Burnley Grammar School

Reading your piece Neal about your PE teacher and issues in PE surrounding feet reminds me of myself. PE teachers did go on a lot about such things at school and I learnt the hard way for my innocent mistake.

I was actually caned for turning up in PE and not reporting that I had a verucca on one of my feet. I didn't even realise what I had. It didn't feel like much or hurt. It was only noticed when we kneeled along a bench and our PE teacher went along and looked at all our feet in the changing room, something that happened about three times a year, roughly each term. A somewhat degrading experience I thought. I was sent to the school doctor's office first to be looked at where she confirmed it.

It was a right bawling out and then off to the head's office where I was given two sharp and painful strokes of a cane on each hand by the head almost instantly, and it hurt for ages. Another PE teacher watched and as we left he told me if it had been up to him he would have done it across my feet not my hands. I'd also been called stupid, a fool and had the infectious guilt trip thrown at me. I hadn't done it on purpose but that didn't save me from being punished, mainly for risking spreading what I had. I was fourteen years old at the time, it was sometime in 1969.

In the same year I think it was, someone actually punched somebody else square in the face deliberately during a lesson, cutting his lip badly and was sent back to the changing room to cool off and calm down rather than off to the head's office for what would surely have been a corporal punishment offence.

I know that I am continuing with the "off P E " topic but I certainly remember one particular teacher who took us for English Literature. this was in Secondary school circa 1962/66. He introduced our class to the stories of Rider Haggard. I remember in particular how he read out Kings Solomon's Mines putting expression into all the different characters an making it extremely interesting. I think the majority of the class look forward to his lessons and of course we retained the story when it came to exams.
Back to P E shorts and no pants plimsolls and no socks. As I have previously just got on with it.

Answering your question Tim, and back in the 80s we had one summer holiday where I felt seriously short changed because we broke up on 22nd July and went back on 1st September, not even managing to get the proper six weeks in full. Having a school night in August felt so wrong. Very rarely did anyone return to school after summer on a Monday or early in the week, it always seemed to be late in the week, many times a Wednesday or Thursday. I remember at my primary school during the summer holidays for a couple of week period they would open school grounds and there was what was a holiday club involving adults, although no teachers seemed to be present, where we would be able to pull out all the PE stuff and use it under supervision in a casual relaxed manner all morning. We could do things inside or outside but because the weather was generally good it was outside. I think there was an element of parental involvement in this as I used to be taken by a good friend's mum along with him for a couple of summer holiday mornings in our shorts and t-shirts. I wasn't really a fan of showing up in school like that during the long school holiday though because I was more than able to make enough of my own spare time doing my own thing either alone, with friends or family.

Answering Neal. Didn't every teacher bring a taste of their own self into lessons. That was the days when they were probably freer to do so rather than be constrained tightly by the straightjacket of the curriculum. On the very specific issue you talked about I think it was interesting to say the least but some people can get very touchy about certain things they see as highly personal about the self and feet are definitely one of those, many people hate their feet don't they. I remember many haters of doing PE without any footwear when we did it like that. So many people in school PE lessons and even as adults have hang ups about various parts of themselves and showing certain things but don't say too much because they think nobody else could possibly feel the same as them and they are unique when they are not actually.

Answering Darren about fat and thin shaming. Yes this was definitely a thing I can attest as an observer of it happening to others I knew. My best friend in school was actually a very chubby lad compared to everyone else in the days when chubby lads stood out. By today's standard he wasn't even that bad because I've got a photo of him and it's just what you'd call a little bit of puppy fat. This was enough for him to get singled out constantly and because of the way he looked he was treated as if he must be a lazy kid which was unfair. I remember him getting called 'fatty' by PE teachers who should have known better than using the language of playground kids, but there you go. Meanwhile I was fairly slim and didn't seem to have great strength in my arms at one stage while I was developing and this was drawn to my attention in a less than encouraging way. I was always happiest wearing long sleeves or a tee-shirt doing PE and hiding my arms but so much of it involved vests or no tops. So like Alan says, PE teachers in my opinion often crossed the line between legitimate concerns and encouragement into outright over-focussing on the normal range of so called 'shortcomings' as they saw it. You only have to google up some stock phrases to find many people given life long hang ups by PE lesson treatment who now mention it in other forums. Some comments last a lifetime.

Answering Matt, nobody I know ever did a PE lesson without their underwear beneath their shorts, and I never wore or saw anyone at any age wear a jockstrap either. Both alien concepts to me there but could not agree more with your take on how contradictory that whole thing seems.

