Burnley Grammar School

Bernard and Stewart.

Some of the methods on here really appeal to me and I wish I'd had the opportunity to do them. I don't know why but barefoot running such as you describe appeals to me in some way, the ability to feel the ground like that and the sensation of getting my feet as mucky as possible, the enjoyment from maybe having to traipse through ankle deep thick mud covering my feet and splashing up the legs.

I think doing this you would discover a new relationship with the earth beneath your feet that most never discover because we constantly protect ourselves from daring to touch the ground.

For the same reason I wish I'd had the chance to run the cross country at my school without my shirt on, to feel the wind across my bare chest, be among all those other boys just the same. Once again it appeals to me as a means to connect with what the environment is like all around as we go through it. I would jump at a chance to join in with something like Craig's group like a shot, and I'm the other side of forty now.

I feel I missed out on something that was well worth having a go at.

One thing I did do as a youngster in the 1990s, and I am 44 now, was bathe in the local ponds near me and do some swimming in them with a collection of mates. On hot days we'd meet up together, strip off and jump in and spend an hour or so just dossing about in the water with each other. Just now and again we might get brave enough to even take our pants off while doing it. I did something similar with my mates at a weir back in 1995 despite a nearby no swimming sign. The water wasn't deep but the weir gave a great mini waterfall effect that was fun to hang around under and very cold even on a hot day. Unfortunately we all got caught one day by a passing ranger who must have been tipped off about us and hadn't heard coming because of the sound of the water. Our clothes were laying nearby and he picked them up and bawled us out at the top of his voice to get out. There were about twelve of us, we'd been having great fun and making such a racket. Half of us weren't wearing a stitch. It was so embarrassing to get caught like that. We didn't think we were doing anything wrong, it was a scorching hot day and we were cooling off and having fun, hurting nobody. The ponds and the weir were my wild swimming days, in the literal sense of the word.

My actual secondary school didn't seem to go very much for bare chests during PE. There was just the occasional skins against shirts in basketball or softball that boys would do with each other. It was uncommon enough to have novelty value when we did it. I think the teacher would divide the class and make the decision. We always wore trainers.

The only time we were barefoot and bare chested in PE was while changing and taking the compulsory showers with each other. Quite a lot of boys seemed to have problems with going in the showers at school, you could tell which ones. I never had this problem and found them to be perfectly acceptable and embraced them easily and didn't mind sharing like that. I had nothing to be ashamed of or to hide and wonder why so many boys feel they do. Wasn't there a certain satisfaction being able to check out exactly what all your classmates looked like and being surprised in one or two cases, and wondering what they might be thinking of what you packed, you know it's true gentlemen even if you won't admit it.

Stewart - As I've mantioned on this site before I had exactly the same p.e. kit as you - shorts only for all p.e. including cross country. I was at grammar school at around the same time as you.
Our cross country route started on a rough track to get us to the rear gate of the school grounds - that track had many stones and was probably the worst part of the route for our feet. We then went along a short section of residential road and across a main road to get to the open parkland. Here we ran on grass and a variety of paths before crossing the road again and returning via a much longer length of residential road to get to the school's front gate.
A few boys struggled with the track for the first couple of runs but we all got used to it quite quickly though it seemed a little odd to start with. However, by November there had been some heavy rain and some of the paths we ran on became extremely muddy. If we had worn plimsolls they would, no doubt, have come off our feet and stayed in the mud. It became very clear why we were sent out to run barefoot. Nothing sinister, nothing sadistic - just common sense.

Alan said;

"Who can fathom the minds of the automatons that were churned out of the teacher training colleges, that taught P.E, "men" who seemed to think they were going to teach in a borstal, and treated each lad as if he were in such an institution. I daresay the "macho man" image was an added lesson amongst all the sweat and whistles, and pretend and spurious "child psychology" cobblers. I have always suspected PE teachers were the bottom of barrel - resentful because they were not bright enough to teach academic subjects, they were aware of the fact, that they were, essentially, the rejects of the profession, and just spent their careers with their brains in their jockstrap."




Good Lord I think this is a horrible thing to say. You seem to be basing your whole attitude on your own dealings with ONE man.

Replying to your post of Matthew K on 25th February this year about your trip to the Commonwealth Institute in 1976 when you had juice thrown on you and the teacher took your clothing from you.


