Burnley Grammar School

For some reason its all gone totally quiet??

Have there been any comments more recent than 6th September. If so I cannot find them

I enjoyed 90% of P.E. except for when it was Rugby. Couldn't stand the sport and people used it as an excuse to beat the **** out of one another. It was our last rugby lesson of Year 11 so all I had to do was hold out for one more hour, just avoiding being passed the ball or having to tackle anyone. With 5 minutes left of the lesson, I thought I was home and dry. Suddenly a loose ball dropped about 10 yards in front of me. I don't know what came over me, maybe it was me wanting to be the hero or perhaps I was simply drunk on the testosterone. Whatever it was, I sprinted and picked up the ball and ran like wildfire. I hadn't a clue where I was going, I just knew I had to touch it down at some point. I kept on running and miraculously I had outrun most of the opposition. Until I caught a glimpse of some fiery red hair from the corner of my eye. Now in my P.E. group at the time, there were two people who sported red hair. One was an extremely small guy who suffered terrible acne. The other, well the other is now the proud owner of numerous GBH charges. I had a dilemma. If it was the small guy, I could manage to reach the end and score. If it was the other one, then I would probably be in hospital for a few weeks. Still drunk on the adrenaline, I risked it. I kept on running until smack. I went over, well and truly, like a ragdoll. The other time I went over like a ragdoll was when GBH guy squeezed by ballsack and wouldn't let go in the showers after I annoyed him on the field but he used to literally sexually assault one guy per month like that in a way no other guy could think of getting away with or daring to attempt, but it was always done for a good laugh, so that was alright then, not.

Quite interesting Philip because I was at school with a lovely girl who also lived in a house with a back garden that bordered ours when we were both middle school kids and I so remember her as we ate at the school dinner table telling me and others that she would soon be leaving to attend Bedford Girls School, which I presume must be the one in your photographs.

I know people on here have mentioned it before but when I look at old photo's such as the boys gymnastics from 1959 they just always look as if they were the fittest generation to me, despite the fact that the majority were probably smoking as soon as they hit about 15 or 16 in those days. Perhaps it's just boys working out with bare chests that seems to make them look fitter just by being like that.

Going right back to the original pistings, I was looking for something else in the Bedfordshire archives where I used to live and found this picture taken in Luton in 1969. On the link below 3rd picture down
https://bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk/BedfordshireSports/Gymnastics.aspx

Warren;
'We were not allowed to waste hot water either once we got inside and actually had two teachers who would physically push us into our school shower like sardines before the water went on. PE class sizes seemed big, at least 40 guys, three separate classes together. I think they must have been train guards on a busy rush hour route in a previous life who pushed ever more people onto a crowded train before closing the doors. None of us could leave and dry off until they turned the water off again which felt like ages but was about three or four minutes most times I suppose.'

That hot water line you wrote has got me wondering whether this autumn and winter's major energy crisis will affect those remaining schools who still do things the traditional way and the cost of hot water will become a luxury too far and kill off the school shower for good. After all they are barely going to be able to heat the classrooms and I've heard talk of shorter school days or even a three day week and that's on the up side of outcomes. We better pray we are not looking at a winter 1962/63 or 1978/79 like Garth mentioned or we really will be well and truly stuffed.

Your PE teachers seemed a bit heavy handed and over controlling but I did find your train guard analogy quite hilarious for the vision it gave me of what you described in your school. Infact it made it sound more like cattle or sheep being herded together if I'm honest. Not a great way to treat human beings is it.

Comment by: Garth Maidment on 29th August 2022 at 03:09

Comment by: Garth Maidment on 31st August 2022 at 03:09

Comment by: Garth Maidment on 2nd September 2022 at 03:09

Comment by: Garth Maidment on 4th September 2022 at 03:09

I'm working in Fredericton (where? - look it up!) where it's just after 11pm



Well, well well.

More likely this is a Russian bot than Canada. Look, it posts at exactly the same time at two day intervals. It's all been written by A.I.

One for 'Dr' Hugh. I think you'll catch my drift here without me going too much info.

A brief and even not so brief shake and away is no longer good enough. Need some tissue help. Should that concern me? Age 54 and the past five years or so.

Thanks.

William on 3rd September 2022 at 21:27

The whole issue of prostate cancer is that there is still not an absolutely reliable test for it. The PSA level can be falsely high for instance if you have ejaculated in the previous 72 hours, it will be above your normal but that is rarely said. That said, the NICE guidelines lay this down as a definitive test and if it's normal you should do no more.

