Burnley Grammar School

Alan how can you possibly accuse your school of humiliating you just for asking you to dress in a way that is perfectly within the norms of physical education? Any humiliation was what the teacher and kids said to you but not the mere act of showing up in just your shorts in itself.

A little story of mine about schooldays humiliation.

If you want to know what horrible humiliation is at school then I can help out with this. Back around April/May 1980 two boys my age, 14, got a month suspension and a third ringleader the same age was expelled from my school for 'attacking/humiliating' another boy in a ground floor changing room after a swimming lesson at our local leisure centre. With our teacher absenting himself briefly they pushed a large swing window wide open and got hold of him while naked taking his swimming trunks off and dangled him upside down outside the window by the ankles before letting him go. Trying to climb back in they slammed the window shut while some other boys attempted to re-open it and a minor scuffle broke out between sensible lads and these other class idiots. I was one of the innocent bystanders to it. The boy they hung out the window had to make a walk back around into the building with nothing on. This could be seen from the nearby busy road with people about, the reason they did it to him, and also other users in the leisure centre. The boy was in bits afterwards and did nothing to deserve it. It was completely random and unexpected.

The management of the swimming pool noticed what was going on before our actual teacher did and were absolutely furious at this behaviour and although it was only three idiots out of 25/30 of us our whole swim class for the rest of the school year was cancelled and we couldn't go back for the whole summer ahead as planned. Our school took it very seriously and even though I'd done nothing every single one of us in that class was made to write out a written apology in a separate letter in an exercise in collective guilt by association, which was a humiliation for us as well I suppose. Most of us hated those class idiots for wrecking everything for us and were very pleased with what happened to them.

I wonder how well that individual now remembers that, because I still do and it didn't happen to me directly. We all know kids have boisterous fun but all I remember was how determinedly nasty they were in this instance. That lad was humiliated badly, so were the rest of us and also the whole school felt humiliated too.

Your school change left you completely the opposite way around to me Chris. There was a big difference in my two schools. It kind of makes you wonder what makes varying schools behave so differently from each other where one insisted on a full and proper kit and another insisted you get it off and keep it off. I see nothing wrong being pro-choice with the whole thing and I applaud your own approach, but it seems the only pro-choice decision was our former teachers who liked compulsion one way or another.

Not so unusual Andrew. Infact I've got an i.t.a early learners reading book from about that same period when my oldest sister began school which has a lot of pictures in the style they used to do them in the well known ladybird books and on one page there is a drawn picture of a small boys and girls PE class with ten of them together all topless with lady teacher, the drawing makes them look about 6 or 7, and they must be a mixed class because I'm sure that half the boys were not going to school with pig tails in the 1970's even if some have top knots and fancy styles now that look quite androgynous. It's really no big deal is it, or at least it shouldn't be. It wasn't then but some would cast doubts in this day and age and find problems where none exists.

Well I can lay claim to doing mixed P.E class without my top on with the girls too. Okay so I was only five or six years old at the time we did this back in the mid seventies but time and again our rather severe old bag of a teacher who looked 80 but was likely 40 and had a horrible looking large grey bun on her head took the weekly P.E lesson on the floor of the school hall and none of us, either boys or girls had any tops on, topless the lot of us with nowt on our feet. We all changed together at our tables and put our clothes in front of us and just walked out the door and the hall was not too far away. This was how P.E was for the whole first year of my schooling. That seemed unremarkable then and who knows if any of our parents even knew that's how we did P.E with each other, I've no idea, but that's how we did it together, bare chest and foot. Some of it involved physical contact too, with piggy backs and linking up as well as using hoops and balancing along beams, throwing bean bags and so much more. If boys or girls didn't have their P.E shorts to wear on the day for whatever reason then it was just pants or knickers instead or possibly something found out of lost property if it was available. If I close my eyes and think back I can visualise these lessons so clearly in full colour and almost feel the atmopshere of that hall, the smell it gave off and the aroma of our teachers perfume. What I can't remember is anyone being bothered doing P.E like that.

