Burnley Grammar School

Hi Carol,

I think you'll find that that film featured two separate PE classes, one from infant school and the other from juniors, although the narrative does not clearly specify this. The boys in shorts are from the junior age class while in the infant class all of the children are in underwear, not just the girls.

Surely it is the boys that are hard done by, if, as you say, they are often expected to do the class topless without complaint? The fact that it was the custom in that school does not make it easier for the boys themselves to bear. While the boys featured in the film seem to be enjoying themselves it was of course edited and it cannot be guaranteed that just out of shot there wasn't at least one boy crouched over, cringing, with his arms clasped around himself, who was unhappy to be filmed for national TV half-naked. I certainly would have been at that age.

No concern from you about the double standard in the junior class? Where the boys wear just shorts while the girls not only wear tops but their arms and legs are covered up too? To me that is just outrageous discrimination. There can be no subject-related or health-and-safety justification for such a glaring gender disparity. I would have been severely pissed off if I had been made to do my primary PE lessons that way. Thank God I didn't go to that school. Boys always seem to be on the receiving end of this kind of casual gender discrimination, and your silence on it here says a lot.

The real question is why the children of both sexes are made to do PE without a proper kit. You say they did it that way at your infants school. They did it that way at mine as well. I can only make educated guesses about my own infant school. I remember that the teachers were not at all considerate of the dignity of the children in their care. Either they believed that children at such young ages had not yet developed any sense of personal dignity - wrong, as you say, in your case, and in mine too - or they knew it was there but they viewed it as a 'privilege' that was incompatible with school discipline and something to be taken away from the young pupils during school hours. (My primary school was catholic and inevitably seemed almost to regard the inculcation of 'discipline', ie. making children do as they were told when they were told, as more essential than actually teaching us anything.) The staff held very rigid ideas about how children were to behave and I know through my own traumatic experience that they would not deviate from these even when it was obvious that a child was in distress.

I have written in a previous post about how there seemed to be a lot of times when we were required to take off our clothes. Why did I have to strip to my pants to play the donkey's arse in the school Christmas play? Given that nobody was going to be able to see me inside the costume anyway? Why could I not just remove my shoes and socks? LP Hartley famously stated that the past is a foreign country where they do things differently. The older I get the more the 1970s seem like some wretched third-world country from the dark ages.

It looks like the school featured in the film had a similarly cavalier approach. I agree with you about that girl. On the beach or in the paddling pool in the back garden, with your parents there, is one thing.
But in school, surrounded by strangers, well, if you ask me, that is stretching that pompous 'in loco parentis' principle too far for comfort.

Why should boys have to expect to do PE in their bare chests? You and your double standard. There is no practical purpose that is served by imposing this on boys. It won't make them work any harder or get any fitter.

There was a post, either on this thread or one of the other PE-related ones, quite some time back now, from a woman who had attended a mixed grammar school in, I think the early 1980s. She related how during the first year all the girls were made to take their indoor PE classes in nothing but their knickers, and how the female PE teacher was very stern and forceful about making them strip to that level. From second year they were allowed to wear leotards. I wouldn't have believed that any school anywhere ever made girls do that but it seemed to be a genuine post.

As I say, we had to do infant school PE in our underwear. It seemed and seems unnecessary. Why couldn't we bring a pair of shorts at least?

I hope I haven't been too critical. It is not my intention to snipe at anybody that comes on here with views that differ from mine.

One final detail that has only now struck me for its incongruity: we were allowed, if we wanted, to bring plimsolls and wear them to PE. Yup. We weren't allowed any kind of PE kit, not even a pair of shorts. But we could, if we wanted, wear shoes and socks with our pants and vests. Figure that one out.

A Yorkshiredad - That first video you placed on here within your post, I think it said it was from 1990, even in the 90's they were making children mix topless with each other in school, the girls as well as the boys with each other. I think the girls were particularly hard done by in that film because while boys are often expected to be shirtless in such lessons without complaint when told they must do so, girls as a rule don't have an expectation to be shirtless/topless like boys, but here they are mixed together all the same.

Actually that's not even the main issue for me. What I don't understand is why the girls are having to do the class in their underwear rather than a proper PE kit of some sort. I don't think it matters that they are very young, why are the girls at a school like that not in possession of a proper PE kit to put on?

It reminded me of my school in the early days at their ages, right down to the old teacher just standing about in her regular day clothes just giving instructions without really taking part or doing very much. A previous teacher here has said they had no training for PE, that's obvious. I had a teacher just like that who made girls like me run around in nothing but our knickers around the school hall/gym, among the shirtless boys. My own memories were about 20 years earlier than your film.

These little kids do also care too, I did. So have two people on here recently mentioned being five and six year olds who were terribly concerned by having to take off their top and be shirtless in one case and shoes and socks and be barefoot in another example.

As I say, why no decent PE kit for the girls? It's a PE lesson, not a medical. Why only underwear, the boys got shorts in your film. I remember my school at that age and all girls wore their knickers and all boys were in pants, there was not an actual PE kit to even bring to school at all, we all just changed at our tables by taking everything we had come to school in right off down to our one remaining piece of underwear among each other and following teacher out to to do PE.

Boys should at least expect to do PE in their bare chests at any age, but girls should not have to do that, and neither boys nor girls should have to do PE in their underwear when they could bring a pair of shorts to wear and look much better.

What is your opinion on this A Yorkshiredad, as a school teacher?

Comment by: David on 4th February 2025 at 06:43
Turned out perfectly for the ideal gym lesson at secondary school, just as it should be. Healthy, in shape, disciplined, fit and getting fitter.
https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-secondary-school-gymnastics-leyton-county-high-school-for-boys-1936-online



How could anybody object to this? All of them appear great and look nice doing their gym in this way. It was obviously mandatory for them but why is that a problem, it's gym. I think most of them will have finished the class here feeling very good about themselves because they were all in nice shape, look immaculate and focussed on what they are doing, not on what they are not wearing.