Matthew I have just read your own story here and boy does that sound familiar stuff. I have got something so so similar to you. My class went on a school day trip to Whipsnade Zoo and Woburn Abbey back in July 1976, almost at the same time as you. Yes it was a very hot time that's for sure. I was aged ten at the time. Just like you, it was a Miss who did it. I wasn't feeling too great from early morning and there was a lot of walking around. I began to complain about the heat making me uncomfortable. A little group of us kept complaining and Miss Bennett just told us there was an easy solution to our moaning and obviously hot and bothered herself she made me and the other heat moaners remove our T-shirts for the rest of the trip. I recall how she clipped her fingers at us to do it. In this case there was myself and possibly three others she did that to and we were not allowed to have our T-shirts back and told that better make us stop moaning about the heat. Miss collected the tops and stuffed them in a carrier bag away from us. So I can lay claim to walking around Whipsnade Zoo on a school trip having been stripped to the waist as a ten year old, with some others. We got the tops back when the bus arrived back at school and were reported to the headmistress for misbehaviour on the trip because of it, can you believe that.

Comment by: Stephen on 14th May 2024 at 15:35


....."The trouble with truanting is it looks horrendous on your school record and I liked my almost clean sheet of attendance most terms. Obviously I didn't have the PE issues you dealt with though.
.
Just one final point. Were you actually scared of your PE teachers?"

Thanks Stephen - Perhaps I was a bit short with Sean, but it is just that when anybody finds something funny, about a miserable disgusting situation, even forty years later, it is still like a red rag to a bull.

To answer the final question first - yes the first two years I was terrified of him (there was only one unfortunately) - but so was everybody. I suspect that was his way of (for want a better word) grooming us to obey and keep our mouths shut. It was only when we were older, and we talked with older lads who had been there a few years,and knew the score about his modus operandi (and heard a few examples, one of which I know for certain was true) that fear turned to hatred (I hate to admit that) and sheer contempt,. I despised him, and so did many others. I still do.

To answer the other question - to be frank, I didn';t even think about school reports in relation to jobs. I never aspired to be a cashier in a bank, join the army or work for Fords (the latter two was our schools favourite career advice). In the arrogance of youth I wanted to be a full time professional musician (I didn't realise that good trumpet players were ten a penny and that brilliant ones were not that rare). I was in the ten a penny bracket. I just got jobs and I can honestly say, I never in the years I worked for others pull a sickie or take unauthorised time off, because my employers treated me fairly and courteously, with mutual respect on both sides. If a job bored me, I did the decent thing and left., giving full notice That didn't happen often. I continued to play music till my mid 20s and realising I was never going to be great gave it up. Having given up smoking and drinking, I found it easy to give myself up too.

It did teach me one thing though, and that is the working man (or woman) shouldn't be judged by their school record, because there are often circumstances that make school a trial for some people, but they make very good reliable workers, away from the shouting, posing and bullying.

As regards your point about "wild swimming", it can have very grave consequences for the respiratory system (e.g. swimming-induced pulmonary oedema and bacterial and kidney infection, not to mention ingesting sewage). I got that from a recent Radio 4 programme. Still, I suppose what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Teachers who ordered barefeet in the streets had to be sadists.

Before I forget about this I thought I would come back on here and post this new comment, what I saw earlier today instantly reminded me of this chat on here.

At about 1.15pm this afternoon I was ambling along a quiet footpath not so far from home when I had three middle aged men without shirts stride into view in the opposite to me, garish pink, yellow and red trainers and shorts on. One began slowing to a stop as he approached me so I took my chance and grabbed a quick word and the other two stopped and we had a brief chat. I asked if they were all natural extroverts and they said no. They said that today was the perfect day for running bare chested even though it was cloudy and much cooler than much of the past week. One of the three said he's taken a lot of persuading from the other two but once he did it he hasn't looked back and they've been doing it for 3 years. I said I'd never seen them before and he said they'd run from 6 miles away and didn't usually come my way. None had ever run like this in school but they all had extensive experience of general PE without shirts and the one who had needed persuading by the other two mentioned never being at all keen on it. Now look at you I said.

That aside, I don't think I'm imagining it but I'm sure I am seeing a lot more much older men exercising publicly such as running nowadays. You see some younger women but almost no older women running to keep in shape out and about. I wonder why?