From memory we had about 6 weeks summer holiday, starting late July and returning to school during the first week of September.

At a tangent from the usual here ...

Can anyone remember when their school summer holidays began & ended? In the 50s & 60s, when many cities had big industries ('foundries', car plants, etc.) these would close for two weeks in summer for maintenance and the majority of the workforce would go on holiday. Different cities had different holiday weeks.

In my home city the two holiday weeks were August Bank holiday week (bearing in mind that August Bank Holiday Monday was then the first Monday in August) and the week before that. My recollection is that we 'broke up' on the Thursday before that.

(FWIW, in Scotland the Autumn half-term was the 'potato picking holiday' where youngster went into the fields to pick 'tatties' - and I think this applied in other places, too, and in the South whole streets would go 'Hopping Down in Kent')

Any comments?

I had one very strident PE teacher during my teenage years who held personal views which he imposed religiously on me and my class. Bare feet and bare chests in PE were his thing for us. I never enjoyed his lessons because of this. He had a firm belief that the only way to do PE was having nothing at all on your feet. This was because he insisted, and he was fond of saying it over and over, that going barefoot aided balance and all round posture, as well as being good for wellbeing in some way I never quite understood. In his classes none of us were ever allowed to wear the trainers we were allowed to bring for PE. He did this outside for us a lot too, even on a somewhat gravelly all weather ground where we would run hurdles barefoot, which proved more than painful on a number of occasions when my feet, and a fair few others, hit the hurdles instead of clearing them. The ground felt rough too. But it was beneficial according to him. I found no benefit for my balance or posture or anything else in that kind of circumstance and I don't think anyone else did. He was such a fanatic like this that he could often be seen walking around school even in lunch hour's without his shoes or socks on and quite frankly most of us thought he was an eccentric idiot. He seemed to have well weathered feet with thick skin whereas mine and others were more sensitive and far less hardened. Quite the oddball. I was always of the opinion that feet are best protected and covered appropriately for the terrain they are on and what you are doing. Basic gym stuff was okay just about. He even used to give us advice in PE lessons about how to look after our feet properly to keep them healthy and avoid problems which was quite funny in its own way because a couple of the early problems I had were actually caused by being in his lessons or in general PE, like walking on the gravelly all weather getting broken skin from a small flinty piece on the ground or developing a verruca wart from the changing room. We had one quite faintly ridiculous day in PE when he sat massaging away at his own feet and we had to observe and do the same to ours for a couple of minutes to release our tension he said. Well it was a bit different I suppose.
He also held the view that most PE is best done wearing no top and went big on this one too, citing wellbeing yet again and the increased confidence it would bring with it. My own memory in his lessons was that it didn't do any such thing. My own mother used to say something very similar to me at home in the summer months telling me to take my top off because it will make me feel much better. I never understood why it would and I don't think she probably did either but she thought her boys should air their bodies as much as possible when conditions allowed and fully approved of my oddball PE teacher back in school on that one.
The two other teachers of PE I had through my teenage years seemed far more typical and regular to the point of boringly ordinary infact.

I was born back in 1967.

For the first few years at grammar school we were told not to wear our underpants for PE for hygiene reasons (them getting dirty and sweaty).

Then when we were about 13 or so our PE teacher advised us to purchase a 'litesome supporter' (jockstrap) as we required support now that we were maturing. A couple of boys did buy jockstraps, but most of us stated to wear our swimming trunks under out PE shorts instead.

We did indoor PE shirtless, but always wore a rugby shirt for outdoor games (rugby, hockey and cross country).

Top marks for a brilliantly made post there Matt. A+

Hasn't anyone noticed the total contradiction between PE teachers telling their boys they could not wear pants under their shorts and these same PE teachers who would also require jockstraps.

So on the one hand you could have no pants meaning your vitals down below could swing away in your shorts loosely and easily just how teacher demanded it throughout PE, then on the other hand the same people make demands on jockstraps.

Highly illogical nonsense. Probably made even more illogical if in the PE classes where pants were not allowed under shorts they would allow a jockstrap though.

Just keep your pants on, it's easier!

