Burnley Grammar School

Matthew when I was at primary school, as well as first school, there was no segregation at all between boys and girls when we had to change for PE. We all had to go into what was our reading room, a shared room all classes used, and change together with each other, right down to our underwear and then whatever we put back on. The boys and girls would just naturally group together with each other by gender even at a very young age. This didn't bother me because much of the time we took our normal school clothes off and as boys would just walk out to PE in our shorts, nothing on our bodies or feet anyway. I definitely became more funny about this as I got older, this arrangement finally stopped when I was ten.

To Simon W
Thanks for your thoughtful and personal reply — it really brings out the heart of what I was getting at. Back then, boys weren’t just allowed to strip down for PE — they were required to. Shirtless, barefoot, no underwear — that wasn’t a choice, it was rigorously enforced. And yes, I do think it acted as a form of discipline: a way of toughening boys up, instilling obedience, and pushing them to accept discomfort without complaint. Most boys did seem very much at ease, even proud — as if they'd adapted or were trying to show they could handle it — but that doesn’t mean it was easy for all. Some just internalised the discomfort because there was no way to opt out.

And yes, as girls, we did talk about it. There was banter — often light-hearted, but sometimes sharp — about who looked confident, who looked awkward, whose body had changed, who looked younger than the rest, who had the nicest chest. It was rarely directed at anyone in particular, but I can see now how those comments, even in passing, might have added to the pressure of some boys.

That kind of enforced near-nakedness, combined with the attention it drew, made PE a far more emotionally loaded experience for the boys. For them, it wasn’t just about sport — it was a social and psychological learning field, which might have been hard to endure for the weaker ones.

Alan I read that story this morning about government and healthy food. My immediate reaction to it was - What business is it of government to tell grocery retailers how to present their produce. I think they've forgotten what a government is meant to really be doing and it isn't about telling Sainsbury's and Tesco how to run their business. Worry about food price inflation instead of waistline inflation, adults are free to eat what they like and if they end up like a 'Fat Cow' that's their own fault. What happened to taking personal responsibility?

If you'd looked the size of a shot putter at my school you'd have never heard the end of it from our PE teachers who were quick to pull boys up on any sense of weight gain, but on the other hand I also remember one man who would look at some of us and mention lack of strength and our slight frames too. Is it any wonder boys looked in the mirror at themselves like you've said Seth.

Mark comments on 27th June that four-year-olds would be less likely than secondary school pupils to feel self-consciousness about doing PE bare-chested. That may well be so, but I felt considerable embarrassment about it at infant school (albeit which I eventually overcame).

I came across a book "Perspectives on School at Seven Years Old" by John Newson (1977, reprinted 2012), containing interviews with parents of young children at a time when minimal PE kit was more common, and real resistance to it from the children was evidently surprisingly widespread.

Quoting directly (page 74): "Other complaints refer to... having to get undressed for PE", "A remarkable number of complaints had to do with the child's modesty being threatened by faulty locks on the lavatory doors... and in particular being expected to show their pants or even change altogether for dancing and PE".

One mother of a boy at infant school, referring to PE: "...to get undressed and that - he's quite upset about that. The thought of taking his trousers off, and that's it".

There are other, similar comments in the book.

Comment by: Fat Cow on 28th June 2025 at 22:58

"We should have compulsory PE for adults!"

Don't give Streeting and Starmer any more ideas. Streeting wants supermarkets to make fruit more "attractive". I can't imagine even he knows what he means by that.

We already have far too many do's and don'ts in this country already, and if you are working most of us are fit enough already.

Comment by: Fat Cow on 28th June 2025 at 22:58
'We should have compulsory PE for adults!'


It's been suggested by one of us on here that we already do.

We should have compulsory PE for adults!

The only thing is Seth that you don't see those oversized shot putters doing it shirtless do you, so why did you, and it's like it with so many other sports I remember doing at school that no actual professional athlete does at a high level shirtless. On the size thing, if you were in PE looking huge like a shot putter you'd be considered overweight and out of shape but those people are clearly fit and able for their sport. I don't see the appeal of trying to throw what amounts to a heavy rock that never goes too far anyway and doesn't bounce. We did it a couple of times at school and then moved on to other more interesting things.

