Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Ken on 27th April 2023 at 21:40
Between 1951 and 1955 I was away at a boarding school for boys.

I was minded to write because I have seen so many of you on here take great issue with the upper half of the body being shown off whilst in PE. This was the usual way boys did PE as a boarder at my school too. It didn't appear to be an issue in any way at all. It was something we would do without thinking, because actually we had even more to lose.

The younger boys, of which I was one in 1951 would never wear a costume to swim. We would have completely naked swimming instruction weekly, if my mind is correct until the age of possibly about 13. Once again, there were no complaints, I refer to the deference of the time again. Your tutors were without question and you did what they said. They were always right, or so they wanted you to believe. Personally I would not have chosen to do that but the novelty soon faded and it seemed completely normal within our school community. It was more than 20 years later when one of my lifelong friends from school caught up with me, now a lecturer himself, sometime in the 1970's and I found out how much he deplored our school and our compulsory naked swimming class with something like 20 boys. I did not feel so strongly and accepted it for what it was at the time and place it happened.







Well that part was quite interesting Ken. I didn't seem to do much swimming at school but did spend time larking about with my clothes off in a weir near home with other kids during two or three summers about 55 years ago. We got into enormous trouble doing it one day, I think more for trespassing and the water danger rather than discarding all our clothing and frolicking about naked outside. It was not a very public area anyway, that's why we did it, and it would have been easy for someone to accidentally drown and not get proper help. Those were the risks kids took then.

My late grandfather told me about doing something similar at school more than a century ago in the 1910's and I always used to think he embellished a lot of his olden days stories that he would tell me in his old age.

Here is a site that seems to take a critical look at this kind of swimming and whether all is what it seems when researched. There does not seem to be anything British on it that I noticed at a quick glance but I've not had an exhaustive read of it.

https://pixnudeswim.com

I had all my PE lessons through comprehensive in the mornings only, good point about having the lesson just after lunch if you have a big appetite. Never even considered that. At my school the set school dinner would never have blown you out but at another one I went to you could pay for whatever you wanted and have as much as you could afford.

My PE teacher drew attention to my belly button which stuck out a little bit, telling me and anyone else in earshot that I was quite rare like that, thus instantly making me feel self conscious and fixated when I hadn't been at all or even noticed such differences. PE at the secondary school I attended was shirtless for gym every Monday straight after lunch, and as I liked my food and filled my face in the school canteen I was often doing PE on a very full stomach and felt it noticed to look at because we had our shirts off and a teacher once made a "too many chips" quip at me. I was average weight, not fat. We were not allowed to put tops on in that lesson. I think I began eating a lot less on Monday's just so I was doing PE on less of a full stomach.

In the same lesson someone smacked a ball against the wall, nothing unusual in that, except it hit the fire alarm box and cracked the glass setting it off and sending us all outside only ten minutes into the lesson. A couple of teachers lent one or two their coats to cover and warm up while the rest of us just braved it and shivered until we got back inside.

Link doesn't work at all. How did you manage it then Tim, do tell us.

I wasn't especially interested in reading that link but based on what others have said compared to you Tim I thought I'd also have a go and it's the same result for me also, the link "Sidona" provided simply does not work and I've used it on Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Firefox and also CCleaner internet browsers.

The Sidona & Sid issue does not make a great deal of sense to me I must say. If Sid has used someone else's words then why, although there was an explanation, but then considering they were written such a long time ago now it also seems incredible that the alleged original poster just happened to notice immediately themselves and answered back when there is no evidence they have been active here for an eternity.

If anyone remembers the Maypole chat this time last year which took off somewhat, I've just noticed some kids about 10 near me at the local school looking like they are practicing around one in their PE kits.

Folks - this is most interesting - because I've tried it in several browsers and it opens OK for me. Have you got any 'restrictions' on the web addresses you can access?
(Personally I wouldn't bother too much!)
T

The link doesn't work for me as well TimH, and I've made multiple attempts.

No need to make too much of a big deal about it this one time though. Copying is actually a very schooldays thing isn't it, I remember how I often used to shield my work with my hand from a rather thick boy in class who was always looking across at my books in maths to use what I had already done.

Going back to Craig's bareskin running reminds me of a very early morning last summer when I left the house shortly after 4am and it was just becoming bright when in the park near me where I was having a walk and expecting to be completely alone I suddenly found two shirtless male runners coming towards me, I was surprised to see them and I think they were to see me too. It was more the fact they were both out jogging just after 4am that surprised me rather than them being shirtless as they went. It was a warm summer night after all.