Stewart.

Fields and woodland sounds nice and soft underfoot but woodland can be quite rough I would suggest. How did you find it doing that at first and did it take you long to adjust? There are plenty of sharp natural things on the ground in the best of places after all. It does seem a strange thing to practice as a matter of routine PE mandate to me across an entire class. Surely when you first got told to do this a few of you looked aghast at the prospect, I would have done I think. Not to mention when you got back it meant you would have had to spend disproportionate time scrubbing your feet clean in the shower to rid the dirt. It's a safe bet to say your cross country teachers had their running shoes on didn't they, of course they did!

There's a lot of this getting back to nature stuff going on nowadays, we have wild swimming in rivers and lakes instead of swimming pools, bareskin running with the likes of Craig and others all over the place and there are easily findable examples of barefoot running going on too, which some people seem to refer to as 'grounding' and suggest it has big health benefits for anything from blood pressure to calming and mental wellbeing. All these things are being suggested as good for us, and much of it happens in less than favourable conditions.

It's enough to make you think that all those PE teachers who threw us outside in bare chests or with nothing on our feet were infact thinking first and foremost about our state of mind as well as physical welfare - no, I don't believe that either.

I can only ask you Stewart, do you regard it as a positive experience in any way?


Alan.

I don't doubt you for a moment I'd like to say that. I didn't see anything in what Sean wrote that suggested he doubted your own account either. I think many of us can well and truly believe it, I don't think you can fake such raw passion in the way you recount your time in school PE class. I remember back in the 70's many people making efforts to get let off various types of PE lesson, often when it was bad weather outside and they didn't fancy football in heaving rain and wind for example, which we still had to go out and do no matter what it was like outside. I think some of these people I remember who pleaded desperately with various teachers should have just taken a leaf out of your book and never turned up in the first place!

The trouble with truanting is it looks horrendous on your school record and I liked my almost clean sheet of attendance most terms. Obviously I didn't have the PE issues you dealt with though.

Just one final point. Were you actually scared of your PE teachers?

Morning Paul G.
It was the school rule that all PE, both indoors and outdoors was done barefoot. This practice was quite common amongst schools at the time, and we just accepted it. Don’t forget this was the late 1960s and early 70s.
The cross country route was across school fields and neighbouring woodland.

Comment by: Sean on 13th May 2024 at 22:06





"This comment of yours, you certainly threw a curve ball with that. So you were prepared to go running barechested school PE cross country in the wet weather rather than the better weather just because of fewer people likely to be out seeing you, and were most likely to truant a sunny day's run rather than a rainy day's. I can't help but chuckle a bit at that Alan. So he sent you out bare chested running in the rain then, as well as through the suburban shops. Fascinating take you have there I must say."

I am not sure that I like the idea that my post made you "chuckle", Sean. Believe me there is nothing to "chuckle" about when you are a teenager having to endure a teacher who regarded all lads as a piece of meat to play about with, looking at them, demeaning them, and frankly abusing his position to do so.

I went on very few of those runs I didn't enjoy them, and I don't think many people did, but I did it a few times the rest of the time, as I said, I either invented dental appointments (you only had to tell Mrs. Fennemore, the school secretary , and in hindsight, I suspect she knew why I, and others, were doing it), it got more dangerous when that excuse didn't wash any longer. I would also remind you that it could be damned cold even in spring and summer sometimes, so if you are implying I was enjoying myself you are wrong yet again. I suspect you don't believe me, and that is your privilege but when you are in a school which has at least two weirdos on staff (one a sexual pervert and the other a "discipline" fetishist), there is very little to laugh at, and that "chuckle" of yours would soon be dispelled.

I am surprised that you are surprised that he made us run in wet weather. It does rain quite a lot in London, Sean, and he wasn't bothered, tucked up in his Fiesta - he didn't get wet..


Comment by: Paul G on 13th May 2024 at 22:38
Comment by: Stewart on 12th May 2024 at 22:37


....."Whilst I can quite easily understand bare chest for cross country running that took place with some here in various circumstances in their schooldays I find it less easy to understand the reasoning for barefoot cross country running......."