Mike, Bringing spare pants is not as simple as replacing your pants with shorts for gym. After the initial surprise, I never thought anything of it. In some exercises it was obvious that we had no pants under our shorts but it hardly mattered because after the lesson we would all be in the showers with nothing on. Thanks to the school regime I have never been anxious about bodily privacy, thank goodness.
I agree that pants are less likely to get muddy outside but having one rule was straightforward. There has been a lot of pointless argument in this discussion in recent months and I have no wish to persuade you that my view is right. The practice we are discussing has had its day and those who experienced it will have different views. That's fair enough.
I would have to say though that there was nothing at the school I attended that I think could fairly be described as not decent (your comment on 17th February.

Darren on 17th February 2023 at 17:55

Yes that was a favourite trick of our PE teacher he would hone in on, and magnify every perceived shortcoming, and took great delight in doing so. It was part of the "control" mechanism so many of their sort enjoyed. Now you mention it, I don't think we had any obese boys at all in our school. People were more active though, and you didn't get over-indulgent mothers getting the car out (if they had one) twice a day for a three minute walk. I agree with, and sympathise with, all you say in your post.

I understand that William but it still makes little sense, especially outside. Just bring a spare pair of undies, it really is that simple.

I got thrown around quite a lot of muddy playing fields in my time, caked in it but never went home with mucky pants, or even noticed them feeling sweaty.

My 'Thanks' to Fiona for her research work: I've only just glanced at the work she cites.

My own 'take' on this is that the state of the 'National Health' c1900 & onwards was bad - men joined the Army & Navy to get three square meals a day. After WW1 you get a continuation of this - rickets was common into the inter-war years (my father suffered). A cause is a lack of vitamin D - produced by exposure to sunlight. Its in the inter-war years that you get a great 'Out-door' movement: Youth Hostels Assoc., Ramblers Assoc., the Camping Club, etc., (think 'Swallows & Amazons'), plus organisations like the 'Women's League of Health & Beauty' (& the Scouts & Guides, of course). For many it became natural to remove shirts or wander about in shorts - some of us still do.

Simply I think all of this was almost an unplanned move by people to get 'out & about' and let nature do its bit to strengthen them. By the mid 30s many people realised that war was coming and their time in hills (or whatever) took on an added 'focus' as they prepared for service in the armed forces.

In answer to the question: when was "skins against shirts" thing invented - well, it never was 'invented' - it just happened.

Sorry for rambling on ...

Mike, The reason was cleanliness. Pants under shorts for gym, athletics or rugby would get sweaty and possibly muddy. Putting on pants that were sweaty or muddy after a shower was considered unhygienic. Thus pants were never worn under shorts. I was at school in the '60s and never saw a jockstrap.

There's this thing called fat shaming nowadays that a lot of people get worked up about.

How about thin shaming though.

I saw your skins/shirts comment Paul, and the bit about 'always being on the skinny side'. I think giving the game away not just about being a shirtless skin in PE a lot, but also about your own physique possibly?

At school boys like me were routinely thin shamed. There were no fat boys to be shamed. If there had been then maybe they would have been too. I was one of those very skinny boys, always being subjected to getting my PE kit tops off and having to do things in my bare chest, and my teachers not only chose us on purpose but enjoyed passing comment about how we looked too once we had stripped off our tops.

Although I was skinny throughout my teens, I ate very well, loved my food, always cleared my plate, had good dinners, ate fruit and veg as well as all the naughty stuff too that kids like. But I never put any weight on, either fat or too much muscle. I was active almost every day running about, walking, pedalling away on bikes, getting loads of fresh air.

But when I showed up in PE and we had classes as skins, without tops, I was treated like I was someone who didn't eat and was sedentary. I remember getting looked up and down and told I needed three square meals inside me for example. Well I always did. I never left home without breakfast, had school dinners and another dinner at night.

On more than one occasion I had my PE teacher picking and poking at me just after I had taken my top off in gym, on my body actually pinching at my skin emphasising my thinness and actually holding my arms above my head and wrapping his hands around my thin biceps. Deliberately drawing attention to everything I didn't want focussing on. But this was just how I was born, my natural body shape and metabolism. But there was no getting away from it that PE teachers were thin shaming some of us. When we did the skins/shirts teams the teachers would always go for the thinnest boys like me to be the skins and boys who lacked confidence about themselves because of how they thought they looked. But we often went the entire class shirtless skins just because the PE teacher could do so.

When I was 15 we got another new PE teacher and I couldn't believe it when he started the thin shaming nonsense too with some of us. I think I must have been about 8 to 8 and a half stone at that age for average normal height. But at least PE was nearly through by then.