Alan that's awful of your teacher to pass comment and lay you open to further comments from others in the class. What is a man like that thinking, and the trouble is that those who are sensitive get massively damaged by it while those who have thick skins can bat it away assertively. I'd have been the latter, I took no prisoners at school and gave as good as I got in anything, including PE. I was nothing like as confident as I probably looked but I tried to project otherwise and I think it worked.

To Chris, some girls can get envious of boys ability to strip off everything. I'll admit to being a bit so myself although even if it was possible I doubt any of my girlfriends in school would have been brave enough. Anyway there were lots of girls in school with me that found the bashful boys rather endearing, we don't all go for the over confident cocky ones with ripped torsos you know.

Dylan and Robbie: It is humiliatimng when said teacher makes personal remarks about your physique, to a classful of lads who take up the remarks. I don't want to say any more about it. That is how I felt and no hyperbole

"The one size fits all attitude is the problem."

This works both ways. When I changed secondary schools at age 15, I moved from a school where topless PE had been ithe norm for two or three years without any obvious opposition from pupils, to one where tops were absolutely required for all forms of physical activity bar swimming. A group of us who had come from topless-PE environments, and who were all anxious to continue the experience, tried again and again to get the PE master to let us take our tops off, but to no avail.

There is a vast difference between feeling humiliated, as Alan says he felt, to feeling self conscious or embarrassed if you ever got told to take your shirt off and have a bare top half of the body. Humiliation is a very strong word, why humiliation? It sounds like you took it very personally but I guess everyone else was exactly the same alongside you, or were you deliberately confronted with what you yourself looked like by others?

I never thought there was any real need for my teacher to tell our class to all take our shirts off for PE on a regular basis. We could have done it just as well with our tops on no problems. Some of my teachers were the shirts off kind and a couple of others weren't.

The one size fits all attitude is the problem. You get a class of boys and tell them all to do the same thing and some won't mind and others will. Shirtless PE is a great example of this actually. But you'd rarely get boys openly complain that they had to do a bare chest class like that would you and I strongly suspect that even you Alan who felt humiliated didn't give rise to your concerns either did you.

Dylan, I'd say it depends on whether shorts only is the regular kit for boys' PE, as it was at your school. If that's what you're used to in every lesson then I agree it probably wouldn't feel humiliating.
My PE teacher (early 90s) would sometimes make boys he caught misbehaving in class take their vests off and do the rest of the lesson in skins. That happened to me more than once and it did feel humiliating to be only boy in the class with his top off. Which I'm sure was the intention. It was effective because it made me feel like the odd one out, as well as impressing on me a connection between being barechested and being punished. Did anyone else feel that was the case, or just me?
At least when we did team sports as vests and skins - and I got chosen as a skin - there were plenty of other boys who also had to take their vests off, not only me.

@ Alan: Why did you say it was humiliating to wear shorts only? I suppose we are talking about an boys only class with all the pupils the same, i.e. barefeet and barechested? In my secondary school in the 80ies we wore white shorts only for all indoor activities and it never occurred to me that this could cause a feeling of humiliation.

There is a comment just yesterday from someone who saw a group doing a PE lesson as 'skins' Alan. It's on the Clitheroe school board. It was written as if he was surprised to see it.

To Jim: Shorts only, nothing else, which is humiliating when you reach your teens - and we are not talking about just after the war, though we had an ex Army teacher - we are talking about times when people were meant to be more informed and sympathetic to the feelings of others. This is the reason I get angry when I read on here of some teachers almost boasting about what they did and what they got away with. It is also the reason why I am glad kids don't have to go through the same draconian behaviour today. The YT video (depsite not being allowed footwear even a decade ago) shows a more tolerant teacher who isn't seeking to embarrass or belittle the pupils.

Chrid G - (Chris?)

I checked that video out. I think the judgement was probably being made based on the age of the boys in that gym. By their age I think you might expect them to have developed a bit more confidence in those gym tasks. I know I would have been expected to do much of that before I arrived at the big school.