I was struck by the similarity with the Burnley Grammar boys above photo and this secondary school film from BFI. My own grammar school twenty years later in 1956 did gym under instruction exactly the same as these boys when I was 12 and we looked the same. It was hard work but enjoyable except if you felt the slipper across the back of your legs, backside, back or even the head on the gym floor for being silly or inattentive.

Comment by: Chris F on 6th February 2025 at 22:17

I think that you are right - fear of being "found out" would [preclude any kind of physical outward signs, and I think it very much depends on where you go to school as to whether a 16 year old today would want to label himself. Certainly the rough area I was a pupil in Im would not say it was advisable even today.

What angers me so much about school authorities in general, and P.E teachers in particular is that they must know that there are lads who have these issues - one in twenty, according to what I have read, so each school must, perforce, have at least a couple, and yet they force them into this situation - the fact that a lad is reluctant to shower should be an indicator. Yet for all their "caring and compassionate" shtick they still force the issue in some places. They might like to pretend that their school is "inclusive and accepting" and perhaps the pretence can be kept up at school, but there is pre and after school - the trips on the bus, the chance to catch up with fellow pupils on the street - and on-line of course.

I liked to be clean, but I dreaded the showers - not least because of our leering PE teacher - and other members of staff were, I was sure, aware of his proclivities and did nothing about it. Some years after I left (I was then about 22) I met one of my old teachers who admitted the fact. Why the hell did he do nothing about him?

Come out at school? I just don;t understand it.

Thank you, Terry and Mark, for your kind comments about my and others' posts. Thank you for the information about your dap bag, Mickey; it's interesting how plimsolls go by different names - I think they're also called sandshoes.

I read an obituary in The Times (20 Jan online edition, behind a paywall) about an Italian gentleman, Mauro Morandi, who spent 32 years as the sole inhabitant of the Mediterranean island of Budelli, two-thirds of a square mile in area between Sardinia and Corsica. He saw himself as the island's custodian. Here is a Guardian article anyone can read: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/07/hermit-guardian-budelli-island-off-sardinia-dies

I mention him here because the Times obituary states Morandi worked in the 1970s as a PE teacher at a secondary school in Modena. He was rebuked for using "unapproved techniques": he would set his lessons to music. Morandi described himself as "a bit of a rebel".

(Contrary to the Guardian article, the Times obituary says that, despite threats of eviction, Morandi left the island voluntarily in 2021, aged 82, because of declining health).

We used to have to line up and wait at school (age 11 to 15 in 1971-75) along the public corridor in our shorts, barefooted and shirtless before we could enter the school gym. Others would often walk past us all smirking away as we looked awkward about it, and we very much were not allowed to wear shirts in the PE lesson which was mandatory shirtless for all male pupils across the entire school. We also ran cross country shirtless, except during December - February.

I remember having a strong crush on a boy in my class when I was just nine years old. He moved away and I was very upset but another boy came along when I was ten and joined the class and I thought he was everything I wished I was and developed a secret crush on him too. These were the first signs I was gay, but I didn't even know what gay meant at that age anyway in the 1970s, but by the age of eleven I was beginning to think I liked boys more than girls, although I spent a lot more of my time around girls.

I remember still being in primary school and getting the odd comment, someone called me a 'gaylord' one day and the word 'poof' was used too, among eleven year olds. I have no idea how children can sniff out these things about you at that age because I gave off no clues or acted differently to anyone else, other than disliking some of the things 'normal' boys were meant to like.

When I got up to secondary school when I was twelve, 1978, things got more serious. I think by twelve I knew what I was, but although I spent a lot of my time at school not being allowed a top for the PE lessons I did not look around me and feel any kind of 'turn on' by the situation. Quite the reverse actually, I hated being made to strip to the waist for the school gym and become a skin for PE lessons.

I had an instinctive aversion to showers and wished to avoid them if I could, but as others will know, you didn't avoid showers at school in those days, you were made to do them. I saw a boy pulled by his earlobe into them one day because he was not going to go in the showers. I was not effeminate in any way but there was a boy in my class who was and when we showered he received homophobic comments to keep away from him and not to bend over near him in the showers. I avoided this. I had absolutely no interest in anyone I used to share the school showers with at the age of fourteen, many in that class at that age were quite unlikeable actually, and I only had a tight circle of friends. When I was fifteen the boy I'd had a crush on in primary joined our PE group again and I saw him with his shirt off for the first time and knew for sure what I was, and was attracted. This gave me worries because he also went in the showers naked with me after PE and for the first time I feared something might stir when I didn't want it to. One afternoon after PE I did get a slight movement down below, what is called a 'semi' but luckily nobody noticed. In my last six to nine months showering at school after PE I became quite fearful of the situation but was not allowed to go off without a full shower with others.

I'm sure my own story could be written by tens of thousands of other schoolboys too who were placed into the same situations. School in 1981 for a fifteen year old was quite a hostile place to anyone who gave a hint of being anything other than 'normal'. If I'd had an unwanted rise in the showers at school on account of my emerging feelings, being forced into surroundings with many other naked boys and been seen doing so I might easily have found myself being beaten up on the way home for that, or even in the showers themselves or the school toilets. I'm convinced about that.

I think the fear about such things happening made sure to put a dampner on any feelings or body reactions I might have had. For an increasingly hormonal fifteen year old boy discovering his same sex sexuality through school years I can only think that being gay in this situation is like putting a straight horny girl on her own into the boys showers.

I don't know what the situation would be now with an openly gay schoolboy and school showering in places where this still occurs. Many fifteen year olds now are almost keen to come out and tell the world.

Alan, I was sorry to read about your distressing experiences. Thank you for being prepared to discuss them, and kind enough to mention other private matters, to respond to someone's question.

Terry - no I didn't, but I take your point.

It's probably a teenage boy thing to notice stuff about others. Curiosity, horseplay, proximity, bonding, one-upmanship, lack of tact!

Comment by: Mickey on 3rd February 2025 at 01:44
My issue was not so much the requirement to take my shirt off, but that I had (and still have) what people called a sticky out belly button. This was, apparently, unusual.




Until you mentioned this about yourself last year Mickey I had never even noticed the difference in people's belly buttons in pictures or in films where men, or boys are shirtless. Because of what you said about yours I'm always noticing it now. Did you ever mention this to anyone at school when you had to become a skin, because if you did you might have actually made people see something they might not have ever really paid attention to or realised in the first place.