I never found that appropriate or adequate so I would always suggest a rectal exam too and I can't remember once I explained why any man disagreeing. You can certainly feel a difference between a healthy even if enlarged prostate and a cancerous one. A healthy one is smooth, an unhealthy one is 'craggy' and hardening and over all the years, I found that more reliable than the PSA in terms of diagnosis regardless of what NICE think. NICE has two roles, one is to promote good practice and the other is to be as penny pinching as possible about anything they recommend.

If you are having a PSA blood test, it should be at least 72 hours after a rectal exam because that too can inflate the PSA result.

I'll answer anything else when I get back but please put my name at the top because I don't want to read much of the stuff that gets posted here.

I was interested in what Derek said about his 1967 cricketing at school in that kind of unusual weather. That would have also given me anxiety. There are clips out there online where a lightning strike hits a football pitch and can kill a handful of people all at once from one strike alone. Very foolish to stay on an open field in any storm even as it approaches and seems way off. I once read that it is possible to be struck by a bolt of lightning from the centre of a thunderstorm situated as far as 10 miles away.

In my year from hell at grammar as I described it in the 1978/79 school year, it was also blessed, if that is the right word, with I think what was described as the worst winter since that notorious early 60's one from 1962/63 that my parents often told me about. I think there was snow before Christmas in a big way and I seem to remember big drifts that stopped all outdoor PE. When we came back after Christmas in January 1979 much the same thing happened yet again but with even colder temperatures which meant no outdoors PE for a while so we ended up stuck inside in the gymnasium where you could see the drifting snow piled up outside against a window.

When the snow did let up and allow us outside again it remained very cold and we were allowed an extra layer on top I think. Our grammar changing room was fitted with two square bath areas as well as a shower block and during this period one of them was used. It could accomodate a dozen or so I think. It was first come I think. It seemed popular with some but they were very rarely used. I never did. I stuck to the shower block.

It got mentioned about playing football in fog. Well school did have a brown football for playing on a snowy pitch, and a red rugby ball for the same thing. Obviously you can't play with a foot depth of snow or even a few inches but when it thawed we went out and played with a slight white covering with our coloured ball so we could see it. I'm sure the actual football and rugby leagues at the time used to do the same, not something you see anymore.

Always one to try something to see what it was like I also remember that time for getting up one weekend morning (quite possibly 13th Jan 79 sticks in my head for some reason) and throwing myself into the snow on the back garden at home with a couple of my brothers in just our pants to see what it felt like and then our mum becoming rather cross with us.

Warren - I agree with much of your comments and you went to school in the five year period just before mine started, and agree with the relatabilty of what Matt said too in so many ways even as a grammar schoolboy compared to what I presume was a comprehensive education. School PE did make me a much fitter boy and pushed us hard to make us feel various parts of our bodies we barely knew existed and raised the cardiovascular effort needed. No doubt about it.

Alan you said - "He would often start a lesson (TD was always the first subject on a Friday morning) by saying that he was in a bad mood that day and "woe-betide" (yes that word dredged out as late as the 1980s) anyone who annoyed him. It was possible to get the slipper for what he called dirty work, and sometimes the cane if he had only just given a warning about making marks or letting him see our mistakes. Usually only one or two strokes, but that was one or two too many. We had a couple of women teachers and there were times when they would threaten any lad who upset them with "sending them to Mr. B-----", so his reputation preceded him."


I gather you were at senior school in the 1980's, yes? I probably haven't seen everything you have written but did you yourself receive the cane in school as recently as the 1980's in England just before abolition? You don't sound to me like a tearaway if I'm honest, quite the reverse actually. If you did do so how did it happen and what was the procedure, where did it take place and were your parents informed first and how did you feel afterwards?

Whilst I can fully accept that kind of punishment for significant antisocial misbehaviour I struggle to understand how anybody could think it right to give it to somebody over some poorly presented technical drawings. You've got to be a thoroughly unpleasant individual as a teacher to think that's appropriate in those circumstances. Just don't tell me you went to a school with such warped values that it dealt a slipper or cane to poor work and yet let the intimidating bullying d**kheads roam around unchallenged and unpunished a bit like police now who turn up and cuff people who make others anxious for non crimes and yet avoid any contact with robbery victims and the like.

Can I give you a virtual hug, because you don't seem to have had many people in your life who have made you feel good about yourself. There has been so much negativity towards you on here (although it might just be from one place in truth) without realising the depth of your own school experience and what it's left you like.

