Burnley Grammar School

Like many of the contributors to this site, I attended an all boys school.(1961 to 1966) and pe was topless wearing shorts and no underpants. For games outdoors it was football no specific uniform football shirt shorts and again no pants. We had weekly swimming lessons at the local municipal pool and exclusive to our school.. Trunks we were worn the only design at that time were the briefs style. What I do not understand is that where people have said they were at an all boys school and it had it's own pool , it often seems that the boys would not wear swimwear. Was there a logical reason for this, because pe would not be conducted without shorts.

when shorts were worn for pe,

Jono G: Isn't it nice to know so many of us were put to embarrassment and discomfort just to satisfy prurient schoolgirls?. I think this argument, if argument it is, is yet another demonstration of the failure of co-ed education. School as youth club

Robin, My school was mixed and the PE teachers had us exercising bare chested indoors and frequently outdoors too. It was school policy all boys entered the gym wearing vests then be told to drop them and go bare chested. With the large reinforced windows that ran the length of the gym it was easy to see boys stripped to the waist, exercising and showing sweat and that's what girls saw daily simply by looking through the windows. There was ribbing from the girls but it wasn't nasty but did bring comments about how we looked and performed bare chested and comparisons with boys from other classes they'd seen stripped off too.

Leeds Lad: Yes, sometimes I| was, and I wasn't trying to downplay the effect it could have - I just meant with the teacher we had and his moods and whims, it came it bit lower in my list of worries..

Robin: I agree with a lot of what you say, however, your remarks about how much it pleased co-ed boys to be the focus of the girls attention (other posters have made the same point), I don't think what is visually appealing to girls or boys ought to be at any level of what makes for good teaching.

I think single sex education is better, especially when you have the boys treated more toughly and the girls more leniently under the same roof.

I am sure if it had been the case that the boys wanted to look at girls in bikinis (the nearest equivalent I can think of) that girls would have been encouraged to parade around in that manner, in fact I am sure it would have been bought to a swift end. It makes it seem like boys who liked to be admired, girls who enjoyed voyeurism and teachers with fetishes were conspiring together. Bad luck for the more shy boys who didn't want attention

Well Alan, I can only assume you were never the one left till last. Lucky you! ;)

Leeds Lad: I am not trying to play it down, but compared to the other indignities we had to go through that one never bothered me. As regards the teachers, they had in general so little interest in the psychological wellbeing of their pupils, I doubt it even crossed their minds

Hello all, I've read the sentiments of some of the people posting below and I agree students being made to strip down for games/PE should not be a thing in this day and age (and it largely isn't as far as I'm aware).Certainly I don't doubt that it was commonplace in decades past, or that it might have benefited students to experience it but times change and attitudes shift. We have of course become much more aware and cautious of adults in positions of authority ie. teachers having unsavoury intentions towards students.

For myself, I did experience a fair amount of shirtless PE in my time but mostly on a voluntary basis. With the exception of forgetting our PE kit, we could choose to go shirtless for some PE activities if we wanted such as indoor gym sessions or cross country runs or any other activity the teacher deemed appropriate. In truth, our PE lessons were not as intense as some of those described here but we were encouraged and pushed hard based on our individual ability. Like most of the boys in my class, I was initially reluctant to take my shirt off, especially in front of our female classmates but a few did strip willingly and were bare chested virtually for every lesson. I recall being impressed by their physiques and also noting the increased attention they got from the girls. Eventually, having built up my fitness to a point, I did overcome my nerves and for the first time went shirtless for a cross country run and it turned out to be not nearly as bad as expected. In fact I earned a number positive comments on my body from some of the girls,including my best friend. From then on I tended to strip down more frequently as I found out having my bare chest on display to the girls was a very good motivator for staying in shape and laying off the junk food!

That being said, while I personally had a more positive experience being shirtless as did many other posters here, I can't discount the fact that no doubt a great many others did not and dreaded having to strip down for such lessons. And surely any positive benefit is outweighed by the potential harm students might suffer from such practices. In any case, PE/Gym is only one part of a students education. Children, especially teens already have a lot on their plate in today's world between the rest of their studies, hormones, social media etc. They shouldn't also have to worry about their bodies being on display to their peers.