But was it any wonder that some boys lacked confidence when PE teachers zone in on the things about yourself that you are touchy about and pinch, pick and prod you whilst making inane comments. The PE teachers weren't that stupid, they knew full well we all come in different shapes and sizes and that they were never going to take boys like me and turn us into something looking like Rambo.

I may have been thin but I wasn't unhealthy and I didn't think unfit either.

I'm not as thin as I was forty five years ago in comprehensive school but the PE legacy of what teachers said to me about how I looked and making us do so much gym with a bare chest did leave a quite lasting impact afterwards.

I didn't mind being shirtless on my own terms at home, with friends, on holidays but something about the forced nature of being made to be a skinny bare chest in school when I didn't like to be felt quite different and uncomfortable. Adults making you go compulsory shirtless in school PE does feel very different to doing so in other situations.

Did anyone else find themselves thin shamed?

Why would anybody be outside playing football and getting told to wear nothing under their shorts exactly?

There is no rational or decent reason.

William, Paul
Although I spent two or three years at my first secondary doing PE barechested, and the two or years prior to that wearing vests (generally of the underwear variety), I cannot remember any ocasion when we actually needed to resort to shirts v. skins. Much of our PE activity under both dress codes was of the individual exercise variety, floor, box/horse, beam or rope work, while the remainder comprised team relay activities, often with medicine balls, where no individual identification was needed.. On the rare occasions when we had "mingled team activities, basketball, rounders etc., we had coloured sashes to distinguish us.

At my second secondary school, during my sixth form years, vests were de rigeur (by edict of the headmaster, despite a persistently fruitless campign by some of us to at least make them optional). Sashes were used when requird, which, again. was not very often.

Comment by: Paul on 15th February 2023 at 00:20
When was this whole "skins against shirts" thing invented in schools in the first place, does anyone actually know how far back it goes to it's origins? Does it long pre-date those of us at school back in the 70s and 80s who found ourselves on the skinny side every time?

This gives quite a good insight - the title possibly says it all. Definitely stresses the benefits of exposure to sunlight etc.

"Preparing the Boys for War - Compulsion or Coercion? Physical Education and Training, 1919-1939"
Gordon S Marino
History of Education Researches No. 92, Nov. 2013

Online at:
https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/api/datastream?publicationPid=uk-ac-man-scw:213161&datastreamId=POST-PEER-REVIEW-PUBLISHERS.PDF

William:
It was exactly the same for us except that outside was a football or tee shirt which was not part of the school uniform, but whatever parents supplied, and of course nothing worn under our shorts.

Paul, At my grammar school for boys in the 1960s shirts v skins did not exist. As in the photo we never wore vests in the gym, whereas we always wore vests outside. I was skinny and may have been self-conscious at first but soon relaxed. We were all treated the same and soon got used to seeing each other. No-one complained.

Good question, I bet nobody has asked that one before.

When was this whole "skins against shirts" thing invented in schools in the first place, does anyone actually know how far back it goes to it's origins? Does it long pre-date those of us at school back in the 70s and 80s who found ourselves on the skinny side every time?

Nick - So you never even had skins versus shirts at school - in the early 80s, blimey that's a miracle!

Years 1972-84.

I did barechested PE an awful lot from the ages of 5 until 12, especially at my primary school from the ages of 8 to 12 when everyone in the same class, boys and girls, did PE in the school hall. PE for boys in that scenario was always to be barechested on the hall floor. It was something you grew used to very quickly and growing up always doing it meant many of us already seemed comfortable in our bodies, showing them amongst others and even with girls around us at that age. But where my own experience deviates from many others on here is that when I went up to secondary school at the age of 12 I never did another PE lesson regularly without a top again, infact I can hardly remember doing so at all, if any, even inside the school gymnasium where we always wore a navy vest. So that seems quite unusual and in reverse to many other people on here where school after age 12 was where all these things began. Showers were obviously compulsory at secondary so that much was the same but it wasn't new to me because we already had a small shower room for boys at primary which we used on a regular basis anyway, sometimes with a female teacher who would make a point of standing with her back to us near the door until we were decent which was somewhat amusing.

You've been abused by a PE teacher haven't you Alan, that's why you have such strength of opinion on these pages.

Mike on 12th February 2023 at 17:41

I don't want to be unduly controversial, but it seems clear that some men who took up the role of PE teachers were, or had, homosexual tendencies, just as teachers in other disciplines did, and until the 1970s when society's views changed they would have to be very discreet (it was illegal until 1967 anyway). With the permissive society, people were encouraged to "come out" and nowadays, when you have an alleged entertainer donning make up, womens schmutter and even fake breasts to try to become an MP -and his party CONDONES it - despite the protests of real women in that party, then clearly anything goes.