Nowadays if anything was out of action you wouldn't do it, so PE would be cancelled if the shower was faulty, or you'd just not do it, you wouldn't be getting a personal hose down from a teacher, I'm not sure what to make of that but private schools do have differing ways it looks like, except it looks like state sector or private, showering and shirtless was a common theme whatever you ended up at in the mid to latter 20th century.

I'll add my name to those here who did cross country all year round in bare chests (except Dec/Jan/Feb unless unusually mild). I've seen so many comments coming from the 1970s that say the same, what was it about that time that got our sports teachers addicted to cross country like that. Normal everyday comprehensive school pupil, early to mid 70s. A fully attended bare chested boys school gymnasium was also the norm, we trailed the school corridor past a couple of classes windows to get there. Privacy, none. Laughably even the boys showers had a non frosted window on ground level beside them, one of those wired fireproof glass designs but quite clear to see through. Can you believe that Gary. We used to hang towels across parts of the window to protect ourselves and hope the steam would do the rest. The girls area was well hidden.

Hi.

I was at private all boys school thirty years ago now. Our school did most of the things described here in 1995, the showers were a must to do and a no chance to escape out of. Shirtless PE was a frequent and common requirement from all our teachers, it was often hard to see why we did PE shirtless in one lesson and not another, but you had to be fully prepared to do PE shirtless without warning at a moments notice and adjust to it quickly and without any fuss at all, in or out.

Anthony is right, adolescent young males are obsessed with what they look like. I was obsessed about my own shirtless body and what others thought about it when it was time to be shirtless in PE lessons. I used to spend a lot of time in the mirror at home looking myself over just to reassure myself I looked as I thought I should.

I remember how we used to go out and do shot putting outside shirtless, and most of the boys at school were slim, some even quite scrawny characters with few packing any extra pounds they needed to lose. I used to think how different we looked throwing this big heavy ball, the 'shot' compared to the professional athletes who you would see do it in real competition, men and women, who were large rounded overweight and almost unhealthy looking figures. There was nobody remotely close to that type of body shape in PE at school.

We were never let off the shower lark, even when they were broken. The showers in our changing room were out of action for a week once and with a bit of ingenuity someone from PE got something that looked like a posh domestic garden hose with a spray on the end of it and plugged two of them into the taps on the sinks we had. The only problem was that it gave you either hot water or stone cold, nothing in between. We got the hot tap which wasn't too scalding. So rather than allow us to go without showers we had two PE teachers make us stand in front of them inside the communal showers area and spray us back and front one by one until the situation was fixed a week later. This happened twice to me. The PE teachers were so desperate to maintain showers in school PE they went to those lengths. I found it a little bit degrading to line up to be sprayed by a teacher and twist 360 degrees with my arms up even if it did last no more than 30 seconds. We thought it was both funny, weird, bad and rather naff at the time but school was always drilling into us that where there are problems there are always simple solutions, you could say that was one example.

As a general rule I cannot remember anyone suggesting a major worry over a shirtless PE requirement or the must take showers we had. I never thought I was shy about my body but I will admit I was always thinking about how I looked in front of people.

A great many people have commented on the double standards in mixed schools.

I worked in construction. The last new high school I worked on was in 2016.
The male changing rooms were still open plan, whereas the female lockers had partitioned showers and changing areas.

Comment by: Russ on 27th June 2025 at 22:59




"....Alan, thankyou for the reply earlier this week. Poor school buildings are no excuse for poor school teachers. For peaceable boys to be in such 'violent' schools must have been just grim........"

Thanks Russ. As I have got older, I can understand, to some extent, the attitude of our old teachers (except in two cases), they were older men, they saw newer and better schools in our area, and because ours had such a poor reputation and a very low budget, I suspect that if they tried for advancement elsewhere, their applications went to then back of the queue, so they felt embittered and took it out on us - most of them it was just verbal aggression and occasional flashes of anger - throwing the board eraser etc., and I suspect they really did feel defeated, and acted accordingly. It didn't feel that way at the time!, but most of us were well behaved and did our best, but we resented them and they resented us. It wouldn't have been my way, I played trumpet in some real dumps, but I put as much into my playing as I would have done at some upmarket venue, but I was much younger than they were. I felt then, as I do now, that all school students should be treated with respect and consideration, then they will respond in kind. I find it interesting that since schools, or some schools, still maintain rigid discipline till an increased age, pupil violence, truancy and disruption seems to be much higher.