The threads have been very interesting lately so I though I would add something again. First I want to tell Alan how sorry I am for his experiences. It shows you just how life effecting these things can be, thank you for your insightful post Alan. If its any consolation voyeurism is a sexual offence and voyeurism of minors by a teacher certainly sounds like a custodial offence, and it would certainly destroy their career so they should be much less likely to offend.

Reading back I noticed that there were some negative comments about school uniform. I would like to defend uniforms as I personally think they are a good idea. The people at Pear Tree School have made a good job of summarising these so to save time I can just abbreviate and paste.

School uniforms mean that all students wear the same clothing, helping to level out the playing field. This removes any preconceived ideas about what to wear, allowing for greater group cohesion and commonality. As a result, uniforms demonstrate a clear message of equality.
Seeing their peers wearing the same uniform as them also encourages children to develop a stronger concept of group identity.
As such, school uniforms allow students to feel part of something bigger than themselves. This, in turn, helps children recognize the value of working together towards a common goal rather than focusing on their individual objectives.
School uniforms help teachers and school administrators identify who is a student and who isn’t, even from a distance. This makes it easier for them to keep students safe and away from unauthorized areas. Likewise, staff and students can soon identify anyone on the school grounds without a uniform as an outsider or possible intruder by their lack of uniform.
Increased safety is also a reason why school uniforms are good for field trips. Children wearing school uniforms are easier to spot and keep track of among large crowds, making the chance of a child wandering off without a teacher noticing far less likely.
When schools allow children to wear their own clothes to attend school, this creates the need for a long list of unacceptable clothing variations that staff must check for every day.
Such dress codes are often harsher for girls than for boys, with everything from skirt lengths to shoulder straps coming under scrutiny. What’s more, enforcing dress code policies often means sending children to the office for administrators to determine whether they’ve violated the code or not. Not only does this create an atmosphere of distrust and defiance within the school, but it also wastes a lot of everyone’s time.
School uniforms avoid a lot of this policing by creating a standardized dress code that’s easy for all children to follow. Without any possibility of misunderstanding what is and isn’t appropriate, children won’t spend time awaiting decisions about their clothing choices and will be in the classroom learning instead.
One of the biggest benefits of school uniforms is how it can cut down on bullying. While wearing a school uniform creates a sense of community and equality, allowing children to choose their own school clothes can create divisions and highlight disparities. Unfortunately, a child’s clothing choices can offer school bullies more motives to make fun of them, talk about them with other students, or even hurt them in a physical way.
School uniforms help to reduce the chance for this by making everyone wear the same clothes. Students also have to wear the same uniform every day. This means that socioeconomic differences between students won’t be as obvious as they might be if a child were to wear the same non-uniform clothes every day.
School uniforms are a godsend for parents trying to get their children ready for school. Mornings can be chaotic enough without the added pressure of choosing or double-checking your child’s wardrobe choices for a day at school. In contrast, when your children wear school uniforms, the benefits of school uniforms are that there’s no chance of forcing your child to change out of their unsuitable clothes or waiting for them as they pick out an outfit.
Allowing children free rein over their school clothing choices can also create issues with health and safety, while their choices might not be the most practical for the weather either.
School uniforms make sure that children dress appropriately, in clothes suited to a day of learning. A simple school uniform avoids any chance of them tripping over their must-have baggy jeans, dipping long sleeves in their art project, or freezing in the playground in a skimpy dress.
Looking at what other students are wearing or worrying about what they’re wearing can be a big distraction for children. And when fashion trends and keeping up with their peers in the style stakes becomes more of a priority than paying attention in class, a child’s progress could easily suffer.
By removing fashion as a distraction, school uniforms help keep children focused on their work.
School uniforms encourage students to learn the importance of dressing for success and are thought to contribute in a positive way to their attitude and behaviour in school.
As they develop an association between their uniform and learning, simply putting on their uniform helps a child get into the right mindset, preparing them for a day of working hard and focusing.

In my experience boys usually like their uniforms, I hear almost no complaint about what they are expected to wear at school

Christine and Jill have made excellent contributions about past PE practices but I would like to add something about modern practice and give you a better idea of what takes place in one of my PE lessons. After an initial warm up lasting about 10 minutes the majority of the lesson consists of creative movement to music. The boys seem to like this very much with the music providing stimulus and a distraction from feeling tired. Videos are a useful tool to give the boys ideas on how they can use their bodies in time to the music. The result is a lesson that resembles those shown in this 1980s school program, (best turn the sound off), with a high level of activity achieved throughout the lesson.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmeX0j9BbeY

A couple of good examples of the videos we use for motivation would be these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP-NQFg_i3c&list=PLmOC_1pD2GQKk0aDBHQlGHBo8VYCv0ZBt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF_uCuXZnHA&list=PLmOC_1pD2GQKk0aDBHQlGHBo8VYCv0ZBt&index=4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8jkHxwgVAQ&list=PLmOC_1pD2GQKk0aDBHQlGHBo8VYCv0ZBt&index=25

Sorry that this was something of a rushed post with lots of copy and pasting but I hope it was useful. Feel free to ask any questions.

Turned out perfectly for the ideal gym lesson at secondary school, just as it should be. Healthy, in shape, disciplined, fit and getting fitter.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-secondary-school-gymnastics-leyton-county-high-school-for-boys-1936-online

Comment by: Mark on 2nd February 2025 at 21:03



Sadly Mark, I am afraid he was being serious. There was a discussion going on about how "oppressed" we were at work (in 1993!) - I wasn't - like most normal people I just kept my private life private, and several men were saying how boring their jobs were when another teacher - a geography teacher - complained how futile and depressing it was trying to teach his subject to young lads who were not interested, then this cretin I mentioned came out with the remark about the job "having it's compensations" followed by the remark about the rugby team and their showers. It was quite clear what his interests were. I have absolutely no problem with homosexual geography teachers, or any other subject, except P.E. having experienced a paedo one. I only went about six times but I always felt I needed a bath after them. There was the night a fellow called George I think - a lorry driver - turned up calling himself "Yvonne" he was a cross dresser. It seems to me those groups - certainly at that time, encouraged every exhibitionist, every kinky practice and perversion, to crawl out of the woodwork, and of course, every predator. Being in my 20s I got a few, which were politely rebuffed. I couldn't be polite about the rugby enthusiast however, and there was quite an argument. When I read about that foul teacher at the Royal Liberty a year or so ago it bought back this idiot as well as my own days at school. lads should not be exposed to that kind of teacher, especially now they are made to stay on so long.