The link does not work for me either Tim, cut and pasted into various browsers.

This is quite a strange little plagiarism spat isn't it.

I agree with you Andy.

Sidona your comment from 2010 makes clear you are a male, but the name you use is female. Also, are there any further examples of comments on here you can point us to or was that the only one and have you really been reading this for so long without ever writing another comment until now?

Something doesn't quite add up here.

Jim
The link does work - at least for me
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/barefootdad/pe-kit-shirtless-barefoot-and-no-underwear-
t95.html

(I have no connection with Sid or Sidona!)

T

Sidona, that link does not work. I'm not convinced. You have not posted on here in very many years so it seems and have instantly discovered a 13 year old post, a post older than a lot of current secondary school kids!

Whatever the case, what Sid (or you) wrote seemed okay to me and if it has been lifted from you then just feel flattered that something so old was deemed worthy of another mention. What's that old cliche - immitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Please see:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/barefootdad/pe-kit-shirtless-barefoot-and-no-underwear-
t95.html

You might have to read down quite a long way.

TimH

I've been found out plagiarising my own words and recycling them again from many years ago but I thought they were worth repeating at the current state of the discussion and had placed a broadly similar comment elsewhere on a couple of other boards. I do believe I may have just been what is known as gaslit. I do much prefer forums where the name has to be fully registered to post.

Looks @ Sidona - nods sagely ...

Yes ... a fair bit of copying there.

T

In the early to middle 1970's when I crossed over from primary to secondary school both the schools at the younger and older age group ran their indoors gymnasium PE lessons in what I suppose would be considered the purest form, and that was everyone went to PE in their bare feet and nothing else and boys were not permitted to put any type of top on and all in class were shirtless. We wore very dark navy blue shorts to PE, and could wear our underpants beneath them although I definitely know that I saw some in my class of the time in secondary removing their pants and just wearing the shorts alone through choice. I always think of this very minimalist turn out for school PE to be the purest form of attire for the subject.

In primary girls shared the indoors lesson and the swimming class. Outside the boys did the more gender stereotypical things and the girls their own.

The primary school I was at told boys to shower. The boys changing room had a quite cramped oblong shower area we all had to use with a little brownish coloured glycerin bar of soap we rubbed directly onto our skin all over ourselves which foamed very easily and quickly when in contact with warm water. Even in primary we were not allowed to miss out on this requirement usually more associated with the 11+ school age group in the bigger schools. The girls did not shower like the boys at primary because the girls changing room was smaller than the boys one and did not have a shower which perhaps many of them were grateful for.

I remember playing in the street where I lived with other boys from school at primary age and being outside looking no different to when I was in school PE, possibly wearing some sandals and shorts and leaving it at that. A couple of times I went around my friends back garden at the rear of our house with others from school and there was a small inflatable pool set up in the middle of the lawn and four or five of us were larking around the garden completely stark naked at the age of 8 or 9 not even bothering that someone else's mum saw us or anyone else peering over a quite low garden fence, and when there was an orange juice offered we went in and sat around the dining room table drinking it and not putting anything on to do so before going back outside.

Unlike others who felt the switch to bigger schools at 11+ it really held no fears for me because I think I'd gained an immense amount of confidence and a carefree attitude by being at primary like that and having young friends who didn't care about hanging out around someone's house like I've described.

It's an innocence from the early 70's that needs to be reclaimed.

Sid - your blatant plagiarism of my post from 2010 is noted and hereby placed on record. CEASE and DESIST!

Heather you made some good points but do you mean stripped off only inside? I was packed off to boarding school when I was 8 and though a vest was on the kit list it was marked for "outside use only at teachers discretion" Our day (except for Sunday) started with an early morning run around the school field with everyone stripped off. We also had a 1.5 hour PE/Games lesson timetabled daily. In the gym we were stripped off which was a good thing as we were pushed to show sweat. When we were outside we'd either all be stripped off or we'd play vests vs skins with the teachers choosing who'd strip. Every lesson had a barechested element to it and we never had a lesson where everyone kept a vest on.
Some adapted quicker than others but once we'd adjusted it was okay but the winter months were hard and there was never any let up. If we didn't meet the teachers expectations we'd do a 2hr session usually outside and always in our own time to make up for it.