To be fair to our old perv, he wasn't a foot fetishist (as far as I know) and we were not expected to be bare foot on the pavements but I know from what I have read on here it was a thing. I doubt it would be allowed today with health and safety rules, and the amount of broken glass, chewing gum and dog crap to be found, certainly on London streets, and I expect elsewhere.

Why did they do it? - that five letter word again - power. They did it because they could and could get away with it. It seems a dangerous and completely unnecessary practice and I can think of no defence for it at all. I wonder how many accidents and injuries were covered up?.

Who can fathom the minds of the automatons that were churned out of the teacher training colleges, that taught P.E, "men" who seemed to think they were going to teach in a borstal, and treated each lad as if he were in such an institution. I daresay the "macho man" image was an added lesson amongst all the sweat and whistles, and pretend and spurious "child psychology" cobblers. I have always suspected PE teachers were the bottom of barrel - resentful because they were not bright enough to teach academic subjects, they were aware of the fact, that they were, essentially, the rejects of the profession, and just spent their careers with their brains in their jockstrap.
.

At my middle school going 1971 to 1974 the boys did the "gym" PE lesson in both our bare feet and our bare chest. We took this lesson alongside the same girls from our class. The class was nearly always taken by just our form teacher, for two years it was a woman and one year a man. It made no difference who took us, we always looked much the same.

I actually think if you are going to do gymwork while shirtless then it suits to be barefoot at the same time and not wear plimsolls or socks. The two things complement each other, that's why I think the photo of Burnley Grammar looks a bit of an oddity from my own personal standpoint at school. I'm surprised any school would go for shoes and socks in the gym if they didn't want the tops.

When I first went up to comprehensive the PE was done in t-shirts and I actually felt over dressed and somewhat surprised because I always associated being an older boy at the bigger school in PE meant surefire shirtless PE all round. It wasn't like that for months and then a new teacher came in and overnight we started doing shirtless PE lessons frequently. I was not displeased at all with this actually.

Another slightly topsy turvy aspect to my primary/comprehensive life of PE revolved around the notorious mandate to shower, an ever popular PE demand on pupils. At primary school the shower was put on and we were made to use it every time from the very first lesson I ever had in September 1971 until the very last one in July 1974. But comprehensive school was actually less stringent in this area and by the time a couple of years had passed by and I'd hit about 14 they just allowed us to decide for ourselves. Many boys still chose to shower but a lot didn't. Sometimes I didn't, sometimes you realistically had no choice due to excessive sweat and dirt that just had to be got rid of.

At my primary school when we had a sports day possibly about 1972 we were shirtless for that. I remembetr there was a dragon of a teacher on the main gate who had this really severe pulled back hair into an unfashionable bun who caught me and half a dozen youn lads at the end of the school day coming straight from the sports day as we were and attempting to leave and go home, all carrying most of our clothes in our bags and all very much shirtless. She was having none of it and stopped us, telling us we were not leaving school like that and to put our bags down, and find something to put on, which we did on the spot there and then with no arguing about it.

So many men tell of teachers making them remove their shirts, am i the first to report a teacher making us put them on I wonder!

My skins or shirts option would always to be a skin if I could.

Comment by: Stewart on 12th May 2024 at 22:37

Whilst I can quite easily understand bare chest for cross country running that took place with some here in various circumstances in their schooldays I find it less easy to understand the reasoning for barefoot cross country running, unless you were running around for 3 miles in circles around the gym floor.

What was the thinking for this exactly and when was it. What kind of ground were you running along here, just some soft grass or something similar?

Was it something boys readily accepted then? Running the cross country is hardly the same as doing PE in the school gym after all.

A lot of people talk on here about their bare chest shyness or anxiety from school if they had to do it that way but I remember one or two barefoot worriers too, one of my friends hated doing PE in his bare feet for some reason and I thought his feet looked pretty decent compared to some. I also knew a girl who told me she hated her feet, they were big and bony I think, or something like that.

It's funny, so often boys (and girls) worry about parts of their body, their chests or feet or whatever else and don't want to show these things off when they actually look perfectly nice and possibly better than most.

I also went to school with a chap who was very handsome but could never accept how nice he looked and was always looking for reassurance.

The wrong PE teacher saying the wrong thing in a throwaway line can crash someone's self esteem if they are already brittle when it comes to their self perception.

Alan, 13th May 2024.
It would be easier to say how many I took part in, and the answer was not many - only on rainy days when there were fewer people about. I could face them the rest of the time.



