterly hideous if you were shy, insecure and unconfident. It might have even been a big deal if you were confident and good looking too. But the trouble is that alongside the undoubted truth that all these men tell is a parallel narrative that looks to have also been created with what I can best say are extra embellishments to the core truthful facts of the time. I could be wrong, I wasn't about in the early 50's to know for sure and American culture compares dramatically different to British.

Do you mean this one Adam, I love this, how cool was that. You shouldn't have worried, I bet you looked just great without tops doing your stuff to this, you sure sounded it, someone at your school had a good vibe going there. That track went top ten in late 1974. If it had been my school we'd have done something to classical music going back a couple of centuries.

This tune also reminds me of something else in the past, just can't place it.

Peppers - Pepper Box

https://youtu.be/ZLWv8hwoBAk?feature=shared

"Comment by: Tanya on 28th August 2023 at 19:16"
(apropos) Comment by: Jeffrey on 24th August 2023 at 06:25



"....But just one question, you went all the way back to 1952 with that which means you must be a past the wrong side of 80 by now. Isn't it just time you finally got over it all? "

Tanya, whatever you do please never become a councillor. You remind me of the story of the man who went to a psychiatrist and told him that he thought he was a pair of curtains and the psychiatrist told him to pull himself together.

I can't match 70 or 80 years, but even you must realise for somebody still to have unhappy memories dating back that far they must have traumatic memories, which they can't just "get over".

Perhaps you were lucky enough to have schooldays reminiscent of Enid Blyton's heroes, (and good luck to you if you did) but not everybody has wonderful memories - some people have very traumatic ones, which they don't fully go into. And with such a trite, glib unsympathetic answers such as yours, perhaps that is no wonder

Last year I joined a local squash club and I ended up playing in the squash courts of my old school that I actually left twenty one years ago. Afterwards I even found myself standing in the exact same communal shower that I'd last used at about fifteen in PE, something that was unexpected. One of the men I was playing squash with in our foursome has a couple of lads that go to the school and I asked if they were still used in schooltime PE or just for the likes of adults such as us nowadays doing evening sports and he told me they still used them for his boys and he supported that fully. I hadn't used a communal shower in years and although I was only sharing with another three men I immediately felt perfectly at ease with the situation and comfortable in my own skin which was exactly how I used to feel at school as well when doing it.

Women are every bit as bad as men when it comes to boys in school and not allowing tops on but for some reason it always seems worse when women do it than when men do it.

Does anybody remember an old instrumental tune called Pepper Box quite well known from the 1970s by any chance?

I heard it playing in a shop recently and it reminds me of one of the most embarrassing days in my time at primary school in February 1975 when I was in my last year there. We went up a year later in my area than some other places and I was already 12 years old by then but still in primary.

All the boys in my class at the time had to do a synchronised dance routine at our school's half term concert alongside girls in our class and all the boys had to do this in our bare chests beside girls in normal PE kits for our mums and a few dads who could get off work in the afternoon. I can still just about see the enthusiasm with which the girls took to their task and the deep reluctance many of the boys felt about any of it.

We had a feisty pair of primary music and PE teachers who bossed us about all the while. We had to learn a 3 minute synchronised routine to show off to our nearest and dearest, using hoops and ribbons. When we practiced we stayed in our normal working school clothes but then our music teacher said she wanted a dress rehearsal and said that meant PE kit. The boys PE kit was not always a bare chest, only sometimes. We often wore any tee-shirt we came in with but when we did this to rehearse the teachers didn't like it for the concert so opted instead for boys to be bare chests and it's fair to say it was one mighty long time ago now but that feeling of complete powerlessness that hit me and scary feeling was a strong one. It had to go down as one of the longest two and a half minutes of my entire life, what made it worse was I was quite big (tall, not fat) for a 12 year old and stood out more beside everyone else and I was never as confident as I wished I could be. You were never allowed to say no to things like this in those days.

Pete, Sounds a little like our teachers. When we'd turned 13 our teachers started having us wear vests instead of rugby shirts outdoors. They'd always split the class into skins vs vests and picked out those to strip off. Cross country and indoor lessons were always performed stripped to the waist.

Comment by: Jeffrey on 24th August 2023 at 06:25


Quite an interesting read. It seems the longer comments often get completely overlooked in favour of the shorter ones.

But just one question, you went all the way back to 1952 with that which means you must be a past the wrong side of 80 by now. Isn't it just time you finally got over it all? It can't even be close to the worst thing that ever happened in your life surely?

I also don't really believe that they were forcing naked swimmers in school to face any girls other than accidentally.

Nothing that Neil Little stated actually surprises me. I don't know when you were at school but it largely fits in with some of my own recollections.

You can't really imagine the girls PE teacher actively wanting them to march back to get out of excessively muddied kit and wet through can you, whereas that was the norm going all the way through the winter season for boys. There was one thing in PE you didn't want to be seen as and that was a boy who was averse to a collecting up a bit of the earth on him, or getting wet. I remember forever spending time back home scraping bits of the school field off my boots, shin pads, and even clothes before they were even good enough to go in the wash. We had a machine where you lifted the lid and plonked all the washing into it and sprinkled ample washing powder and then used wooden tongues to poke at it to clean it. No tumble dryer when I was at school for a few years yet.

I used to laugh at some boys who pulled the 'my kit is in the wash' excuse time and again. I remember the same faces using this one and it was mostly when we had to go outside in the colder weather they did it. Even I never believed them so no chance any of our teachers must have done.