To Matthew.

We called it a dap bag, for our black daps (plimsolls) and pe kit in primary school.

I don't have strong memories of primary PE. I know at senior school we would occasionally do shirts and skins. I have said before on this board that my issue was not so much the requirement to take my shirt off, but that I had (and still have) what people called a sticky out belly button. This was, apparently, unusual.

I was 12-15 and at that age you hate being teased, or even just particular features being pointed out,

Having others notice my outie now is not an issue - indeed on the rare occasions someone comments it is actually quite funny!

I am sure it can't be *that* unusual.

Thankyou Alan for your incredible honesty there. It explains why you say the things you do now much more clearly.

This was interesting, what you said;
"When I was in my early 20s I attended a local "gay" social group (I loathe the word 'gay" which sounds so theatrical , irresponsible and camp). I am homosexual, or queer if you prefer. I regarded myself as both. There was nothing "gay" about it. I only went a few times and I was taken aback by the number of teachers that went there. The last time I went there was a young P.E. teacher saying how much he enjoyed supervising the showers after rugby practice. I wanted to hit him but I just compromised and called him "a C U Next Tuesday".


Trying to get my timeline, this must have been about thirty years ago now in the 90's? You have actually heard from a PE teacher's own mouth in front of you that he liked watching boys showers in school? It explains everything you feel to me now. I think some of us will have realised this with some teachers here and there, not me though, but to actually hear one say that is one hell of an admission. Do you think he was serious or was it just a light hearted joke? It's not really the kind of thing I'd expect any teacher to admit in public even among likeminded company such as your group there.

To counter what you say though, I don't think that most PE teachers who made us go shirtless in their classes were doing it because they liked to look at us in that way, I just think it was part of practical PE culture in many schools at that time, and seems to be in some schools even today where skins v shirts remains commonplace.

Danny, do you remember precisely what they commented or asked that sounded sexual? You stated it was unlikely that nobody overheard it, but did nobody see them tugging you? Did they ever do it to anybody else? How old were you when this happened?

Do you remember your immediate reaction to that physical touch? Did you swat their hand away or retaliate in any way physically or verbally? Did they revel in the boundary they had just crossed or did they seem surprised by their ability to have taken it that far? Did you think about complaining to your teacher/parents about it?

Comment by: Mark on 1st February 2025 at 10:09


You ask a direct and honest question, Mark, and you deserve an honest answer. It is going to be rather lengthy, so for that I apologize but I need to explain my stance, to you and others.

There is an old film called "Victim" where the main character says to a trio of homosexuals "I may share your instincts but I do not follow them" and the same in adulthood can be applied to me, Mark. The other day our amateur psychiatrist Paul; wrote

Comment by: Paul on 30th January 2025 at 21:10


"....The stuff about not allowing gay people into certain areas of teaching is because you are one of these gay people and you don't think you could probably trust yourself around young people.........."

He was entirely wrong in his analysis. While it is true I have employed lads of 16/17 in the past to pack and despatch orders, I had no interest in them sexually, so he is wrong in implying that I myself am a paedophile. I realised when I was about 10, that I was always trying to see my next door neighbour. He was a police officer and in those days, they wore uniform to and from work. When I was a year or so older I remember seeing a soldier on a bus, and I pieced together A) The fact that I liked men in uniform B) That I was attracted to them. and C) that I was going to be an "odd" man out. I knew, even that young.

It is quite a shock to discover at 11 that you are not in the majority, at a time when at school your privacy and modesty is being taken away from you. That is why, in my view, it is wrong for boys to be forced into a situation, akin to an alcoholic being taken into a pub and pressed to drink, of near nudity, especially when you had to partner another lad and touch him and he you, and to have to shower in full view of a dirty minded teacher as well as 30 other lads. It was the sort of topic that was not to be discussed, not at home, and in a rough all boys school . not at school either. It was happenstance that I attended a single sex school. It astonishes me that they still exist, because they are a magnet for paedophile teachers. As for looking and comparing each other at school, as some on here have said they did, I never did, not least because you would have been given a good kicking if found out, and you did all you could to avoid suspicion.

By the same token, to use that old saying that it takes one to know one, I knew our Mr. Boreham, who enjoyed swishing his cane, using on the slightest pretext got the same sort of buzz out of it that I did seeing my policeman or soldiers. Similarily Roberts, our PE teacher gave himself away by coming into the showers and watching when we had started "developing" , practically ignoring us earlier (apart from his shouting) Others might not have noticed, but I did, that he always wore his royal blue tracksuit, and often had his hand in his trouser pocket. It always seemed to be the same track suit, after 5 years it must have been worn out. I doubt there was a pocket in the right hand side. If I hadn't known at 12, it was confirmed to me at 18 when an ex school friend confided in me that Roberts had given him some sort of out of hours football "training" which included 'massage' afterwards, and intimate massage at that. It was not a shock to me as I had known he was a wrong-un six years earlier. This mate, by the way, only told me this, in strict confidence , after our school days had ended, and had no idea of my proclivities. Nobody knew.

When I was in my early 20s I attended a local "gay" social group (I loathe the word 'gay" which sounds so theatrical , irresponsible and camp). I am homosexual, or queer if you prefer. I regarded myself as both. There was nothing "gay" about it. I only went a few times and I was taken aback by the number of teachers that went there. The last time I went there was a young P.E. teacher saying how much he enjoyed supervising the showers after rugby practice. I wanted to hit him but I just compromised and called him "a C U Next Tuesday".