Darren, your comment is very interesting indeed. But I don't think you have to be an automatically hugely confident and self assured person to be the type that casts their stuff off to go on a run. I think you could still have a modest personality and do so. On the other hand I am reasonably comfortable in my own body and not a great deal ever concerned me at school along those lines compared to others, however I would not choose to run shirtless as a mature adult now, but then I don't think I'd choose to run, full stop. When not driving I make sure I get my exercise using two wheels and a saddle rather than two feet, other than walking of course. I drive to work because of the strange hours I do, but other than that I'll always opt to pedal.

Where abouts in the country are you then John?

Your own interest in this just goes to prove my point about how surprisingly easy it was to get a group together who wanted to start doing this when I began doing it not so long ago.

Saturday evening we ended up with 7 and got in at around 9pm, just about after dusk fell. It was the perfect running evening from my point of view, neither warm nor chilly, and not breezy, plus dry. We did about 18,000 steps which was approximately 7 or 8 miles at a very steady pedestrian pace doing so in an hour and a half. Some of us finish up dripping sweat and others hardly notice a thing.

A girls view here... A boys kit should either be a vest or bare chest. There's nothing wrong with boys taking tops off in PE/Games and a vest is easy and quick to remove/add to make up two teams. Boys really should be encouraged to remove their tops...why? Well it's far more manly and I think gives boys a sense of worth and a way of identifying with who they are. Personally I wish we'd had the option to wear sports bras instead of the uncomfortable Aertex tops we had to put up with, life would have been easier. As it was it wasn't until I left school that I was introduced to running in a sports bra and I can truthfully say I've never once thought about going back either. Go on break the mould - it doesn't hurt to be different.

Comment by: John on 30th April 2023 at 00:50
Replying to Craig and his post of 29th April,
Please could you let me know how to join the Bareskin Running Club WhatsApp group. I would like to join the group for a few runs this summer.



Whatsapp groups are easy to set up like this if you're on the app. You could set your own one up couldn't you John, and see how many takers you get in your neck of the woods. Unless you live very close to the one already mentioned here, nice coincidence if so. I'd definitely give something like that a go.

As a schooldays shirtless phobic when at school doing PE in my teenage years and as someone who has never done anything like it again since as an adult now in my forties I find myself strangely drawn to the comments by Craig about the bareskin running. I'd like to know what the actual motivations are for doing this rather than just running 'normally' with a shirt on. Are self worth/esteem issues involved in this or are you all just hugely self assured confident people anyway. I wonder if it is something that bare chest phobics such as myself could do to 'cure' ourselves. I agree it feels completely counter intuitive for a bare chest phobic former schoolkid from 30 years ago to actually want to consider a bareskin running challenge.

Why did our PE teachers never ever even try to make an effort to talk about and confront the whole body image issue in our PE classes when they all expected us to do their lessons in many cases in only shorts, bodies mostly bared well outside of a considerable amount of pupils comfort zones and and then at the end demand full scale changing room collective nudity on top with the mandatory shower requirements.

Did anybody's teachers ever give even the slightest nod to the issues here that I remember quietly talking to one or two others about. Even just a few minutes acknowledgement or something. A friendly sit down to try and put everyone at ease, a bit like going on one of those plane short plane flights filled with people who have a fear of flying which I went on years ago to cure me of that and enable me to take foreign holidays with the family, which worked.

If there is anyone here much younger I'd like to know if they acknowledge such things nowadays at school. Although perhaps the fact that a lot of schools no longer shower and dress like many of us used to do in PE classes is an admission in itself that going shirtless and showering in PE is a big deal for a lot of young school age pupils, both boys and girls alike. Senior school comprehensive years were 1970 to 1974 and I left not a moment too soon and it felt like freedom. None of my PE teachers were dreadful by the standards of the day but none of them gave much care to what we thought, they just wanted us to keep doing what we were told and any push back or lip soon got a knock back I know that.

To answer Alex - if you elected to join the RAF or the Royal Navy it was a minimum of three years. You might have got away with the Army for 18 months but that was the default option - RAF and RN demanded 3 years - I know because it happened in my family.

To answer Craig - Good luck but you and your mates are doing it because you want to, not because you are being forced to. I am OK with that - also you are adults.