Mark, Ronnie

My mistake - I meant to put quotation marks in, but I was composing my post on my phone, and with such a small screen it's a lot less convenient than on my computer.

Comment by: Andy on 27th June 2025 at 20:11

Long time no hear, Andrew!

If you engage in a public forum, as Tony chose to do, who says he is in the very profession that this forum is about, I don't think it unreasonable that you ask them to enlarge on their pronouncements, and that is all I am doing. Of course, if he chooses not to answer that is his prerogative. With all due respect, I don't think it appropriate that you volunteer to speak for him.

As adults we no longer have to be obsequious to schoolteachers and be unquestioning - don't you agree?

It's a discussion Andy. People can choose to respond or not, their choice.

Alan, thankyou for the reply earlier this week. Poor school buildings are no excuse for poor school teachers. For peaceable boys to be in such 'violent' schools must have been just grim, and you didn't even have your own school playing field for PE and had to borrow the nearby park in your area, and went there shirtless too. It never rained but it poured for you didn't it. I did compulsory full PE class shirtless cross country a number of times outside of school itself but that's not quite the same as a regular lesson taken elsewhere entirely.

Why the hell does any school teacher have to justify themselves to you Alan? How about you start by getting his damned name right too.

Keep up those shirtless gym lessons a soapy showers Anthony Hayman, you are doing the right thing even if it upsets the sensitivities of a tiny minority. It was always thus. Some of us just grew up faster.

Comment by: Ronnie on 26th June 2025 at 21:00
"Chris G, sorry about that, I see what I did now. I read everything and didn't notice part of it was where you were quoting Mary. I read that a couple of times and didn't notice."


When people are responding to a specific comment and paste it within their own it might be a good idea if it's placed in quotation marks, it does make it easier to notice whether it is an original comment or a response to something.



Comment by: Eddie on 26th June 2025 at 16:18
"MY INDOOR PHYSICAL EDUCATION YEARS.....1967 - 1979.
First infants school aged 4 - 8....BARE CHEST, BARE FEET, SHORTS.
Junior Middle, aged 8 - 11....BARE CHEST, BARE FEET, SHORTS.
Secondary Comprehensive, aged 11 - 16....BARE CHEST, PLIMSOLLS, SHORTS."


12 years of shirtless PE at school. It's fair to say you must have been very used to it long before you reached secondary school. At the young age you started I think no children would even care or think of it as anything and hardly any children at 4 or 5 years old are self conscious and think about what they look like without clothes on. It's a shame we all get older and pick up hang ups along the way, for whatever reason some are more prone to this than others.


Comment by: Neil on 25th June 2025 at 14:31
"That's a really good and thorough explanation of why the use of school showers after PE lessons was and is still in some places deemed necessary Anthony."


I have to reluctantly agree with you. Persuasive for sure from Anthony. It would have been quite nice to have had a PE teacher say those things to my class when I began secondary school and had to shower after PE, but all they did was set them going and tell you to get in them rather rapidly and warn anyone against trying not to. A nice explanation such as that would have felt more comforting I think and educated us to why we had to do it and the benefits it would bring.

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 26th June 2025 at 20:49




".......I have never looked at bare chested PE as a negative. Adolescent boys are always very body aware, the modern media gives many of them unrealistic expectations about what is normal. Some boys are joining gyms at very young ages now to try and achieve what they see elsewhere beyond the school PE lesson."

Tony, I wonder if you have read many of the comments on here from men who were forced to go through the regime you inflict, forty or fifty years ago?. You will see how many were uncomfortable with it and remember it well into adulthood. Has it not crossed your mind that many boys today might feel just the same way? - especially if they happen to be homosexual and feel uncomfortable around naked men or boys.

You didn't answer my question: as you insist all boys shower after lessons, what would be the harm in allowing them to wear a tee shirt during lessons if they wished to do that?. Any of this amazing amount of sweat you suggest occurs in your lessons would be dealt with in the shower, and the offending tee shirts could go in with the Persil with all the other washing.