That is why I say that homosexual teachers should NEVER under any circumstances be allowed to become PE teachers. It is a choice they don't have to make, with so many private gyms, where the clientele is adult, but their pupils are lumbered with them. The fact that they can enjoy themselves, if only by looking, in the changing room or the showers is a temptation or a perk they should not be allowed to enjoy. Speaking for myself, I always think men look far better in clothes than out of them.

For myself, I liked to see masculine men, (I suppose that is why I liked men in uniform, except postmen who wear Baden Powell shorts even in winter) I have never been able to put up with effeminacy in men, and the grotesque drag queens that now pollute TV.

I hasten to say I am not a religious nut, it is just that it is a trait in myself that I have never liked and regard it as a flaw and a serious blight on my character, like kleptomania would be. It is not something I would have ever chosen for myself.



Another thing, after school I was involved in some heavy duty music scenes, where homosexuality was considered at best a joke and at worst a perversion. It was advisable to keep your own council.

The fact that I had to practice hard, and when my playing days were over, I ran my own business - still do - singlehanded is a great way of working through your problems, you don't have time to think about them - especially as one gets older - who would want to be like "Sean" in Coronation Street in middle age?

There you have it Mark. Sorry for the long-windedness of my answer to your question.

Agree with that Terry and the names you picked out.

Thanks Alan for your answer about your own shirtless experience. So it was always after age eleven for you? Do you remember how you felt about it the first time? Your reply was quite short! Someone has mentioned being gay and you yourself have mentioned homosexuality with teachers. If it's not too cheeky, are you actually gay yourself? I don't wish to be rude or intrusive at all but I thought you might be myself, and the reason I ask is not to use it against you, my best friend is gay although I'm not, but I'm keen to understand if being a gay schoolboy made doing shirtless PE extra hard to do or whether those who are gay and knew it quite young would automatically be far more nervous of shirtless PE when it was forced onto them, and that's before we get to showers which must have been hell for any boys (or girls) who knew their sexuality early on. Perhaps the school showers were extra traumatic for some boys because they were the first time they knew they might be gay even? I'm genuinely interested and not wishing to troll you about it.

There are so many really great posts with thoughtful comments on this site at the moment from the likes of Matthew, Danny, Christine, Yours Truly and others that it's hard to know where to begin with picking bits out of all your great comments.

Danny, thank you for sharing your recollections and your kind words to me.

I sympathise with your embarrassment over your feet, you say as late as the age of twelve, given my own self-consciousness lasted several years.
It's not daft. Coincidentally, an old family friend once told me that her son (born in the mid-Seventies) similarly was very unhappy about his PE lessons when very young because he had to take his shoes and socks off. It was quite some time before he could explain the reason for his discomfort to his parents and teacher - I think his mother did manage to offer some sort of reassurance. Also, there was another poster on this site some years ago who remembered older boys, classmates in the first PE lesson at secondary school, being uncomfortable when told to go barefoot by the teacher.

By "plimsoll bag", do you mean a home-made drawstring bag? At infant school in 1989-92, I also had my PE shorts and plimsolls in a bag like that, with my name written on it, hanging on my cloakroom peg.

We did often wear our plimsolls for PE, out of necessity given my class was in a mobile classroom in the latter two years of infant school. In the summer months, we needed to walk across the asphalt to the main body of the school after changing. In winter, we walked to the hall in our ordinary clothes (we had no school uniform) and changed once there. The Reception classroom I was in aged five was next to the hall, so we would have been barefoot then.

Please excuse a few other recollections: tossing bean-bags, and the sensation of the beans inside moving beneath the cloth; sitting on a wooden form and being told by a teacher to "breathe in - and out" as hard as I could. So many times I was wrapping myself up into a tight ball on the dusty parquet, knees drawn up to my chin, arms wrapped over my knees, face and head down, then standing and stretching up, up, being a tree. The notes of "The Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy" echoing through a draughty Victorian hall. Eyeing my own goose-pimples dispassionately, in a winter PE lesson aged six or seven. Sitting cross-legged on a blue mat with the other children, in my shorts, thinking: "This is embarrassing..." - sorry if this is self-indulgent, but perhaps it might prompt others' memories!

Thank you, again, Danny, for responding to my post.

First timer here.

My secondary school years were 1975 until 1981, in Middlesborough, although I lived in Newton Aycliffe and got the bus the short distance to school.

There were two PE lessons each week, one in the school sports gym and the other taken outside. The two types of PE lesson contrasted enormously as I shall explain.

The PE teachers who took the sports gym never took us outside and the teachers who took us outside never did the gym, they always did this and there was no crossover.

Outside PE kit was different from start of autumn term until Easter, then it switched to spring and summer outdoors.

I think it's worth contrasting the massive and amusing to me, difference between what we were allowed to wear doing the school cross country under one teacher compared to doing the sports gym under another.

We had the basic outdoor PE kit of shorts in black, sweatshirt long sleeves, thick socks and football boots, plus other non studded boots. For a lengthy and cold day's cross country we were allowed to wear and bring the following;

Leather boots.
Very thick woolly knee high socks.
Shorts, or additionally long legged jogging trousers, or both together.
Sweatshirt, as many layers as we liked under it, sometimes two or three T-shirts.
Tracksuit top.
Gloves.
Woollen hat.
Wristwatch to time yourself.

Most of these things were not on the official PE list. Many boys who wore all this lot still felt cold at times and it can get very cold in the north of England and was in the 70's. I used to wear all the above in PE, it kept me warm, although some seemed okay just with the basics. With that lot and a towel it filled the school bag, making outdoors PE day a heavy bag day. We easily ran 5 miles I'd say.

Just taking that lot off back at school afterward took time and if we got wet though it weighed more and could be a mess too. Lots of washing needed and boot cleaning. Mud clinging to everything. Some of us used to get in trouble for muddying our exercise books with our PE kit if it fell out of a carrier bag within our school bags or something like that.


Then the other sports gym PE lesson with the other teachers. We had to bring the following;

White shorts.