Of course the more discreet or crafty teacher manages to instill fear into the pupils he is "interested" in - how many times a schoolmate of mine told me that if he said anything "they will believe me - not you" - he had even threatened to say that the lad made advances to him.

In the recent case of Quinlan, and the two teachers (one of whom remains unnamed) who are fighting extradition from South Africa on the grounds that they are now in their 80s and it is "all in the past" - what a pathetic excuse, for the misery they inflicted on young boys forty or fifty years ago, who are still bothered by the treatment they received. I am sure in most cases these men got away with it, simply because their colleagues either knew about their proclivities or strongly suspected it, and chose to say nothing thus condoning what was a very serious crime. Perhaps the PE teacher threatened other staff just as they did pupils. Most of the men guilty of these offences were not "obvious", because society through the media tended to think of homosexuals as mincing harmless men (think Larry Grayson or "Mr. Humphries" who were around in my day) - they forgot that they come in all sorts and conditions. For the body building sporty gay man, such a job was like encouraging an alcoholic to work in a brewery.The onus was on them not to take a job where they knew they would be tempted - I have no sympathy for them and certainly Quinlan should have been imprisoned - I am sure if he had worked in a supermarket or been a dustman he would have been , it is just another case of the law taking a sympathetic view of "professionals"

Oh my, this is weird. I think there are only two types of men and boys, those who are happy to take their shirts off, and those who are not. Come down to our allotments on a hot summers day and you will see who is which.

The story placed on here by Derek is sadly far too familiar isn't it. What I find disturbing about so many of these convictions is how many of the men behaved like they did in plain sight and fairly openly. Did many of these people really think none of their boys in school would go home and say a few things to their families, or was it the arrogance of thinking these children would not be believed over a pillar of the community teacher as we once thought of these people. I don't know the answer to that.

Did PE teachers suddenly become far worse during the 1970's and 80's or something, or is it that the one's in decades previously have simply got away with some of their behaviour in ways that latter years they have not because of greater awareness from current 40/50/60 years olds.

Re: Derek on 11th February 2023 at 02:30


This sort of case doesn't surprise me in the least. It is amazing that, not that many years ago, this man's behaviour was known about, probably gossiped and sniggered about by both fellow staff members as well as pupils, it must have reached the ears of the headmaster, but they chose to ignore it, and, when he finally gets caught, he avoids prison, because he is now old and retired (and probably gets his jollies on the internet). Had that been females he had been abusing I have little doubt that he would now be looking at a nice long stretch at His Majesties pleasure, but with politicians of all parties making excuses and even condoning personal perversions and practices (this pathetic individual even admits he got sexual pleasure from "looking" at naked boys - and I suspect more than just looking), things will probably get worse.

I also agree with you about the "Stockholm syndrome" of a lot of the men who have contributed to this site - yes our old teacher used to hit us, demean us, picked on certain pupils, but it was all just good clean fun - but was it?. Just because these men outside school went to church on Sundays, did the football pools and grew Lobelia in their front gardens, does not excuse their behaviour in their jobs. It wouldn't be tolerated (when discovered) by the medical profession or the police force, so why should it be excused in pederists working in the teaching profession? - and why were they not weeded out and dealt with by the courts when it was first discovered?. Boys were too naive and parents too accepting of questionable behaviour. I do agree that perhaps the pendulum has now swung too far in the opposite direction (the mother complaining that her daughter was not allowed to keep her coat on, a man complaining in a gym because another adult had chosen to remove his top), but basic minimum standards should have always been taken as lines not to be crossed.

I was a senior age grammar schoolboy in the 1950's and so you can imagine how old I now am. The memories remain clear however. I was highly academic and quite successful in my life, but at school in the fifties if you did not show good all round fitness you were treated as if you were a failure, irrespective of your academic record. I was not a natural sporting youth. You had to be both intelligent and motivated to do sports well to be considered an achiever. Of course this was ultimately completely false but put a train of thought into many young minds that was far from the positive attitude they claimed to be about.

My academic education was top class but my physical education was gruelling and very demanding with elements of outright cruelty institutionally build in. Under achievers would receive ice cold showers which were also used as a general punishment aid for non PE troublemakers often under direct watch by the Headmaster himself. Beatings with a leather belt were commonplace, including during PE.