A lot of people seem to have strong feelings on what they were and weren't allowed to wear in PE / Games lessons, and what showering arrangements were in place. Far more upsetting for me was the humiliation caused by letting pupils "pick" each other for teams. PE teachers should have realised that, and picked the sides themselves, in my opinion.

In my case it was most certainly abusive. None of my classmates wanted to be shirtless outdoors in snow and subzero temperatures while the gym was empty.

The fact the other PE teacher was a rational human being and didn't subject us to the same treatment left us in little doubt even then that it was abuse.

This was our standard PE kit at school for anything that was not rugby or swimming. Rugby was boots, socks, shorts and jersey - no underpants of course and in an all boys school with its own pool, swimming was naked. A towel was required for all sports sessions and a (communal) shower compulsory at the end of the lesson. The shower was luke warm at best and more often icy cold.

I loved sport, I still keep fit - if only my gym was open!

John wrote: "Just because a few lads disliked exercising without a shirt or vest doesn’t make how we were made to do XC wrong or in any way a form of abuse."

As we are writing in January with snow on the ground in a lot of places in the British Isles, I think many reasonable people WOULD consider it abuse. It is 2021, not 1921.

Dan P - sorry, I don't follow the logic of what you said about cross-country competitions. Why did the teachers from the opposing school make their boys strip to the waist when they saw your team? Wouldn't it be more logical for them to keep their tops on so it'd be easier to tell who was running for which team (similar to what Robert related)?
At my school (early 90s) we did indoor sports with one team topless but not outdoors as a rule, I'm glad to say!

Dan P,
I take it that you didn’t have a problem with being made to do XC shirtless. Just because a few lads disliked exercising without a shirt or vest doesn’t make how we were made to do XC wrong or in any way a form of abuse.

Robert, Being above average at xc I always made the school team. For competitions we also ran topless which really attracted attention from spectators, in addition there were many occasions when our opponents PE teachers saw us all topless before the start and reluctantly told their pupils to remove their t-shirts/vests simply to even things up.

Alan, I believe he implemented changes when promoted to Head of PE. A young teacher who had much success with the previously dismal school football team.
This obviously helped him achieve free reign

Dave, normal kit less the T-shirt. Same on sports day with a few in T-shirts to distinguish them as a team. Sports day was in summer so it wasn't a big deal.
The XC shirtless in December is something I'll never forget

Hi Robert!

What did you have to wear for inside and outsied PE (including XC).What did you have to wear on sport days?

Robert: I don't understand headmasters. If I had been head and a new man had come in who wanted to change the dress code, I would have wanted to know why, if he were a young man, he wanted to regress to the attitudes of a previous generation, and, if he were an older man, why he couldn't embrace modernity.

They are certainly wearing much more than we did during School sports days in the early 90's.

Our minimalist PE and XC kit was only introduced in the late 70s when my head of PE took up the position.
This was obvious from Team photos displayed in school.

Here is a piece of film which proves some schools in the 1930s were more advanced in safeguarding shy lads modesty in 1938 than many schools were in the 1990s:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-oldbury-county-high-school-athletic-sports-june-1938-1938-online

Andrew C: The disgusting treatment handed out to boys in even recent times would be regarded as abuse these days - certainly mental if not physical. it has to be a good thing that these days teachers are not allowed to exert too much authority. I genuinely believe all PE teachers ought to be made to under go psychiatric tests before they are allowed anywhere near schoolchildren, male or female. There was in many of them a degree of sadism that was out of all proportion

Alan, We didn't have a choice, if you were told to strip to the waist that's exactly what you did and quickly too. As an 11 year old I was caught wearing a vest under my games top when it was literally freezing and he went mad, hauled me out to the front and strip off my games shirt first and then the offending vest. The two teachers ensured I'd end up never wearing a games top again. You tend to remember things like this.

Ian, likewise we were shirtless for XC. One of our PE teachers took great delight sending us out in the worst of Northern Irish weather.
This was still the regime when I left in 1992.

Scottish grammar school for boys, mid '50s to late 60's.
On seeing the hard frost this morning, I remembered the look of delight on my PE teacher's face as he sent us on cross country in shorts and gymshoes only. Bizarrely, I came to like it with the crisp sensation on my chest.

Andrew C: Forgive me, but why the obsession with being "toughened up"?. I have already said that it might have been understandable, perhaps even beneficial, to do this in the days when 2 or 3 years after leaving school lads had to do national service, but these days it is your choice to enter one of these "tough" professions and they have their own instructors who will have their own brand of sadistic measures.