I think schools should require boys to take PE class shirtless, even if it is co-ed. This is an important development point for boys to become comfortable with who they are during this awkward stage. While I was growing up, I was afraid to take my shirt off in public for no other reason than my own extreme shyness and fear. Even though I could swim, I avoided things like going to the swimming pool with friends out of fear of having to go without a shirt.

Then came my first high school co-ed PE class where boys were divided into teams of skins and shirts which rotated every 5 weeks. Even though the boys and girls separated into their own groups, the skins team was required to go shirtless for the entire class, including role call. One can only imagine the paralyzing fear that I encountered upon learning this. However, I came to find out that I was not alone in my fear and as a group we were able to bond together in our efforts to confront our shirtless fears. After a couple of weeks of being shirtless for PE class two-three times per week, our anxiety eased to being almost normal. This turned out to be a very rewarding experience which helped teach me to become comfortable with my own body.

If I was give a choice, I would have remained shirted the entire time, thereby missing out on this learning experience. School is a place that should challenge its students to learn and grow by breaking through self-imposed boundaries. It is sometimes necessary to push students outside their comfort zone by imposing a requirement such as this. After I learned how to push my fear aside, I was able to participate in the summer fun activities while being shirtless, plus I learned that girls love guys who are confident in themselves.

Now as an adult I am glad my school had a shirtless PE requirement for boys. I must admit I am still a bit self-conscious about going shirtless at times, but my lessons learned from PE class allow me to run without a shirt knowing there is nothing to fear.

When I was at secondary school (single sex, boys) in the mid 1950s, regulation PE kit was white shorts and vest; back in those days, kids in the UK were expected to wear vests as underwear, except possibly during the height of summer, and most of us got into the habit of wearing our underwear vests for PE. After I had been at this school for a couple of years, the PE teacher decided that it would be healthier for us to do PE topless and, in a surprisingly democratic approach, took a vote on the matter. Neeedless to say, toplessness got a 100% vote. Although we were expected to wear vests between the changing room and the gym, this rule was honoured more in the breach than the observance and we soon got into the habit of "forgetting" to put our vests back on under our shirts after PE. With daily PE, generally in the mornings, we contrived to be vest-less for most of the school week and by the end of the first term of the new regime, most of us had stopped wearing vests to school or anywhere else, altogether.

To the best of my knowledge, I don't remember anyone experiencing "body exposure" or "self-esteem" issues as a result of this PE experience. Basically, we were spending time topless, and after childhoods spent encased in vests, shirts and jumpers, that could only be a good thing.

I have never been a runner, but have a lifelong enjoyment of walking, preferably topless, and have never encountered much prejudice while doing so.

Regards the American angle on PE that has been raised here by a couple of people - looking at the size of so many American's nowadays it looks as if they need every one of those daily PE classes but how many do the majority of them really get. When I went over there a few years ago the portion sizes were absurd and I can usually clear my plate. The food waste must be enormous and those that do eat it all get obese. I wonder what these obese children over there do in PE to try and get the weight down. I don't remember any porky looking boys at school at all. If there were comments in PE it was about being on the skinny side if anything.

For all the talk and fretting over our old school PE classes so many took in our bare chests and all that, many of our classes looked absolutely perfect physically in relation to what we now refer to as BMI (Body Mass Index). Very few British schoolboys in PE had any genuine need to worry about their shape and how they looked. You only have to look at the Burnley Grammar Boys above and my class looked much like that very many years later too.

Replying to Craig and his post of 29th April,
Please could you let me know how to join the Bareskin Running Club WhatsApp group. I would like to join the group for a few runs this summer.

Oh no Stuart that brother thing is something I avoided and I'm a twin too. But there was one thing that used to happen at my school when the school photographer came for the new school year photo - twins were always sent along to the photographer together and had the photo taken as a pair and not individuals and every school photo I have through from the age of 5 until I'm 12 is the same, no further photo's got taken after the age of 12 in the first year at secondary school for some reason. It would be nice to have had one or two separate ones as well.

Comment by: Robbie on 27th April 2023 at 04:21
Someone said to me at work talking about this site that communal showers are very common still in American schools, I have no idea if that is correct but they had worked and lived there for a while with a family, but went on to say that showers at school here in the UK and in continental Europe are no longer common which I think is quite untrue. They may not be as common as in the 60's to 80's heyday of the things I agree, but then it was close to 100% in those days. Nathan you've said your place has them and they are used but does that mean your school insists they must be used or what? I agree though that there should be more PE not less and certainly can't agree you could choose to never do any at school. I think we just sometimes have to face up to our insecurities at times, such as PE brings on, not run away from them.