Hugh, Thanks for your offer a couple of days ago. I hope I catch you in time.
I believe the PSA test doesn't always produce reliable results and a DRE cannot necessarily detect cancer, but can a DRE indicate whether the prostate feels (or is) normal and healthy? How would you describe the purpose of a DRE please?

Being out on the sports field in inclement weather each winter was obviously to be expected but I remember being stuck out in the middle of a huge school playing field sometime in around about the middle of May playing cricket in '67 when a storm approached in Berkshire. There was no rain, a lot of threatening sky but it kept dry except for an awful lot of mainly sheet lightning flashing across it that developed and yet we didn't go inside. I have never felt so scared in school as that, in the open with lightning about. Totally reckless, even many of the boys with me playing cricket knew it wasn't safe to stay in the open but we found our PE master's assurance that the chance of being killed by the cricket ball being bowled at our heads was a thousand times more likely than a bolt from the sky less than reassuring I can tell you. We weren't even allowed to pull the bad light trick that the professionals do. We'd have been inside in seconds with a quick sprinkle of drizzle though.

This comment by Matt;

<taking us out in all kinds of grotty weather making us as wet, freezing, dirty and miserable as he could manage topped off by the regulation compulsory shower where you try to squeeze about 30 naked boys during the same three minutes into a space built for no more than 15>



Yes, yes and yes again. Very, very, VERY relatable to me this.

I'm getting PTSD just memorizing it now - I joke just a touch. It was par for seventies Britain.

It was our teachers jobs to work us in PE to within an inch of our lives it felt. Sometimes we'd be so knackered we could barely lift our legs to walk away from the lesson at the end of it, the gym was so intense. Over wet and windy winters we would get plastered in earth so much that we had to remove a lot of what we had on BEFORE we got into the changing room so we could keep it as clean as possible. This meant hanging around outside until our teachers grabbed some clear bags for us to stick our boots and any other mud caked kit into, socks, shorts, shirt, you name it. You'd get guys down to their pants outside before getting past our teachers. Keeping the changing room clean and tidy was as important to them as getting us clean too.

We were not allowed to waste hot water either once we got inside and actually had two teachers who would physically push us into our school shower like sardines before the water went on. PE class sizes seemed big, at least 40 guys, three separate classes together. I think they must have been train guards on a busy rush hour route in a previous life who pushed ever more people onto a crowded train before closing the doors. None of us could leave and dry off until they turned the water off again which felt like ages but was about three or four minutes most times I suppose.

Circa 1973-7.

Modern kids would either snigger nervously or recoil in horror at this kind of thing now with all that grime and nudity throughout schooldays of the seventies. I think back and find it all mildly amusing. I've seen examples on here that sound just like one of the guys I know as a kid from back then who has what can best be described as a retrospective annoyance at what our school was like even though he wasn't annoyed at the time in those classes.

The guys at school in the seventies with me, even if we did get worked to exhaustion so often, were so obviously fitter and more capable than many today are at the same age in the same lesson. Now they even take a water bottle, or even energy drinks out with them to the lesson to hydrate constantly. Taking a swig of drink during lesson would have got you a rollicking once. I bet nobody here took in drinks during PE did they. Then there are the disposable and very bad for the environment packet wet wipes instead of an actual shower and the smellies to mask odours sprayed on.

It wasn't always better back in the old days. But it isn't better now either. Best to take a bit of both and mix the two.

John - your 'foggy' post of 1/9/22.

I remember one misty morning years back, running with friends down a field lane and a stag appearing out of the mist and pacing us for a few seconds. Magic!

T

Simon on 1st September 2022 at 14:09

You are right, Bill Turnbull at 66 was very young to die of prostate cancer and as I said, more men die with it than because of it.

That said, if you develop one of the virilent forms it will kill you. They way it generally does is by what are commonly known as secondaries - or metastatic cancer more accurately. From the prostate it spreads to more vital parts/organs so in the liver, bowel or bones it is far more likely to kill you. Once you have developed metastatic cancer it is much more difficult to treat, chemo will sometimes delay the progress but it is no longer operable/reversible.

Once again, if you are at ANY risk, please get checked.

Gentlemen, I've always been passionate about men's health issues, they are under funded and not as much to the fore as they should be. I will check back here for the next couple of mornings and be happy to try and answer any questions anyone wants to post but on Monday, I'm going away for the remainder of September and I will be 'off line' until I get back.