There is, in my opinion, far too much leeway given to the whims of P.E. teachers - just a few weeks ago we had a P.E. teacher on here who was quite relaxed about what boys wore in his gym, so I can;t see why they can't all be like that. Presumably he gets satisfactory results, I get the impression your school might be a private one or a grammar - with the crests on shorts and all that it sounds a bit high end. People who can afford to buy their sons shorts with crests on are clearly not on the bread line, so could afford a couple of tee shirts, if you are going to use expense as a get out. You might not regard bare chested P.E as a negative, but you can be sure some of your pupils do, even if they don't tell you so.

Chris G, sorry about that, I see what I did now. I read everything and didn't notice part of it was where you were quoting Mary. I read that a couple of times and didn't notice.

Simon W, how sad that you would go to the lengths of avoiding a birthday party invite just because there would be a pool there you didn't want to go in. Isn't it a shame that kids can't be honest with each other even if they are good friends.

I shower every day after work to the person who asked.

Physical education is about so many things, a healthy body, yes, but also a healthy mind too. Both go together. I find that self confidence grows best with the approach we foster, plus a good grounding in teamwork during PE as well as individual attainment.

I see no reason at all why a shower should not be undertaken or expected after a vigorous PE lesson. Generations of children have done this. Cleanliness is important and just being at school does not mean it should be overlooked, see my previous comment. Hot water even for a few moments is an excellent muscle soother after an hour of activity as well, so it's not just about being cleaned up.

I have never looked at bare chested PE as a negative. Adolescent boys are always very body aware, the modern media gives many of them unrealistic expectations about what is normal. Some boys are joining gyms at very young ages now to try and achieve what they see elsewhere beyond the school PE lesson.

MY INDOOR PHYSICAL EDUCATION YEARS.....1967 - 1979.

First infants school aged 4 - 8....BARE CHEST, BARE FEET, SHORTS.

Junior Middle, aged 8 - 11....BARE CHEST, BARE FEET, SHORTS.

Secondary Comprehensive, aged 11 - 16....BARE CHEST, PLIMSOLLS, SHORTS.


There's a common theme here isn't there!

The universality of it at this time is an interesting thing. Like you Simon I did a variety of sports days at all three schools without so much as a thread of fabric covering my upper body. I didn't mind, maybe others did, who knows.

Yes it is quite eye opening casting the mind back to notice if you landed up at certain schools you could end up going through your whole school time doing physical education inside various schools and none let you as a boy sling a top on once in a while. But they got me young so it was second nature to me, as a boy PE meant to me that I never wore a top and remained a bare chest and I completely accepted this was something I had to do.


Even outside we went shirtless from time to time, except in junior middle where I seem to recall we could wear a normal T-shirt and did so.

Swimming at school was considered a luxury and restricted to a few weeks per year only.

Comment by: Ronnie on 25th June 2025 at 20:03

I previously assumed you were a male Chris G.

I am! Don't know what might have made you think otherwise.

if you read back through my posting history you will see enough evidence of that. My secondary school PE CV went something like:

Years 1 - 2: Shorts, tops (vests or t-shirts or whatever)
Years 3 - 5: Shorts, bare chests (introduced with not very much notice, but generally received favourably.
Change of school
Years 6 - 8: navy rugby shorts, uniform white polo necked t-shirts (campaigns to permit voluntary topless repeatedly dismissed)

Note, these are are the years of my secondary education, not the currently used Year numbers ranging from R to 13.

Mary, you said the following at the end of your comment,

"I suppose that some men's feelings about shirtless PE might have evolved with hindsight even if they were OK with it when they were boys? I find it interesting how differently something can be remembered depending on how much time has passed."

What exactly do you mean by this? You seem to be saying that there might be people on here who have rewritten their school history and who are now claiming to be bothered by something that they were not at the time. Well let me put you right.

Everything you described in your original comment a few days ago applied to me, almost perfectly infact. I was at school a touch before you, my comprehensive school was in the late seventies, I actually left in 1980. In our school gym for PE our boys class was only allowed to put on a pair of white shorts for the lesson. No tops, no trainers, no socks, not even our pants, it was the very basic classic shirtless & barefooted look without underwear, and I didn't enjoy the look one bit when it first hit me when I was twelve years of age. It was such an incredible sense of vulnerability, I didn't like my body much at that age anyway.