Alan - you said the style of that video lesson would have made you comfortable. What made you uncomfortable in such classes out of interest? What was your gym class uniform/kit and how well did you manage?

Tony said:
"That gym lesson from 10 years ago, laughable. How many boys were trying to help someone over that horse? Aren't you meant to do it by yourself?"

Would you have been able to perform that particular vault st the first time of asking?
And I suspect the inevitable "elf and safety" would have intruded somewhere. This class was obviously learning a manoeuvre, not giving a polished display.

Jack I feel your frustration as it was for us too "one rule for them and another for us" we were required to be barefoot for our indoor PE classes but the teacher was always wearing nice trainers but if anyone dared enter the gym wearing anything on their feet they were sent back to the changing rooms and told to return barefoot.

You have to push a bit or you don't get very fit. In the end that's the point. I'd have hated that lesson because it looked like there was mostly a lot of standing about doing nothing very much whilst one or two at a time did things. Have a really good look at that 2012 gym and it becomes clear quite quickly that nobody is doing very much at all. Mind you even the old photo with this thread shows the boys standing about a bit. In my own gym/PE classes we got there and got stuck in right away. I don't remember very much standing about gazing at other in them. Most times as soon as we had all assembled it was a case of darting from one wall to the other about ten times as rapidly as we could, so we were gasping, already sweating and out of breath even before the main lesson had started properly. I wouldn't call it a 'drill' though.

I see two other here called out George G yesterday. I'm not sure whether George was being deliberately provocative because to have read through that comment by Richard and then elected to come back with that question beggars belief. I agree with Tanya that it has become very creepy and obvious to some of us here why this happens. I don't know whether this George is the same one who Ambrose sent a link back to 2013 with recently and claimed to be a PE teacher, I'll guess not because no genuine PE teacher on here would go around asking things like that, but then again maybe George would be the kind of teacher, if he were ever to have been one, who was one of theose who lined boys up and pulled out their shorts to look down and check their underwear status for a thrill like some have said happened in the past. So George what motivates you asking such a question please?

You have to push a bit or you don't get very fit. In the end that's the point. I'd have hated that lesson because it looked like there was mostly a lot of standing about doing nothing very much whilst one or two at a time did things. Have a really good look at that 2012 gym and it becomes clear quite quickly that nobody is doing very much at all. Mind you even the old photo with this thread shows the boys handing about a bit. My own gym/PE classes we got there and got stuck in right away. I don't remember vert much standing about gazing at other in them. Most times as soon as we had all assembled it was a case of darting from one wall to the other about ten times as rapidly as we could, so we were gasping, already sweating and out of breath even before the main lesson had started properly. I wouldn't call it a 'drill' though.

Mike and Tony. Regarding that You Tube, with all due respect, like in our time at school, not all boys are naturally gifted at gymnastics and at least those boys look more relaxed and comfortable, than the header picture here, or other examples we have seen. I don't think these days there is any need to drill them as if they were going through basic training in the military - most of those lads will work in shops, offices and the few factories that are left. Things have to be more relaxed these days because society, on the whole is more relaxed. Of course, for lads who are very gifted in gymnastics and sport there are loads of out of school clubs and gyms they can join, free or at discounted memberships. This 2012 school looks like one I would have been comfortable in.

I played the clip left on here by Mike from that gym class. It brought back memories readily. My teachers seemed to work on the 'Boris Johnson orthodoxy of making the rules and then not abiding by them themselves. When I looked at that ten year old You Tube gym clip the first thing I noticed was that every single boy without fail was not wearing trainers. Just the same as my gym classes in the past which were no shoes and socks all round. I so hated that! The second thing I noticed was that unlike the boys there the gym teacher was wearing his trainers. Just like mine always did too, but when we sometimes asked if we could wear our trainers it was always a no. Despite the default gym footwear being no footwear I had this really irritating fella who as soon as we walked through the changing room door would get his stopwatch out and scream 'barefoot in the gym in 2 minutes', just incase anyone dared wear some decent pumps. One rule for them, another for us.