This comment of yours, you certainly threw a curve ball with that. So you were prepared to go running barechested school PE cross country in the wet weather rather than the better weather just because of fewer people likely to be out seeing you, and were most likely to truant a sunny day's run rather than a rainy day's. I can't help but chuckle a bit at that Alan. So he sent you out bare chested running in the rain then, as well as through the suburban shops. Fascinating take you have there I must say.

Comment by: Tony on 13th May 2024 at 14:31



Yes it was late to start. I suspect that the headmaster did not approve of the idea of the runs in the high street, which was why he would not allow them to take place in the autumn and winter months - he wasn't a bad old chap, but age and illness had led him to delegate many matters, but he was prepared to make exceptions if he had strong feelings on a subject (I remember he also refused to allow an English teachers class to see a schools TV programme - God knows what it was called - I don't remember what it was called, except it was a drama series about social problems, I don't know why, and it is too late to discover why now as he has been gone many years.

The shirtless runs only began when I was 13, so yes, I had a year to decide what I did (you'd be surprised the number of "dental appointments" I had on Wednesdays), when that stopped being feasible I just used to stay for registration and then bunk off. I'd just ride the buses till it was time to get home. It would be easier to say how many I took part in, and the answer was not many - only on rainy days when there were fewer people about. I could face them the rest of the time.

As I have said many times virtually all the boys were suspicious of Robert's proclivities and the older we got the more obvious we found therm. Some of the other lads also dropped out like I did and didn't attend. You might be right that he had the "legal" right to institute such . a grotesque lesson in public, but it begs the question, what "rights" does a homosexual paedophile have morally, when - had his behaviour become known to the police he would have lost his liberty (hopefully).

So you had plenty of time to mentally prepare for that then if it started later on. That seems quite unusual in itself to me. Normally schools start as they mean to go on don't they. Obviously you didn't truant every single time, how many such cross country's do you think you skipped off, and were you the only one who acted like this or did you notice other truants avoiding doing the shirtless cross country season quite regularly?

The thing about teachers such as the one you describe here is that he was actually doing nothing wrong at all was he, he was perfectly allowed to tell you to remove your shirts in his lesson at that time, even outdoors on the school cross country in full public view, do you acknowledge that basic fact even if you don't agree with it? Clearly you can get feelings and hunches about motive and may well be right, but so much of this type of thing was considered absolutely legit. It's the kind of thing pupils in school would be talking about isn't it, did your lot behind his back?

Noticed an important typo on my post last night. The last line should say “shorts” not “shirts.”
The whole thing should read:
I’ve commented on this site a couple of years ago, but I’ll say it again now, as the debate’s picked up again.
At my Grammar school in the 1960s and 70s we not only had to be bare chested for PE and cross country, but we had to be barefoot, too.
Shirts and plimsolls were not allowed. All we could wear were shorts.

Comment by: Tony on 12th May 2024 at 22:32


Our twisted teacher didn't even start it till you were 14. Tony (he was more interested in older lads - he didn't even take much interest in your showers when you were 11/12). As I said I used to play truant during the shirtless running season - persistently, I might add. Sure, I got into trouble for it, but that was less degrading because at least the public couldn't see the punishment or gawp at it. Just imagine if there had been a "Barney" (remember him?) taking notes in the high street. I frankly didn't see why any of us should give our teacher or any other paedos a cheap thrill.

Why did no PE teachers that taught PE to bare chested classes infact do the teaching bare chested themselves?

I never saw a PE teacher without a shirt on in my secondary school from the age of 11 until I was 18. But from the age of 11 to 16 all boys took gym lessons bare chested in my school.

Or did some teachers actually do so? Is there anyone on here who can say they had a PE teacher who took their own PE lesson bare chested, if not regularly, at least a few times, any at all?

If not, why not? Any PE teacher like to come on here and state why they could not, or would not remove their own tops and go bare chested like they told their boys such as me to do.

At least we were allowed to keep vests on to run the school cross country! I think that would have been a step too far otherwise. I was at secondary school from 1975 until 1982.

I’ve commented on this site a couple of years ago, but I’ll say it again now, as the debate’s picked up again.
At my Grammar school in the 1960s and 70s we not only had to be bare chested for PE and cross country, but we had to be barefoot, too.
Shirts and plimsolls were not allowed. All we could wear were shirts.