One of my mates had a pool party for his August birthday in the late seventies and I didn't go to avoid a number of girls in class he told me he had invited. This was a huge rubber inflatable back garden pool. He was very upset but I just pretended I'd forgotten as it was in the middle of August out of school time without us seeing each other as much as normal. I wanted to go but nothing would make me go when I knew certain girls would be there, ones I wasn't that friendly with in class and that I would be expected to join in and bring the trunks and get in the water. I knew if I went I would not be able to sit it out and stay dry, that in itself would be almost as bad. I simply could not volunteer to take my shirt off like that, even with my friends from class who we already shared PE with that way anyway. That's the difference between being made to do things and choosing to do them. So I missed what was probably a great party afternoon with friends and upset a close one in the process and lied about my no show.

I used to get really very nervous anticipating shirtless PE lessons at school to the point I sometimes felt slightly nauseous with a queasy stomach, so the thought of it actually gave me a real physical reaction at times. I also had this ever present fear that they might allow girls to join us and this fear lasted about a month into school before it became reality one afternoon, the girls shared the boys gym once a month. I've no idea if anyone knew what I really felt about it because I said nothing while often cringing inside from complete embarrassment when the girls joined us.

Now Mary you mentioned bantering with boys. What did you mean by this, what kind of things were you actually saying? I'm pleased someone else has picked up and quoted somebody else's comment about that, well done to them for that. In my case the banter, as you call it, didn't happen in the PE lesson, the teachers were too strict to allow much fooling about, but it came after PE, at break or even in other lessons when girls said things, not about me directly but about other boys or generally about us.

Obviously this all wore off after a while and things settled down into the ways of the school. My first six to nine months at secondary school were difficult and a large part of that difficulty arose around the subject of PE for some of the reasons I've given.

We also went and did PE outside without tops on from about April to July quite a lot even though we had athletics vests for that. I never liked sports day at school every summer, it was a recipe for potential humiliation in front of everyone in your life at that moment, your class, your teachers and if they came your family. I always wanted my family to stay away, the one year they didn't come I was somewhat relieved by that. We could at least wear our athletics vests for sports day, just white vests with a blue edging around the neck and arms but one year when I was I think fourteen or fifteen it was a hot summers day with blazing sunshine and our PE teacher made a snap decision that we needed to keep ourselves as cool as possible and told us all not to wear vests and remain shirtless, which had the effect of putting that "fear or flight" response through my veins which is a well known stress response to situations you want to avoid, almost like panic, which is not too strong a word actually. It really is what some boys were like at school Mary, honestly, and yes it may be an irrational reaction to a situation but it's fact for many.

I had a similar reaction on joining secondary school when showers became a thing. I'd do my utmost to avoid the things until it just became impossible but I remember lots of boys at school being just the same and not liking a PE teacher forcing you to strip naked the moment you came back from the PE lesson and trying to avoid them and hope the teacher hadn't noticed they hadn't showered, much of the time they did notice though, they had keen eyesight these PE teachers. So I developed a coping mechanism to get on with it the best I could.

One thing I used to do before PE was go and sit in the toilets, shut the door and do some deep breathing to myself and say quietly in my head, "Calm, collected, confident" and hope that helped.

My favourite sport was cricket but we did almost none, outside it seemed to be down to the personal tastes of the PE teacher in charge what we did much of the time and they didn't ask for any feedback about what any of us might actually like to do. Everything about PE was slanted in favour of a certain few predictable things to the exclusion of all the rest.

Comment by: Sally-Ann on 25th June 2025 at 20:40
'One of my favourite films at that time was Gregory's Girl and there's a bit in that film where the character Gregory played by John Gordon Sinclair is in the changing room when Dorothy, played by Dee Hepburn walks in on him with no shirt on and he self consciously sticks his fingers over his nipples quite quickly to preserve a bit of his modesty. It's slightly comic I know and I did laugh at that at the time in the cinema with a couple of girlfriends I went to see it with in about 1981 by which time I was a secondary school girl and noticing boys a lot, you would look at literally any boy without a top on, whatever he looked like.'