Many thanks for the interest. Yes,, you got it right New Brunswick in Canada.

I've been asked about rivalry from my four siblings who didn't go to a grammar like me, their eldest brother, well not really. They all still went to a well regarded secondary school close to the family home. They were all lucky in that regard as they could all just walk to school inside 15 minutes, or ride on a bike in 5 minutes and not leave home until about a quarter to nine most mornings and be back before 4pm. Whereas my grammar was actually nearly 20 miles from home and I had to rely on various methods of getting there from my dad taking me many times, to a bus, taxis and other lifts over the years. It meant I often left home long before 7.30am many days and on some of the worst days it could be gone 5.30pm or even 6pm before I actually got home. Not so bad in summer but a drag in winter, out in the dark and back in the dark. That was a long day especially with a stack of homework almost every night.

But as those I was at grammar with were not local to me I couldn't see them easily after school and rarely did. Then those who I had been in primary school with and lived nearby also kind of drifted away from me so I fell between the cracks so to speak. It seemed like a lot of work and very little play in term time, unlike the rest of my brothers and sister who I was sometimes rather more envious of than they were of me I think.

I never got too many chances in the week to get outside and do anything like the others, on bikes and all that. It was my dad who pushed for me to go the grammar route. Why me and not the others after me I never really got to the bottom of. They were all just as intelligent as me, no thickos in our family.

I remember the school rugby top was actually quite a dull pink and I would wear it at home sometimes during weekends. I played after I left school until my early twenties but haven't since.

I mentioned how I got a lot of confidence through sport and the requirements came easily to me. My grammar P.E definitely made me quite fit and pleased with how I looked by the age of 15. If anything I was guilty of over confidence at times looking backwards. I went through a phase where I would walk around the house much of the weekend without any top on at all and would even forget about it and once went to a neighbours and came back to a maternal berating for "making myself a laughimng stock" according to my mum at the time!

I remember comparing with my brother two years younger than me what he was doing at his school compared to me at grammar and as far as P.E goes much of it seemed remarkably similar. I think I might have had a wider range of choices but he seemed to do a lot more swimming at his secondary than I did at my grammar. But me and my brothers had all learnt to swim with an out of school intructor friend of the family at the nearby lido by the age of 8 with most of the strokes.

Unlike nowadays both myself at grammar and my brothers at secondary all seemed to do our gymwork inside predominently not wearing any tops at all. Yet the art of doing gym like this seems to have been lost over the past twenty years or so. Yet I actually think it is more likely to give the majority confidence in themselves and a healthy attitude to their own and others bodies by doing gymwork like that, rather than give people a nervous breakdown.

I'm thankful my harrasser/bully in school for the year was kicked out when I was 13 and also that he was not in my actual class. If he had been then just maybe my story would not have proved quite so okay in the end. Do you know what, even after more than forty years I have often wondered if I should own up to taking the cash from the family money tin all those years ago. You never quite let go despite everything you end up achieving and moving onto as an adult.

Agreed. Loved the foggy footy memory. That really made me smile. It sounds slightly comical that you plodded on with a game like that.

I'm a member of a golf club and often go out quite early for a few rounds with a couple of others and one occasion it was still a dense heavy lingering summer fog/mist taking ages to clear so we obviously just went into the club house for breakfast, a drink and came home not hitting a shot.

Simon I am not a doctor but I think I remember reading that prostate cancer is more likely to spread to other organs than other cancers. Terrible illness, wherever you get it though.

If you have the PSA test and the results are within certain prescribed tolerances, the you do not normally need the DRE.

Matthew P - "The funniest lesson I ever had was on 30th November that year. Fog so dense you couldn't see anyone and your shouting voice got well and truly muffled. Yet we persevered for an hour of football with a white ball we could barely set eyes on half the time and some of us running off the pitch without being noticed and our PE teacher trying to work out where we all were. "

Couldn't help laughing out loud at this, as it reminded me of watching the England-Hungary football match of 1956 (I think it was) on an old black and White TV. Fifty shades of grey with a vengeance.

Hugh, 66 seems very young for that. My own grandfather was taken by it at 91 but I remember it being said that people get it but live with it and get taken by something else along the way, is that accurate?

Silly question alert but how exactly is prostate cancer alone meant to take you? I'll admit to being one of those who probably doesn't take it seriously compared to other vital areas. I don't even know if there is a proper screening programme in the UK.