Do you need to be physically "toughened up" to work in a call centre, a burger franchise or a supermarket?. I should have said that it was pointless and not everyone aspires to be an Olympic athlete. A lot of us went through the old toughened up nonsense and all it does is to put you off for life.

Danny C, Having done many laps of the school field bare chested in all weathers I know exactly what it's like, Our PE teachers were not just satisfied with us stripped to the waist in the gym but we were expected to go bare chested outdoors in all weathers too. We'd either as a class be told to strip to the waist or they'd handpick skins and vests teams so at least half the class stripped down for the sole purpose of being ""toughened up"

Michael, I have nothing good to say about my old dump, but it is interesting that people like yourself, who clearly look down on lesser schools, automatically assume that if a police car is parked outside it is obvious the pupils have been up to no good.

I can't see how, as neither of us know the circumstances, you can come to this conclusion . Perhaps the police car was there to investigate an accident or perhaps to arrange a talk on road safety. Perhaps the school secretary had been caught shoplifting during the lunch hour - or perhaps one of the teachers had been up to no good?. Don't just automatically assume because the lads were not going on to Eton or Trinity College, that they had joined a modern day Fagin's group. Most of us who went to poor schools didn't end up behind bars

TimH - nice story, but....what about the kind of PE teacher like one I had who calls off a football game halfway through because he thinks nobody is trying hard enough? When are all very muddy, with torrential rain thrashing down, in late November when it's about 5c plus windchill, and then demands all the boys and myself remove our shirts unexpectedly, throw them on the ground and start running laps of the school playing field barechested instead, in nothing but boots and black shorts, dismissing complaints about the cold and wet by saying the sooner we run the quicker we'll warm up. All while the PE teacher stands there in multiple layers smugly gazing on, doing nothing for the next 15 minutes. Barechested punishment without doubt. Is there any defence?

Jacob - I'm not sharing my school photo via a public clickable link, I'll only consider with my own private email link.

A true story for Christmas ...

On Wednesday afternoon, in the pouring rain, I was just going into my local Post Office, as two guys in shorts & waterproof tops ran past; 'Just the day for a cross-country' I said.

Three years ago, just after Christmas a friend of mine, a retired languages teacher died, as he would have wished, in the middle of a communion service. Language teaching was his first love, but his second love was athletics, which he'd started to counter, I believe, asthma, and he went on to teach it. A favourite phrase of his, especially if it was raining, was 'Just the day for a cross-country!'.

The Minster was packed for his funeral - 700+ inside and possibly 300 outside. As the coffin came in it was preceded by an 'Olympic Torch', for in 2012 he had been 'honoured' for his work in local athletics by carrying the Torch through the streets of the town on its way to London.

The tributes were not long but made us alternately laugh & cry. A 'well-scrubbed ' youth, who'd probably not been in a church since he was christened, gave a tribute which included the sentence 'He was mad as a box of frogs: a great guy; one of the best'. Seven hundred untrained voices sang 'Jerusalem' with a vigour that the Proms or the WI cannot equal.

In the Post Office I looked at 'C', who runs marathons for a sideline - 'Nice day for a cross-country', I said. She grimmaced ...

'N' was a great guy ... I hope no-one thinks he was a pervert just because 'today's a great day for a cross-country'.

Hi Alan my school was just an ordinary mixed school. Your comments about us being young men are correct and a good number showed chest hair in the gym during lessons but there wasn't any option other than to get on with whatever the activity was.

I was interested to read the comment below, about a 'bog standard comprehensive' school.

My old grammar school was made into a comprehensive in the mid 1970s, which was, (thankfully), after I had left.

The old traditions were discarded, uniform was abolished, competitiveness became an ugly word and standards of attainment/dress/conduct collapsed.

Replacing the old "GCEs", the comprehensive's new "CSE" exams were 'non-fail'. This meant that all one needed to do to gain a 'pass' was to put one's name on the exam paper. Not much to aim for there, then!

On a subsequent visit I was dismayed to find a Police car parked outside the front entrance. My old headteacher (by then retired) would have been stricken with shame.

Although it was demanding, I was proud to attend my old grammar school, and grateful for the high standards it inculcated, which gave me many advantages in later life.