Hello Sally-Ann, I've never seen that film although it's been on TV so many times down the years and I even knew that scene you picked up on. I thought I would see if it was online and watch it, which I did late last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I could only find a full version with subtitles though. For anyone who doesn't know what you are talking about here it is;

https://youtu.be/hkS6iCp9QIo?feature=shared&t=1638


Our school would not only never have let a girl play on a boys football team but they would not have let a girl play football at all, but I never saw any girls who looked like they had the slightest interest in doing so anyway, although I think women's football has been hyped up more than it's genuine popularity as ITV seems to push it onto TV pretending it has a mass audience when it doesn't.

Comment by: Ronnie on 25th June 2025 at 20:03

"....Your school sounds rotten to the core Alan. Have any ex-pupils set up any online chats with memories of that school, such as Facebook groups or similar places to recall past events, people and places. My school has one and many schools do seem to have, with associated photos of teachers or the school as well as former pupils"

Towards the end of Friends Reunited, Ronnie, I checked the site and there was never a trace, which I supposed summed up what we thought about the place, and all those who went before us (we were the last of them), I did though keep in touch with a few of my friends. My best mate who I met on our first day at school died just after Xmas in 2022, he had had it worse than me at school as he had been a bit tubby. Another died in 2020 an early casualty of Covid, a third, the one who was frankly groomed and interfered with by our vile P.E. teacher, became alcoholic - I can't say that was the cause, but I suspect it played a part, quite a large part, as he wasn't that way inclined. Essentially he was good at football and our teacher gave him "extra tuition" outside school. Sadly I haven't seen or heard of him for some years now .

The building, to answer somebody earlier, whose name escapes me, was constructed in 1898, so was a prime example of late Victorian building. It was inadequate for normal purposes today, but probably not that unusual in a poor part of London at that time. Most of the area was redeveloped, the good and the bad in the early 1990s,, and though none of the lads were "problem kids" - no knives or drug users - we were, I think, considered low achievers, based on our junior schools, therefore the dump was "good enough" for us. I have no ill will about that, nor did any of my friends as I recall. we just got on with it. The thing that really bugged me was the two pervert teachers. I don't think it ever occurred to the authorities that the teachers might have been as much of the problem as the pupils. The junior school staff did not bully like the secondary teachers, but they were dull, stolid and unimaginative. You have to stimulate young minds, they didn't have the gift. The highspot of our week was a Radio 4 schools programme on Thursday afternoons.

For those who thought "Anthony's" explanation for his whims reasonable, (i.e. Mark and Neil) I would just say, as I did to him directly, that since he insists on showers after every lesson, there is no reason at all why he cannot allow tops to be worn. Too many schools are too indulgent in catering to the whims of P.E. teachers, (especially), on ego trips. I would also add that very few eleven year olds sweat as profusely as he makes out, to justify his policy.

I wonder if Mark and Neil would care to comment, because you can be fairly sure "sir" won't.

Hi Mary,

Wow. Thank Christ I didn't go to your school. I would have been horrified to be thrown into a mixed class at that age half-naked. Even if none of the boys you knew truly felt bad about it it was still sexist, discriminatory and just plain wrong. But through a lifetime I have come to see how it is always, always boys and men on the sharp end of this kind of gender discrimination.

Did any of you girls ever question that reason for the PE kit disparity? You must have been curious about it.

And what was the justification for the bare feet thing? Given that you girls were allowed footwear? Health and safety - and broken glass - were just as big issues in the early '90s as they are today. And in the gym, where the girls were allowed trainers, well there was no justification at all.

'What I find interesting is that, despite this strict dress code, the boys I was in lessons with didn’t seem remotely bothered. If anything, most seemed confident and completely at ease. '

At my school, if anything, it was the other way round. It was the girls who had to wear those notorious gym knickers that were standard for the time, while we boys always got to wear tops and footwear. They always seemed to take it in their stride and always seemed to be laughing and joking. None of the girls seemed to mind it but I bet some of them absolutely did. It will have been the same with the boys you knew. Some of them had no inhibitions. Others were able to take the embarrassment of it in their stride. Others, like me, would have hated it but they wouldn't have shown their discomfort.

Girls are raised having their feelings cherished and nurtured while boys are still taught to disregard theirs. If as a boy you voice discomfort or vulnerability you are breaking the code and letting the side down, and you will not receive the support of your male classmates.

'In fact, it appeared to me that the boys were simply used to being treated that way. None of them ever questioned it, and there was never any fuss about what they had to wear – or not wear. It was as if that was just how things were, and they accepted it without a second thought.'