Thanks for that info Duncan. Handy to know.

Simon, if you wanted to suggest photos of your own for the website, the gentleman, Brian, who runs it encourages people to contact him, either by making a comment on the "Guestbook" page or by e-mailing him (his e-mail address is under "Contact Us" in the far bottom right hand corner of the home page).

Why George, why that question again, why do you have a need to know that, why?

I agree with you Andy. When I first saw that record breaking post from retired Robert I thought it might get a negative reaction. Good to see it treated positively. I learnt something worth knowing from it.

That gym lesson from 10 years ago, laughable. How many boys were trying to help someone over that horse? Aren't you meant to do it by yourself? Just compare that sorry spectacle to some of the olden days 60's to 90's lessons of the past and weep. Such a huge class too, far too big and just one teacher, unless the one filming was also one. That did not give me a favourable impression of a modern PE lesson. I hope it wasn't typical of the past few years or even that school. Quite why they wanted to post that on You Tube I don't know.

Just look at the state of this lesson from the North East of England from 2012 and what looks like a complete lack of fitness, ability or co-ordination. It doesn't begin to compare with how we did things in school at that age where even the worst of us was better than this lot.

https://youtu.be/pBzVRD82lM8

Here we go again trying to drag it back to that, give it up George G, don't you realise how creepy your question sounds?

Robert Coulson - Teacher 1967-2009 on 13th May 2022 at 21:03

Thank you for all that info, it helps to develop understanding of what was normal back then and it was these men (with the exception of the classic 'French mistress') who educated me during the 1960s and early 70s.

Richard, as well as the shock of having to remove your p e top, were you allowed to wear anything under your shorts? or did you wear underwear for pe at your previous school?

I'm someone who also changed schools while at secondary age and I found a lot about Rich's post relevant to me too, strikingly so.

We never did proper warm ups in p.e. We were always expected to get stuck straight into things. This often left my muscles aching like hell, especially my biceps and arms a lot and the aches could take days to ease away, just in time for the next lesson which would send me right back aching again. Looking at the b & w '59 photo words that spring mind immediatley are 'aching' 'cold' 'miserable' and 'echoey'. We needed proper warm ups, those gyms could be on a par with a fridge at certain times of the year.

I'll chalk another primary maypole up here as well. We always made merry around that thing, must have done it half a dozen times when it was taken out onto the tarmac playground. We just wore normal clothes I think, possibly with black 70s style plimsolls, if anyone knows the type I mean that everyone seemd to own. A shame we can't submit our own photo memories on here isn't it.

A story about my school change.

Thirty five years ago my workaholic father's job meant I had to move school when I was halfway through my third year in school when I was thirteen and a half. The school I was at and loved I had to leave behind with all my friends, most who I never saw again until I found some online a few years back and said hello. This school was fairly good but had a fairly laid back attitude especially to PE and I was allowed to do many things I actually enjoy like sprinting, squash and long jump for example and could avoid some things quite easily without much fuss being made about it. We had a designated rough outline of a PE kit we should bring and often we wore our own stuff. We always wore tops, t-shirts etc and trainers inside and out. There were showers and they got used sometimes but were a bit hit and miss. Some days you'd be asked to use them which I did, other days they were never even turned on and even if they were you'd easily walk out without using them and nobody much minded, which I also did. It worked well for me and I had no problems.

During the February half term we moved from Sussex right up to the North East of England near Sunderland and I started at my new school more or less immediatley. This was probably one of the most traumatic upheavals of my life and the move really upset me a lot generally both before it and afterwards for ages. I knew it would prove hard to fit in all over again and it did for many months before settling down.