I'm just trying to imagine the look that must have been on your face Alan as you ran past Boots down town with your skinny white shirtless body on display and the looks back that you must have got from all those old dears coming out with their prescriptions and clocking you. It's a bit unfair to do that to you all. Was there any choice or none when older?

Comment by: Sean on 11th May 2024 at 17:23



Yes Sean - but only the older lads - the runs started when you got to 14 - younger lads didn't experience them. As I have said before, not only was he as bent as a nine bob note, he was quite sadistic as well, because it would have been just as easy to have used side roads (had such runs in that state of undress been really necessary, which, of course, they wasn't). He just enjoyed the humiliation and discomfort he caused. He would accompany us in his red Ford Fiesta, sometimes shouting out at anyone he thought was straggling. To give him credit, the headmaster would not allow these ridiculous runs between November and April, so I very frequently bunked off between May and October.



Comment by: Trina Moore on 10th May 2024 at 16:41




......"I should think overweight boys who were made to do PE without tops would see it as a big incentive to get properly into shape. Many of the boys in school were actually rather good looking and when we got to see them in the school gym sometimes without their tops on there were a couple of them that seemed to attract the attention of a lot of the girls. I won't lie here and I know it seems a sensitive subject but honesty is the best policy - I did enjoy looking at boys (you especially Owen Sweet!) in those school days and having the opportunity to look at so many at once without tops on. I think a lot of them looked nicer without tops than wearing the rather ugly school tee-shirts with diagonal stripes from the school supplier."


What can I say, Ms. Moore, except, for once I am glad I went to a single sex school if girls like yourself, regarded mixed P.E.lessons as a sort of dating agency or peep show.

We have few women on this site, but I wonder how you - and they - would feel if a male said what you have written about girls?. No doubt the cries of sexism would reach a crescendo.

While I admire your honesty, this post demonstrates yet again the double standards in state education. I hope the likes of Nathan Hind reads your post. I wonder if he would encourage your juvenile fantasies, or if he would do the decent thing, and allow boys to have the same degree of modesty and consideration shown to females. Over to you, Nathan.....

Trina, yours is one of the few insightful comments that specifies precisely what girls said to boys when they were shirtless in school.

Another recent comment described an incident wherein a girl told a boy his "nipples look weird." Was anything similar said to the boys in your school?

If not, could you elaborate if the girls teased the shirtless boys in any other ways?

Comment by: Alan on 11th May 2024 at 04:28
Yes - our sadistic bar steward often did on Wednesday afternoons, in a fairly busy high street, passing Boots, W.H. Smith and such to the local park. That explains why you would often find me playing truant on Wednesday afternoons. I might add I wasn't the only one.




Your PE teacher sent you and your group down past the shops like that on your cross country run with bare chests Alan? That sounds like quite a busy area with all those big names. Was there an alternative better route then?

We ran cross country in some nice areas fortunately. I wouldn't have fancied going down the shops to do it, either in a shirt or not, just based on poor location for doing so on hard pavements rather than soft ground.

Comment by: Neil on 10th May 2024 at 13:2



......"Has anyone here actually run through the middle of their main town or city area while shirtless on the cross country? I know we had the recent one in Dunstable but that wasn't actually someone who writes here that did it."

Yes - our sadistic bar steward often did on Wednesday afternoons, in a fairly busy high street, passing Boots, W.H. Smith and such to the local park. That explains why you would often find me playing truant on Wednesday afternoons. I might add I wasn't the only one.

I'm not sure why there's so much fuss about what seem quite reasonable rules for boys' PE. If the school policy is that boys wear white shorts and no top, that's up to them and you can either abide by the rules or send your son to a different school.
Yes, I'm sure many teenage boys are reluctant to bare their chests, whether it's because they're pale-skinned, lacking in muscle or overweight for that matter. But another way of looking at it is that there's less incentive for a boy to work harder at keeping his body in shape when he can just hide under a T shirt or vest.
In a situation where it's compulsory for every boy to take off his top, surely that can encourage them to put in more effort at building up biceps or a six-pack, or losing weight - and long-term that must boost both their fitness and self-confidence.
In any case, presumably the school also requires boys to be bare chested in swimming lessons, so why should it be so different when they're running around in the gym?
Just like it's good to get out in the fresh air, it's also good for boys to bare their chests once and the school gym is the best place to start and it shouldn't need a conference to discuss it.