(and towel of course)

That's it! Nothing else. Just shorts. Nothing additional permitted, not even our underpants under the shorts. Just shorts. Bare everything other than your bum and privates. Strictly shirtless, no socks, no trainers, no jewellery, nothing else. All year round. Easy on the schoolbag at least and quick to change and little washing involved. Happy mums at home.

Quite the extreme difference I think you'll agree.

Most lads I think were like me and preferred getting outside. Spring and summer term was white trainers and socks, white shorts and a vest and the vests randomly came off quite a bit either by choice or instruction.

In or out we were made to go in the showers all year round, we had to be completely naked for this, tell that to some kids nowadays, and it was enforced with a rod of iron. I actually heard 'you are getting naked whether you like it or not' shouted at someone new. No willy shyness allowed. It was interesting to be allowed to see what your friends all had going on down there, but don't look like you're hiding it from everyone, I thought get it out and try and forget about it when I satrted doing that. There was a shower register that was ticked off. No escapees! The showers were quite large communal type and could hold everyone together at the same time, 25 to 30 boys most times. We had to wash properly, get fully wet, including our hair, use provided glycerin soap, were observed doing this and once out teachers made sure we all dried off properly, I was told to stop dressing and dry properly. Sometimes there was a bit of larking around in them but nothing bad. A few teases about what we had or didn't have hanging there, but you had to expect that I suppose, forced together invading each others personal space with no clothes on. PE showers at school like this seem very 70's and 80's don't they. No teachers joined us in them thankfully. I can't believe some used to do that in other schools.

We all seemed to go through much the same things really didn't we. Aah, except one thing, I can't believe any northerners ran the cross country shirtless even if some of you southerners did.

Comment by: Matthew S on 30th January 2025 at 23:27
Terry, thank you for your kind comments to me and to Danny yesterday evening.


Matthew I agree with Terry on your little anecdote about the teacher and your vest top which I found a rather sweet little dynamic the way you put it there. Now you mentioned at the age of 5 feeling uncomfortable having to bare your body. I have no idea how unusual that is so young to feel like that. I'm not aware at that age that I felt like that and certainly did a few things with friends, male and female same ages, up until the age of about 9 with my top off, almost always involving water. But at my infants school I cannot remember doing PE myself with my top off very often, but can remember others doing so, even girls, in just their knickers. and boys in their pants. At that school we were encouraged to keep our small amount of PE kit in our plimsoll bags almost permanently in our class cloakrooms and everyone seemed to have a similar style plimsoll bag in 1974/5/6.

The thing where I really relate to you Matthew from being the age of 5 and 6 at infants school doing PE isn't about being barechested, it's about not being allowed to wear shoes and socks on the hall floor when teacher took our PE there. I had a strong aversion to doing PE in my bare feet at school when I started, and the teacher insisted on it a lot even though we had black plimsolls and plimsoll bags! Now my first teacher was not a young teacher and had quite a severe pulled back hair style and I thought she was very strict. I don't remember her smiling much. Actually she wasn't too bad really and became a good family friend in the end and got a less severe hair style too. But when I was first at infants school and she took me for PE and told us to to remove all footwear and be barefoot I almost panicked at times. I really hated it, and felt embarrassed by this. Do not ask me why. At just the very young age of 5 or 6 this was the one and only time in any PE lesson in my whole time at school that I actually confronted a teacher about my discomfort, at that age! I easily remember going up to her one day and saying something like - "Mummy would prefer me to wear my plimsolls in PE please". This was a little white lie and not strictly true, and mummy had said no such thing to me. Anyway, even if mummy had wanted it and I certainly did, I was not getting my request and could not wear my plimsolls and she made me go barefoot as she wanted, very many times. Fear of my bare chest was not strong at that point but fear of my feet being on show was. Where this kind of thing springs from so young only a psychoanalyst could maybe get an answer to. That is something I've never quite grown out of even to this day all this time later. When I was 11 and doing David & Goliath at school for Christmas for our parents over three different nights most of us were expected to be barefoot for that but I asked and was allowed to wear plimsolls for that without any trouble, I remember feeling relieved at that. The previous year having wimped out of the main Joseph role because it involved a spell shirtless. I remember going on a school trip to the beach for a day at the age of 12 in my final month at primary school and digging my feet into the sand as I sat there just to hide them! My mother actually used to tell me I had good looking feet as a child and so I feel so daft even admitting to any of this but I think it's helpful to be honest here.

But even with that issue I've just described, when it came to going swimming at school the issue seemed to diminish quite a bit almost to nothing, but only when swimming, much like the barechested issue did, and for others who have admitted this too about swimming. It is a fascinating thing that. Perhaps it is because swimming is strongly associated with a certain method of very minimal dress for obvious reasons of getting wet and we subconsciously accept this without question because we know we can't get in the water fully clothed, and perhaps it really is just because we are up to our neck in water being covered, even if the water is mostly transparent.

Reading what you have said Matthew, and what many others have said, and what I have admitted to, it does make you wonder just how many others were out there at school with just these same thinking processes about ourselves and why we had them so young. Nothing used to please me more in the summer when I was an infant school child when I would go to school in a cool patterned pair of trainers, coloured ankle socks, a nice pair of smart tight shorts on and a pretty t-shirt and was allowed to go off to do the PE lesson just as I had come to school, and afterwards just return back to class the same with no fuss. I looked good, I felt good and I enjoyed the lesson. Some people have mentioned problems wearing shorts to school, well I was always very happy to do that and show my legs and knees and spent most of my years under age 10 in shorts, with the grazed knees often bandaged to prove it at times.


Milton's questions. What did they do to try and make us blush, well just personal comments and that type of thing. I remember getting a sexual question once, not knowing the answer and getting my left nipple suddenly tugged at. Imagine boys doing that to a girl. Big trouble I bet. We had been sent off into small groups and I was among just girls in mine so chat was not being overheard easily. The touchy feely stuff was just hands holding onto body areas mainly or laying across people or against them, either one on one or many people. This happened lots. Nobody was ever asked to kiss each other like you suggested with Romeo & Juliet. Just regular interactive stuff.