Robbie, my father took the family to Portland Oregon in the States for 4 years due to his work as a construction engineer on a project there between 1978 and 1982 and I had to resettle into school over there in their equivalent year grades. In the last year grade when I was 14 before coming back home we did a PE class every single day of the week for something like 60 minutes and showered afterwards each time no get outs on those, and unlike the similar item I've found to illustrate my point none of us wore underwear, let me make that quite clear and the class sizes were larger than here in the UK. Unlike here there was very little football and far too much basketball and circuit training stuff. We also did a lot of swimming, including water polo during that five days a week PE year. Campuses over there are huge places and the facilities awesome compared to here at home. The shower rooms were absolutely huge too. I came back at 15 and had another major readjustment to what I felt were lower expectations in British schools.



This from the LA Times back in 1989.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-10-19-vw-85-story.html

Sixth-Graders Worry About More Than the Three Rs : Fears: Kids say that washing up after junior high P.E. class can be as horrifying as the ‘Psycho’ shower scene.
BY MICHAEL ARKUSH
OCT. 19, 1989

Junior high school can be pretty scary stuff for incoming sixth-graders.

Older kids might pick on you. You can get lost in the new building, moving from class to class. And the tough, no-nonsense teachers might just make you wish you were lost or being beaten up by a burly eighth-grader.

But these fears are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all.

The showers.

“They’re scared,” said Dan Witt, director of physical education at Northridge Junior High School. “You can see it in their eyes.”

State law requires students to take P.E. every day through the 10th grade. In elementary school, teachers escort students to the playground for a recreation period; in junior high and high school, P.E. means strenuous exercises and games--and showers. And fear. Physical education administrators and instructors in the San Fernando Valley say 1989 is no different than any other year; incoming students once again fear dressing and undressing before their peers.

Some won’t shower after P.E., and most schools won’t press the issue. “If the kid is going to be emotionally upset for the whole day because of being forced to take a shower, I don’t think that’s fair to the kids,” Witt said.

Some will shower only if they’re allowed to wear their underwear, and most schools accept that compromise. “A very small percentage will go in completely naked,” Witt said.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to understand why so many sixth-graders are reluctant to take public showers. This is a new experience for them, showing off their bodies to people they hardly know. Plus, as puberty creeps in, their bodies may be changing so quickly they have no time to adjust.

“One 12-year-old girl can look like she’s 7,” said Stephanie Bowen, head of physical education at Mulholland Junior High in Van Nuys, “and another like she is 30. The girls are very conscious of that. They are worried that their bodies are not as developed as they should be.

“We even have girls who will go into a bathroom stall rather than change in front of everyone. We try to tell them that other kids don’t have the time to look at them, that they are too busy getting ready for the next class. But they still are afraid.”

At Northridge Junior High, students wear towels as they walk about 20 feet from their lockers to the showers. Witt said as many as 50 out of about 900 boys refuse to take showers. Parents have written letters to the school, he said, excusing their children from showers.

Bob Coburn, chief guidance counselor at Northridge Junior High, regularly visits elementary schools to brief them about what they can expect at junior high. Invariably, the shower question comes up.

“Believe it or not,” Coburn said, “some kids believe that we all dress together, boys and girls. Their concept of junior high is so warped. And just talking to them does alleviate some of their concerns. I tell them it’s more like a public pool situation.”

At Northridge this year, Coburn said, physical education classes were divided by grade level. In previous years, P.E. classes were a mix of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Sixth-graders, Coburn said, have been a part of junior high in most Valley schools since 1980.

“This way, they’re not mixed with the seventh- and eighth-graders who have already gotten over the fear of showers,” Coburn said.

John--not his real name--is one Northridge sixth-grader who hasn’t overcome the fear. Standing by his locker after physical education class, he watched as dozens of students ran into the showers.

“I’m just afraid,” he said, staring at the ground. “I don’t like them. And I don’t have to go in.”

Witt said each week, a few more sixth-graders conquer their fears and take showers.

“But I really don’t expect things to change,” Witt said. “It’s been that way for years, and it will always be that way.”