I've stumbled across this section this afternoon and been drawn into reading back ever more comments and feel I must now apologise to a boy I was in school with when we were thirteen years old in 1981. James Melly, or 'Melly Belly' as we used to call him on account of his sizable tummy that wobbled about in PE when he had to do it without his top to cover him up. We used to make a lot of fun at his expense and I dread to think what he must be thinking now if some of these comments on here are anything to go by. Sorry James if you read this, remember me Trina Moore if you see this. I haven't set eyes on him since leaving school in the 80s but stranger things have happened.

I should think overweight boys who were made to do PE without tops would see it as a big incentive to get properly into shape. Many of the boys in school were actually rather good looking and when we got to see them in the school gym sometimes without their tops on there were a couple of them that seemed to attract the attention of a lot of the girls. I won't lie here and I know it seems a sensitive subject but honesty is the best policy - I did enjoy looking at boys (you especially Owen Sweet!) in those school days and having the opportunity to look at so many at once without tops on. I think a lot of them looked nicer without tops than wearing the rather ugly school tee-shirts with diagonal stripes from the school supplier.

Comment by Dave Gander on 10th May 2024.

"Shirtless is fine by me in normal PE situations and I think teachers are fully entitled to demand it without pushback in those normal circumstances and in mostly all male surroundings but when it starts to stray into other things and around other people I do think we as young males were entitled to feel less enthusiastic about it. I don't mind removing my top in certain situations and exposing my upper body but within reason."




The general post was quite thoughtful and different I thought and this part is worth highlighting out of it. Because so many times people come on here and treat the issues as just black and white, either you like it or you don't without the nuances in between which you've set out.

I agree, it's okay to be bare chested in the school gym, which I did loads, but if my PE teacher had suddenly turned around and told us we were going running down the middle of our busy high street that would have been a different matter altogether. He didn't by the way. It mkaes me wonder how I would have actually reacted to that if it had happpened to me, because I didn't think too much about gym bare chests. I could probably have managed a school sports day alright I suppose with my mum watching me, but that never happened either. On reflection thinking back to those videos from a few weeks ago of such days in the school calendar I think it's best to leave it to the individual on such occasions. I may well have gone skins by choice anyway but others obviously found it less enjoyable even if they didn't mind shirtless in the gym.

Has anyone here actually run through the middle of their main town or city area while shirtless on the cross country? I know we had the recent one in Dunstable but that wasn't actually someone who writes here that did it.

Does anyone remember a selection process for any of the school teams?

I think it was around this time of the year as the weather was quite warm and the school’s winter teams’ sports were changing over to athletics in preparation for the end of year school annual event. But also at that time trials took place for my second year’s football team in readiness for the next school year and the start of the season.

I only joined this school towards the end of the second term of the starting year, so I hadn’t been there long, but an unusual games lesson had been scheduled in that would bring all the boys together in that year. Our two gym/games teachers were involved plus a couple of others who usually taught different subjects as there were so many of us. Our usual maths teacher was the school football team coach for some reason.

We were all divided into several groups. I was crazy about football around the age of 12 and had been captain of my previous junior school team. With the intake of secondary school bringing several junior schools together, I discovered that some of the boys from other junior schools remembered me, so I found myself placed in the team called, ‘Probables’ who played a team called, ‘Possibles’. We were given red or blue bibs to wear over our different coloured kits.

I do remember some of the other groups of kids removing their shirts for their team games, so that was an unusual moment I remember in my school where we did have a skins team. I wonder how those boys felt when this was sprung on them unexpectedly, as I don’t remember it ever happening before in my school as we always had coloured bibs to differentiate teams. On that occasion all the bibs must have been in use.

Just as an antidote to all the recent bare chested running: last evening, just before 6 p.m. As you will know, if you live in London, it was a very warm day, and it remained warm in the evening. Near the Royal Mail sorting office there is the "Five Star Boxing Club" and a group of lads, aged between 11/12 and 16/17 (at a rough guess) were doing their exercises, including running, out of doors on the green beside their club. Every one of them wore shorts and yellow and white polo shirts. They all seemed committed and serious about their activities.

