Burnley Grammar School

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Burnley Grammar School
Burnley Grammar School
Year: 1959
Views: 1,392,275
Item #: 1607
There's pleny of room in the modern-styled gymnasium for muscle developing, where the boys are supervised by Mr. R. Parry, the physical education instruction.
Source: Lancashire Life Magazine, December 1959

Comment by: Alan on 25th February 2024 at 19:27

Comment by Nathan Hind on 25th February 2024


"If I am correct in my assumption of you Alan, you were at school in the early 80s at the time these recent videos were taken. Just a touch before I was born, only just. The culture definitely has a different look and feel to today that's something I can see. But would you have ever considered an approach to your PE teacher, any of them, to express your worries and unhappiness, and even if you would not have done, what do you think the reaction might of been from say, your nicest PE teacher, you must have had at least one who seemed reasonable?"

With respect, Nathan, there seems little point in repeating what I have already said. Had you read some of my posts you will know I went to a run-down school, in East London, forever on the verge of closing and we had ONE P.E. teacher (no deputy) who listened to nobody. What chance do you think I would have had?.

You are talking of an especially unpleasant teacher of the old school, and I was dealing with him even before you were born, by your own admission.

I still, however, can find no reason why you are still submitting pupils to these old fashioned bare-chested teaching practices in the 21st century. I can only assume you are instructed to do so by your superiors, and like yourself, they have no reason for it except it is how things used to be done. The practices of yesterday are not necessarily the best ones for today.

As regards showers, at least you can take your towel to the shower with you (even if it gets a bit wetter) to give you a slight degree of modesty, or protection, call it what you will.

Of course, you are right if you held a vote in your school about that schools practices I guess all the lads would be reluctant to put their hands up, but why have an unnecessary system in the first place?. It should be clear to you that, even in later life, if you read other posts more than you do mine, many lads were unhappy with it in our own day and if anything kids are more sensitive today.

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Comment by: TimH on 25th February 2024 at 19:11

Another 'Tour de Force' from Nathan - Thanks.

If I'm looking at the right school it was Brackenber House in Belfast, a 'Prep School' that closed in about 1985.

Nathan asks us: My question - Do you really think the boys in Steven's film from 1980 are being humiliated, or the ones in the previous grainy video from a couple of years later?
After looking briefly at the film on YT - my answer is simply 'No' - there is a bit towards the end where two older boys are caught 'deep in conversation' (a 'Candid Camera' moment. The looks on their faces when they realise whats been happening ...
(Of course others may disagree)

I made a post a little while back about 6th Form PE back in the mid-60s. I missed out the last line which was something like: 'at the end of the session we all stripped off and showered - because it was the sensible thing to do'.

For footage of boys PE outside the school environment there is a 1962 'Look at Life' 'short' entitled 'Boys without Girls' - about the 'Boys Club' movement - an interesting view.

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Comment by: Nathan Hind on 25th February 2024 at 16:29

I'm being tempted back by the improved quality and a point I wish to raise about the clip left here by Steven today. Certainly some nice historic films coming up on here whatever you think of them.

But Alan, it always comes around to you so much here doesn't it, and I know I will never be able to fully satisfy you with my answers but let's leave that aside, we dealt with that one and don't need to go there again on my own specifics.

My question - Do you really think the boys in Steven's film from 1980 are being humiliated, or the ones in the previous grainy video from a couple of years later?

What I will suggest to you is that there are clearly differences between one generation and the next, it would be surprising if there were not, and there is more awareness nowadays surrounding personal issues as I've tried to suggest.

If you are not aware of a problem how can you solve it.

Now I suppose I could gather all the classes I take together throughout the week and simply ask for a show of hands about who is happy in PE and see if any remain down, or maybe I could directly ask for a show of hands asking for anyone to indicate a discomfort being asked to do the occasional PE lesson in a bare chest. But I tell you now what would happen, certainly in the latter case, there would be no show of hands, and not because they might all feel great about everything, nobody needs me on here to tell them how hard it would be to admit this. The story that Mark Twyford left on here was a very powerful one with a good message and I thought positive.