Gentlemen,

In the news today we learn that Bill Turnbull, former BBC Breakfast presenter has died and the cause was prostate cancer. He was 66, far too young. RIP.

I guess many who post here are aged 50+ and so are in the 'at risk' group.

At it's worst, it's a very nasty cancer of the worst and most virulent sort (Bill Turnbull had this), fortunately most cases are not of that type and much milder and even if you develop it in a milder form, you will probably die of old age before it kills you but if you get what Bill had and don't get treated - he recounted on air that he ignored the symptoms, you will not live too long. Unless you are screened, you don't know whether you have it or not in the early stages. Like anything else, it's easier and more effective to treat something caught early. Leave it and the probability of effective treatment diminishes every day.

The screening is not absolute, mistakes do happen but some screening is better than none. It's simple and straightforward, a blood test called a PSA (Prostate Specific Antigen) and a DRE - a rectal exam by your GP using a gloved finger, it doesn't hurt and takes about fifteen seconds. Your life and health are worth that.

Please think about it seriously.

Matthew P: No you are not alone!. To this day I always feel reminders of the school year starting - more so this year, as one of my neighbours has an 11 year old just about to start his Comprehensive school. He has to go for the first time tomorrow (Friday) for the induction. He is looking forward to it, so I said not a word. It concerns me that this lad has a limp and is quite sensitive. Knowing how kids can be so cruel. It doesn't help that the local comprehensive has a certain reputation for would be "gangsta" type culture, with aspiring rappers.....


Comment by: Roy C on 31st August 2022 at 22:32
Punished for rubbings out or smudges on TD work Alan? Surely not. What kind, not cane surely. Couldn't quite grasp what you were suggesting clearly enough...... Never remember any girls doing TD. Do they even do TD in school nowadays?

Hi Roy, I wasn't suggesting anything except to say this man had a formidable temper. Blackboard rubbers got slung about by him as a sort of warning. He would often start a lesson (TD was always the first subject on a Friday morning) by saying that he was in a bad mood that day and "woe-betide" (yes that word dredged out as late as the 1980s) anyone who annoyed him. It was possible to get the slipper for what he called dirty work, and sometimes the cane if he had only just given a warning about making marks or letting him see our mistakes. Usually only one or two strokes, but that was one or two too many. We had a couple of women teachers and there were times when they would threaten any lad who upset them with "sending them to Mr. B-----", so his reputation preceded him. I have to say they rarely did.

It was an all boys school so I don't know if any girls ever did it, but you are right, I doubt it is taught these days, as schools would probably teach CAD (Computer Aided Design), so I was lucky that I was one of the last to learn the subject. Back in the early 80s, no computer would have been capable of it (Uncle Clive's ZX80 and ZX81, even his famous Speccy would have been useless, as would have been the much vaunted BBC Micro). Anyway most school would only have had a few, or perhaps jut one. and we had none at all. I think there was some clunky programs for the 286/386 PCs by the mid 80s, operating under Windows 3.1. I don't know what the Macs were capable of, though the Mac SE30s must have had some capability, given their price - but they would certainly have been out of the price range for ordinary common or garden state schools

If they did have TD now, I suppose girls would have to be taught it otherwise MPs would regard it a sexist not to include them

Long after leaving school does August 31st still have a bit of a mental mindset effect on anyone else like it does to me as September 1st is about to come along with all that new school year sensation about it even in a household without any school age kids about.

My first September at secondary school in 1982 the PE teacher told us that September was always guaranteed to be a nice month and we'd spend as much time outside doing PE as we could even for our scheduled inside class of the week. It duly delivered a nice warm and dry month but by Christmas he was taking us out in all kinds of grotty weather making us as wet, freezing, dirty and miserable as he could manage topped off by the regulation compulsory shower where you try to squeeze about 30 naked boys during the same three minutes into a space built for no more than 15 and pretend to get clean but still come out whiffing of body odour.

The funniest lesson I ever had was on 30th November that year. Fog so dense you couldn't see anyone and your shouting voice got well and truly muffled. Yet we persevered for an hour of football with a white ball we could barely set eyes on half the time and some of us running off the pitch without being noticed and our PE teacher trying to work out where we all were.

If you didn't have anything at school like the above then you missed out.

Great days.