Terry you asked if my drama teacher ever did the same as he asked the boys and did anything barechested, well what do you think? Surprise, surprise the answer is no, never. To make clear I never thought he might be gay either as was suggested, nothing gave me that vibe about him and it didn't when I recently met him, and even if he was it would make no difference to me and of course gay teachers should be allowed to teach all subjects without prejudice. I have never understood straight people who would get worked up about a gay person the same gender in their midst in a changing area or a shower, who cares.

The one and only time I ever saw one of my PE teachers shirtless was when I was in my first secondary year, aged almost 13, in the early summer athletics we were doing on a hot day and the head of PE suddenly whipped his top off and we got sight of his bare chest unexpectedly for that lesson, and never again to the best of my knowledge. He was not young, and I remember the sight well because he had what would nowadays be described as a "dad body", quite filled out and bulky with a lot of dark hair all over his chest. Certainly he did not have a traditional fit body but it didn't stop him being PE head. I have definitely got a much trimmer and fitter looking body now at my age than my head PE teacher did at an age probably not too different to me now.

I've kept very healthy in my adult life and have mountain biked thousands and thousands of miles and walked lots too. Although I was good at running I've never been keen as an adult, all those barechested cross countries we did were more than enough for me. I certainly don't think school PE has had any part to play in my desire to remain healthy and active doing the things I actually like to achieve this.

One final thing though, there is a tiny part of me that would be tempted to join someone like Craig on his barechested (bareskins) running group. That runs counter intuitive to almost everything I've said. Call the psychoanalyst please!

Comment by: Paul on 30th January 2025 at 21:10


Thank you doctor - may I get up off your couch now?. I must go because I need to rush home to play my Judy Garland records, before binge watching Strictly Come Dancing and the latest drag show series, perhaps stopping off at a public lavatory on the way to do a bit of cottaging, then I will dance the night away at the.YMCA

It is a well known fact, Paul, that the acting profession is quite a stronghold for gingers, as is ballet dancing and ladies hairdressing.

I am not an actor laddie, a dancer or a ladies hairdresser, so bad luck. You need to do more than read The Ladybird Book Of the Bonce to be a psychiatrist!

Terry, thank you for your kind comments to me and to Danny yesterday evening.

I am sure my teacher did not realise I was embarrassed. We only turned five that academic year, and it would have been normal for her in the late Eighties (though not for teachers now, I gather) to help children with laces, buttons or other awkward parts of undressing - she did so for me for the rest of that school year. Also, I kept my thoughts very much to myself.

Changing for PE became somewhat more unpleasant for me later on (I recall the day on which it was held, and my churning stomach), and while I can't speak for others, it is a pity I was unable to put aside my self-consciousness earlier, as William suggested. I remember a certain sweet relief when eventually I began to do so.

I also regret Nathan Hind being obliged to leave this discussion site, when someone sent that foolish message to his employers. His professionally well-informed comments were always interesting, he came across as thoughtful and with some concern for his pupils, and he didn't deserve to be embarrassed. By the way, Alan, for what it's worth, I never doubted that you did not send that message, as someone once unkindly suggested.

Thank you, Christine Sanderson, for sharing your professional knowledge.

Earlier today Alan called out the teacher described by Danny C as a homosexual. I have no idea if he was or not but I will bet my house on it that you Alan are a homosexual and a self loathing one at that because all the clues are there written throughout many of your comments on here even if you don't realise it. This is at the root of your misery isn't it. It's so obvious to me, it must be to others. I know I'm right, you've given so many clues unwittingly, don't waste time denying it. The stuff about not allowing gay people into certain areas of teaching is because you are one of these gay people and you don't think you could probably trust yourself around young people. That's one clue, there are many others.

Stephen, you said your old school still makes boys go shirtless for PE. Does it say if they do it alongside female classmates?

Danny C, you said "At one point aged 13 the sport was trying to make certain boys blush red." What would they actually do to achieve this? Did your teacher notice?

You also said "Many of these lessons could be touchy feely stuff improvising with hands on others therefore bringing on even more unwanted close attention."

Could you elaborate on what you meant by touchy feely stuff and hands on others? Would you be forming human pyramids or partner dancing with the girls? Or would your drama teacher have you do Romeo and Juliet with them while he had you dressed like that?

Can national politics be kept out of this forum please.

Well written posts by Danny again and Christine, and it's good to see you return again Greg2, you're right, the reason the PE teacher felt he had to leave the forum was because one silly person identified as Dando was found to have taken the info placed on here and used it against that person and made direct contact with his school which is a very foolish thing to do. Dando never countered the allegation it was him at the time, so that said it all and he already had a long track record of pulling up school sites and plastering them on the forum, as if anyone should care other than those who attended those places. That teacher never wrote anything derogatory about his school or expressed extreme views, quite the reverse actually, so I am sure it was just a minor irritant to have someone unconnected make an unsolicited approach where he was. It would have made me very cross too, so I didn't blame him one bit.

I don't know whether Danny's drama teacher was homosexual Alan, many straight men are more than capable of being just like that with boys, he might have been the thoughtless type (was he ever shirtless himself Danny?) The worst part of that is where Danny says he singled boys out for stage plays he was part of without shirts knowing they'd hate it. That's wildly inappropriate. Give that to someone who doesn't mind. It sounds like he was trying to cure boys like Danny of their inhibitions but that's hardly the way to go about it, and does it need curing, we are all different.

I had a quite irritatingly self obsessed drama teacher who expected everyone to be a flamboyant all singing and dancing extrovert who should aim to be the next Gene Kelly or Laurence Olivier. One of his swipes at you could often be you won't win any Oscars for that effort. Most of us couldn't wait to get out of drama lessons but you could be a bit lazy in them I suppose and it beat sitting at a desk for a bit.

Jill Paige. The one thing about primary school teaching in your time was the need to be a tutor of multiple subjects without really being a master of any of them. Those that taught in primary education often stayed in primary education, although many teachers, often female, actually liked teaching children under the age of eleven more than the older ones. Of course that is not to say that many primary teachers did not have some types of specialist background, a lot did, certainly the older ones.