The new school felt far less tolerant of the individual to me in all aspects. Things I could get away with back in Sussex I couldn't anymore. The very worst was PE. I liked PE at the school I'd left but became completely disillusioned at my new school. They had set lessons and everyone did much the same, and too much of it kept revolving around team games such as football outdoors or basketball inside. Neither gave me much enthusiasm. Before arriving I knew all about my actual school uniform and what I had to wear but knew absolutely nothing about how I'd be expected to turn out for various PE classes. It never even crossed my mind actually and I naively assumed I would turn out much the same as I had done so at my old Sussex school. It's pathetic how under prepared I was looking back on it.

My first PE lesson was on my third day at my new school, just after lunch and inside in a windowless and very brightly lit sporting complex. I'd come to school with my exact same PE kit I wore at my old school and expected to just slip it on and get out there doing whatever. The facilities were all very nice and somewhat better than my other old school, and it looked like a place that meant business and was almost intimidating I'd say. I felt like a complete fish out of water and it was just about to get a whole lot worse. I hadn't been worried about PE classes in the new school and was quite interested to know what I'd be doing in my first one. Until I set foot in the changing room I had not seen the face of any of the teachers but I don't remember feeling apprehensive about it. I found myself a place to stick my schoolbag and sat down to get changed into my usual PE kit, the one from my old school. Nice white tennis shoe style trainers, white socks, some mainly white coloured shorts and a white and blue t-shirt. Two completely seperate classes of boys had joined together to make up one PE class and shared the changing area. I felt quite lonely and had so far only befriended two others in a meaningful way and one of those had been assigned deliberately by my main class teacher to nursemaid me in my first few days in the place, although he was friendly and we got on.

As I changed I could see everyone else doing the same and thought nothing of it. School shirts and ties were coming off and so did mine and on went my t-shirt and at that point I suddenly became aware that a large number of the boys around me had not reached into their bags for a t-shirt to put on. There was still no PE teacher in the changing room either. It suddenly hit me like a ten ton brick that they were not going to be putting a top on, they were going to stay like that and I was sitting there thinking shall I still keep my t-shirt on or not. Then a couple of smirks and a dozen faces looking at me and some laughter. I really didn't fancy it but I thought I better get the t-shirt off a bit quickly and as I did this the boy who was my being my new boy mentor told me they did PE like that inside nearly every time. All I can remember was this sense of stomach churn and a light headed other worldliness and I began internalising all this rather unexpected developement very rapidly indeed. I had never done a PE lesson like that at school ever and didn't want to very much either.

There was no teacher in the changing room at the start of the lesson, we all went to the class location and he met us there and he noticed me as new boy and was perfectly nice, more than I expected actually. He kept me aside and asked me some questions where I'd come from and what I did in my old school PE and I told him how different it seemed and that I was very nervous not having a t-shirt. He laughed reassuring me that he'd soon give me plenty of confidence to forget about myself and off I went into my first ever new school PE lesson without a top and we did trampoline, high bars, bench presses, and trapeze. It felt a very strange thing to do at the time.

I was horrifically shy in those first few days and weeks and some of the boys knew it and gave me a ribbing about it but as time wore on that PE teacher's words slowly came true and I forgot myself but doing PE like that I also took a lot more interest in how I looked.

Unlike my old school we all had to take a shower together rather than choose if we wanted to. But on balance and when I look back from a safe distance I think I got more benefits from going to the new school back then which made me do things I'd not done before and made me do them and pushed me even in directions out of my own private comfort zone than being in my old Sussex school that let us just get on with it much of the time and do so many things on our own terms.

Detailed well documented read Robert Coulson. What did you teach? We need more like that. This that I highlighted below from someone else here was rubbish wasn't it Robert, you seemed too agree, yes?

Comment by: Christy on 30th April 2022
I've looked at those posts Ambrose. I'm sceptical. Very sceptical.

One bit got me in particular. Sixties training college advising/encouraging PE staff to jump into the school showers with pupils just to supervise. Come on, really? Any proof out there I can read that corroborates this teacher training advice from back then? Keen to read it if so.

That was a mighty good read Robert, thanks for posting/pasting it. It took me as long as one of my entire double periods to wade through but that's not a criticism.