I suppose all that tells you is that their trainers are not P.E. teachers!

'PE and country dancing lessons were always mixed but we were only allowed to wear one item of clothing, thin cotton shorts for the boys' - Martin on 6th May 2024.


How I hated doing country dancing at middle school. Our class of boys did middle school PE by themselves while the girls went their separate ways with one of the ladies, leaving us with one of the male teachers. He made the boys strip to shorts and no more for PE lessons, which hardly raised an issue and quite rightly so.

But when we had to do country dancing this took place with our entire class as one, the boys with the girls and was taken by a female teacher who I almost thought of as elderly at the time but probably wasn't much past 40 in truth. She got all the boys in country dancing to do this without any shirts on too and that just didn't feel right to me, and what was worse was the only reason it happened was down to a stupid boy answering her question about how our boys PE teacher took us in PE with him and one over enthusiastic boy in our class piped up we didn't wear shirts and she thought it was a good idea then.

Shirtless is fine by me in normal PE situations and I think teachers are fully entitled to demand it without pushback in those normal circumstances and in mostly all male surroundings but when it starts to stray into other things and around other people I do think we as young males were entitled to feel less enthusiastic about it. I don't mind removing my top in certain situations and exposing my upper body but within reason.

I think if you are completely clammed up about showing your upper body as a male at any time at all, either as a boy in school or later on in adulthood then that's irrational and you should challenge yourself about that.

Comment by: Marcus on 7th May 2024 at 22:33
I was really only meaning my reaction to some of the fuss made on here about being shirtless. They were opinions I hadn’t really encountered before, even though I was a little bodily shy during most of my school years, which I managed to conceal. By the time I’d reached my 20s, I’d more or less sorted myself out in that regard, becoming more confident, but, had I realised some would feel really self-conscious to run in public that way, while others might interpret it as showing off, both those extremes might have been enough to put me off. I did choose to run along quieter areas, but also received the usual remarks from teenage girls etc. Another moment I remember was when I had to pause to negotiate a stile. Just at that moment an older friend turned up on the other side on his bike. We chatted briefly, then his leaving remark was that I was only running shirtless to attract girls, which was just a bit of fun I suppose, but different people do interpret your bare-skin running in different ways. My actual reasons were just to be cooler during the warmer weather; to absorb some vitamin D; and to maybe get a bit of colour on my usually pale skin.

I think I always looked okay, being naturally slim and well proportioned, though I was never ‘ripped’ or with a six-pack etc. The shorts were just the usual athletic track running shorts really, and as you’ll know, no one wore today’s USA import of shorts down to your knees back then, which would have been thought silly.

I hadn’t seen Craig’s link to the runner, so I’ve just watched that. It was interesting to hear this runner's comments, and I can imagine it being great running along with your dog. But what I often found was that when you run through quieter areas, they were often the routes chosen by dog walkers as well. Frequently I’d see them ahead with their dog off the lead. I think dogs interpret running towards them and their owners as a threat, so they'd often start barking, and sometime even a bit of snapping around your ankles, which you could really do without when you’ve already covered a few miles. That used to get on my nerves a bit in the quieter areas!

Comment by: Stephen on 7th May 2024 at 23:13 referencing, comment by: Allen Williams on 21st December 2022.
I just find it hard to believe that any young boy of primary school age would choose to jump around naked in a PE lesson with his mixed gendered classmates, while they were all wearing underwear. I just find it unlikely. Children like to be the same, they wouldn't choose to be humiliated.
With Martin’s 6th May 2024 at 22:31 comment, I’ve heard of this school’s swimming somewhere before. This doesn’t bother me really, as all the kids were treated equally, and as it seemed to start with single gendered naked swimming days for them both, if they were then offered this as a mixed session, I can imagine some probably taking it, just for the dare. I expect the numbers would then increase when they all chatted with one another. Also, with them already be used to it, with it then being offered with the opposite gender would have been thought even more permitted naughtiness, together with additional intrigue for all. I doubt I would have joined them at those ages though. I was a ‘pretty kid’ who was never really keen on the attention I sometimes got, and was never really a naturally extrovert type. So to then turn up naked at the first opportunity, and in front of all my boy and girl classmates, and teachers too; I doubt there'd be any chance of that...I always hated swimming anyway.