Punished for rubbings out or smudges on TD work Alan? Surely not. What kind, not cane surely. Couldn't quite grasp what you were suggesting clearly enough. One of my most constantly niggly teachers was a TD chap. Never a lesson without some boy pulled out of his chair and a shouting session going off. Never remember any girls doing TD. Do they even do TD in school nowadays?

Hi Garth. The good news/bad news for me at school was that my best subject was Technical Drawing, and the bad news was one of our two cane specialists - any signs of rubbing out, or smudges............. at least the subject was of use to me after I left school, and still today. It is a pity though when teachers don't try to encourage, because you can get more out of students when you encourage rather than punish. This particular teacher was also our science teacher, and that wasn't one of my best subjects!

Comment, Garth Maidment on 31-Aug-22 @ 3.09am.
I'm working in Fredericton (where? - look it up!) where it's just after 11pm again as I write.


Must admit you had me interested enough to look that one up and a very nice part of far eastern Canada it looks too, New Brunswick, which I had heard of, as Tim mentioned. One of those places that has magnificent autumn (fall) displays in that part of the world such as over the border in New Hampshire and that part of the world about to explode with vibrant colours. I've a geography O level Tim and never knew that part was called The Maritimes, thanks for teaching me something. Always learning!

It was somewhat amusing to see the judgement being made based purely on the time of day somebody left their comment. Time differences in this case, night work like Robbie mentioned in his case, straight forward insomniacs or even those who may be depressed and able to function best at night.

Another judgement was that because you had a year from hell as you described it, then it must have meant your whole schooling was much the same. Yet here you are coming through with a highly positive general state of mind and outlook probably not what some expected to hear. Good for you. You actually seemed at that age to be comfortable in your own skin and that is the key foundation to confidence and therefore a naturally positive stance that flows from it. Yet even in your case you managed to get it knocked out of you for a period of time in school.

Two further points, I found your realisation you actually liked doing rugby quite interesting. Doing it was better than thinking about it maybe, like so many things can be. I wonder if anyone else here had a similar discovery over something they thought they wouldn't like and took to and enjoyed in PE or for that matter any other school aspect.

Like Tim, I'd also like to hear about why you as oldest and not your 4 siblings got the grammar chance and the effects, if any it had amongst you.

Garth

Thanks for your post - New Brunswick, I suspect, must be starting to enjoy 'Fall' at this time.

I found your post interesting, especially the comments about your brothers & sister going to the local comp. whilst you went to the local Grammar. Just out of interest, was there any rivalry or friction between them & you over this?

Your phrase:
'bullied (I still have trouble with using that word about myself) was possibly some kind of misplaced jealousy' - Yes - I can agree and relate to that - even into adulthood.
Enjoy the Maritimes!
T

I'm working in Fredericton (where? - look it up!) where it's just after 11pm again as I write. A couple of nights ago it was also about 11pm when I sat down and penned my piece. But thanks anyway for the charmless night time keyboard warrior jibe, it takes a lot of effort to sustain such unpleasantness.

Many thanks for the other reply Alan. Aside from the little story I told my own education was quite decent and I was the oldest of five children and the only one my parents made the effort to put me through a grammar school. My three brothers and sister all went to local comprehensives but all bar one have done equally well for themselves. None of my brothers or sister had any major problems at school with anybody so it was rather ironic I suppose that I came across somebody like I did early on in my grammar.

I was one of those really fortunate types who gradually excelled academically at a range of subjects but also sportswise too whether as a team player or individually. When I arrived I thought I'd hate rugby for instance and ended up really liking playing it which surprised me a lot. We also ran very long cross country races and were often encouraged to remove our tops a lot I remember for those. Our gymwork was done without tops and this actually gave me quite a bit of body confidence by my mid teens and sharing showers with nothing on and lessons with my body out came to me quite naturally. A good job because I liked getting messy throwing myself about at rugby although washing the kit was a different matter altogether. I wrecked and tore quite a bit of kit.

I think the reason I was targeted, harrassed or bullied (I still have trouble with using that word about myself) was possibly some kind of misplaced jealousy. But anyone is susceptible to a determined harrasser/bully, and I was just too young by a year or two to be able to deal with it effectively at that moment.

It's not great to hear of others who had less than brilliant lives while they were in school and to be at what amounted to a condemned school where you all knew it sounds quite unsatisfactory and very unfair on not just the pupils who went there but the staff who worked there. But that is still no excuse to just give up on the job and people is it. It sounds soul destroying and if you are a clever or very clever pupil at such a place then it's going to leave one long shadowy legacy which I presume it has in your case.