Primary school teachers having to take PE is an interesting area of their duties. What they did with children was not quite as random and made up as it would at first appear, there was a structure that had to be followed within the curriculum as set out in those days but it was a very loose one with lots of room for teacher autonomy. Encouragement was often given to whole class activities involving boys and girls together and when these genders were separated the tendancy was to the stereotypical boys and girls things. That was also the same at secondary level of course.

School inspectors will have held no view and there was no official or unofficial requirement on what type of PE clothing a school should use. These decisions were down to individual school or teacher preference for the most part. Some schools allowed more personal teacher autonomy than others, including the issues raised here. It sounds to me like your primary Jill was one of those who preferred a standardised approach and decided for example that boys in PE should not put a top on and therefore remain with a bare body above the waist, shirtless. This was common. Schools of all age groups 5 to 18 in that period would do this, although the perception is that secondary level schools were most keen and many children found themselves confronted with such requirements for the first time, many years into their schooling. It's quite possible to argue that had many boys been introduced to this style of PE at an earlier age many of the problems identified by new secondary boys on these pages may have been lessened somewhat or eliminated entirely.

A secondary school that enforced a fully shirtless policy on all it's boys for PE at all times would fare no better or worse than an equivalent school that always required more PE clothing and tops for the same PE. It would be largely irrelevant and go un-noticed in terms of quality of the teaching, although could be possibly remarked upon. A school with a strong shirtless PE requirement would not be disadvantaged, and if the pupils did perform best like that they could be advantaged if it raised the quality of the teaching and pupil outcomes.

Again, I must stress, whether boys liked taking their tops off or not would not be a consideration for inspections.

I have so many books and studies and files of papers that it would take years to read them all but there was I recall a feeling in education years ago that boys did perform better at physical work in school PE if they remained shirtless. Individual personal feelings on that were unlikely to be taken into account. There may be something about this on Google Scholar if anyone wishes to look. You sometimes see in films where men rip their shirt off ready to have a fight, as if that makes them more efficient at the task by doing so. I can't claim to know if it does or is largely symbolic or is simply what is I think known as peacocking behaviour.

Jill you expressed opinions that were mainstream for your time and even many more recent times too. Most would not wish to outwardly make known and consider the feelings of male children they were asking to remove a top for a PE lesson, in my opinion. This is because it might be to suggest a problem with this. This is also why no secondary school teachers will have ever openly spoken to pupils of showering in school as something open to discussion with them. But don't get me wrong, these teachers will have known that many of their pupils had a dislike of such things but would not have been encouraged to confront or speak of this directly to anyone, as a general rule.

I cannot obviously generalise Jill, everywhere is unique, but any teacher who made a big deal of something like a school requiring the boys to do PE without shirts on, or the shower requirement, would likely have been branded a troublemaker in that period. You have nothing to reconsider about your own approach in my view, although I think you might have been a little misunderstood.

School inspectors are allowed to interview selected children without notice within all subjects at their or the senior inpection team leaders request. I certainly remember one or two occasions in the late 1990's with early years Ofsted where I observed a PE lesson and spoke with male pupils briefly and took notes, some who were in shirtless PE classes and received no comments about this when discussing these type of school gym lessons and no inpsector would as a PE teacher why he or she was taking a class without tops on, that would be deemed under 'normal'. You would of course ask if they were sitting in Geography like it. The only reason I can think of where it might have been mentioned would be if we observed a class and maybe one pupil was standing out by himself without a top. I that case I would be inclined to question the reason and background for that, but I did not encounter such a thing. I would not for example expect a poor child whose parents cannot afford the school PE kit to be singled out against others and made to do PE without the clothing others have on. That could have a negative consequence.

I am fine with disagreement as long as it's not of a personal nature and is constructive argument, and I hope I've been useful this time.

Hi Alan,

It's not fair to just assume Danny C's PE teacher was in the c;loset. He could just as likely have been following his urge to assert his dominance over the other males in the room, which is what those thwarted macho types tend to do. And as we all know from our own schooldays, teaching tends to draw in oddballs.

I'd hardly describe myself as an admirer of Keir Starmer, the man who seems to spend his days looking for yet another fence to sit on and it's a fair point about Rachel Reeves. But I am relieved that this country has gained a reprieve from the last lot, who spent fifteen years hollowing it out in pursuit of their usual rabid, right-wing, anti-state idealogy.


Hi Danny C'

Why does that not surprise me? Your later comment that he deliberately singled out the sensitive kids and the introverts just confirms it.

Did your Drama teacher at least make the girls take off their shoes and socks as well? Did he ever discipline those girls that liked to tease the shyer boys? And why did he not make it a stipulation that they had to change into vests or bikini tops for the Drama lessons? After all, they must have found the drama lessons just as hot and girls have as much right as boys to be discover the benefits of being pushed out of their comfort zones, don't they?

You did say before that the later woman teacher was following his directive to keep you boys stripped off. But is is my guess that there was no stated rule in the school handbook that boys had to be stripped in Drama classes. The trouble with teachers in our time was that they had far too much leeway to introduce their own little regime, whatever that might have been. I think that is why John Major's government introduced the National Curriculum, to ensure that all UK pupils were at least receiving a standard, identical core education. No doubt if your teacher tried that today he would be micro-managed up his arse by Ofsted and rightly so.

In any case I think teachers of both sexes have always tended to be more callous towards boys. I think a lot of women teachers think either that boys don't feel things as deeply as girls or that even if they do it is much more appropriate to teach boys to learn to experience and disregard their bad feelings. In 2025 it is way, way past time that this practice, and these people, are challenged.

As regards none of you challenging it, that is sadly very common. Boys have always been more heavily conditioned to conform than girls and I think girls have always known they can get away with more because they will face less drastic consequences. When we had formal corporal punishment it was used against boys in 95% of all recorded cases. And just read Kathy from Maine's post below.

The physical reaction you describe just emphasises how wrong your teacher's methods were. As I stated in a recent comment the sheer, visceral dread of football+showers on Mondays actually drove me to truant for the only period in my school life. But as boys we were given no option but to put up and shut up.

Alan, Thank you for clarifying what "take any buck" means. I have often disagreed with you, so it gives me great pleasure to say that I thought your short analysis of the flaws in the government's economic policy was spot-on.