Of course they didn't question it! They would have been punished. You can trawl back through the recent posts and here and read what happened to boys who dared to challenge their schools' PE practices. It emphatically did not mean they were happy about it!

You have answered your own question. We all had to accept experiences we didn't want to at secondary school.

Mary, if those boys you remember had been allowed football shirts and trackie bottoms and trainers while you girls had to wear crop-vests and gym knickers and go barefoot . . . how do you think that might have made you feel? Such minimal kit would have been very comfortable and practical, after all.

The fact that so many men here have expressed genuine discomfort and humiliation about topless PE is surely utterly self-evident. The reluctance from so many female posters here to accept that boys had feeling of discomfort is actually pretty disconcerting.

What a shame that your PE teachers didn't think that comfort and practicality might have benefited your male classmates as well.

Good to see a lot more female input to mix it up a bit more from just the men.

Sally-Ann, isn't that amusing, they were keen in PE to make sure you didn't reveal too much while the boys were expected to reveal the lot up top. Boys bellies okay, girls not. It makes you wonder why a school that held that type of attitude didn't ask boys to stick a vest or T-shirt on doesn't it. You have to love schools when it comes to odd rules and getting tape measures out on clothing. The same happened at ours with girls uniform skirt lengths when some girls tried it on with shorter ones.

I think many of the gentlemen on here who went to school in past decades have every right to feel slightly aggrieved if the teacher was forcing them to strip down well below their personal comfort level and not letting them wear a top in reasonable circumstances. In some ways girls like myself had the opposite problem.

It's funny really, I remember sharing the middle school PE classes in the seventies with lots of boys in my class who never seemed to have tops on but it barely registered as anything anyone thought about as far as I know. But I do know that when I was in senior school we came across boys without tops with bare bodies sometimes in parts of PE where girls and boys mingled around each other and you could tell who the awkward boys were quite easily by that age if you could read reactions well.

One of my favourite films at that time was Gregory's Girl and there's a bit in that film where the character Gregory played by John Gordon Sinclair is in the changing room when Dorothy, played by Dee Hepburn walks in on him with no shirt on and he self consciously sticks his fingers over his nipples quite quickly to preserve a bit of his modesty. It's slightly comic I know and I did laugh at that at the time in the cinema with a couple of girlfriends I went to see it with in about 1981 by which time I was a secondary school girl and noticing boys a lot, you would look at literally any boy without a top on, whatever he looked like.

But here's the rub, whilst the boys in my school were clearly being told to strip down quite basic to nothing but their bare skin on top, girls for example could not do the equivalent of turning up in something like a bikini bra or crop top, just like Mary says here. We had to wear a proper fully covered short sleeved top, either a t-shirt of polo top, and a bare midriff exposing our belly buttons and lower tummy's was never allowed, while the boys at school were being told to have the full bare chest upper body, belly button and nipples out, our navels were prohibited!

There was no difference when it came to showers, girls just like the boys had to do it, together in a group, completely naked under supervision, so on that there was a level playing field with boys at school. Whilst many girls disliked being made to shower enormously, I was rather more relaxed about it. I used to wonder what the boys all looked like in their shower while we were doing ours.

Many boys clearly were less than keen for that but had to, whilst there were girls like me at school who would have jumped at the chance to wear a bra style crop top and show a bit more than we were allowed to. Even our shorts had to be a certain length down our thigh and were sometimes measured if it looked like they were too high up.

I previously assumed you were a male Chris G.

Your school sounds rotten to the core Alan. Have any ex-pupils set up any online chats with memories of that school, such as Facebook groups or similar places to recall past events, people and places. My school has one and many schools do seem to have, with associated photos of teachers or the school as well as former pupils.

to Chris G:
No, absolutely not. We girls were not allowed to bare more skin than necessary, and honestly, it didn’t even cross our minds to try stripping down in an equivalent way. We were brought up to be decent – there were clear expectations about modesty, and stepping outside those boundaries would have felt both inappropriate and attention-seeking. Crop-tops or sports bras? That would have been unthinkable in our context, even if someone had been bold enough. The flexibility we had was in terms of comfort and practicality – being allowed to wear proper trainers or choosing between T-shirts and tracksuit bottoms – but it certainly didn’t extend to revealing more.