We do PE, some is non shirted. We require showers, they are as you'd expect, wearing nothing. But to reiterate, it is nobody's interest to impact anyone's mental health and wellbeing to the point of trauma about such things and if with some that was the case and it was identified then alternative provision would be sought. But just look at the Twyford comment, they did that and look what happened.

One other thing, I see a lot of comment surrounding the bare chest issue but within many of these comments a lot do not mention the shower that comes after PE, which if you are concerned about losing your shirt you must surely be even more concerned about losing everything but this does not always translate in many comments I have seen here. Perhaps it should be seen as an assumption that those who disliked PE done in a bare chest automatically felt the same when asked to shower after their lessons?

If I am correct in my assumption of you Alan, you were at school in the early 80s at the time these recent videos were taken. Just a touch before I was born, only just. The culture definitely has a different look and feel to today that's something I can see. But would you have ever considered an approach to your PE teacher, any of them, to express your worries and unhappiness, and even if you would not have done, what do you think the reaction might of been from say, your nicest PE teacher, you must have had at least one who seemed reasonable?

Whether I continue to contribute will depend on the quality of the posts.

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Comment by: Alan on 25th February 2024 at 10:51

Comment by: Chris 69 on 24th February 2024 at 18:11




"I was born in Nov 69 which made all my teenage years sit within the eighties.

Like many other men who seem to be around my age on here, I had very similar outcomes in PE at that time.

Just went to the local comp like many of us.

Never was a fan of going bare chested in school PE. It made me feel very self conscious almost every time I did it. I definitely did not like being told to do so when we already had a kit we could wear.

Although we had a set PE kit for both indoors and outdoors which we had to bring on the right days, I'd say that when it came to going in the school gym for those days we must have actually put on the proper PE kit in about 20 percent of cases because the teachers weren't interested in boys doing PE covered up and all of them acted the same as each other and made us keep our tops off and do those lessons bare chested.....


"When we did stick the PE tops on I think it was either because we were doing one of those notorious skin and shirts games against each other or the PE teacher was feeling generous and having a good day or something. It's not worth trying to understand the why's of it all I think.

But my own father told me he never did PE like that in his school in the fifties and sixties period. He said he always wore a slim firm fitting white vest along with everyone else and never remembers doing PE in school at any age in a bare chest like I did in the eighties.

Going back another generation I have a grandfather who was in the navy and I have got many photo's of him on ship, and some include what they then called PT (physical training as opposed to education) and in all of them he is wearing a white vest as well. There are no bare chests to be seen in any of the photos I have from his navy days on ship.

Quite what all this means I have no idea."

Your father and grandfather's experiences backs up what I said recently, Chris, that the documentary films I have seen on television, which shows services PT sessions - even for conscripts - were done with singlets.

What it means, I am sure is that the teachers just want to exercise the power that is given to them. Most teachers I knew of would be aware of, but totally uninterested in, the humiliation they sought to impose. All their excuses for it is just that - excuses with no basis in fact.

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Comment by: Steven on 25th February 2024 at 07:17

Here's an excellent video from the 1980s showcasing physical education as I recall it: boys always stripped to the waist, wearing white shorts, barefoot indoors, and with white socks and trainers for outdoor activities. These pupils seem disciplined and well-behaved. It's disheartening to observe how much cultural regression has occurred in Britain since then.
https://youtu.be/uyzO5cA14v8?si=-1GnZ9rXWB-oCCID&t=16

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Comment by: David on 25th February 2024 at 01:28

There was a recent mention of the Grange Hill school programme on here regarding the PE scenes in it and teachers.

I just saw online that an actor called Stuart Organ, a name that meant nothing to me, but did have a familiar face from TV, one of those know the face not the name types, has passed away.

Taken direct from his wikipedia entry tonight,

'Organ was best known for his portrayal of the character Mr. Robson in the children's television drama Grange Hill. Organ portrayed the series' longest-serving teacher, arriving in 1988 as the new head of PE. In 1998 he finally landed the headmaster's job, but left the series in 2003 soon after production of Grange Hill transferred to Liverpool.'


I know it's fiction, but what I found interesting and a point worth raising here is that a PE teacher became an actual head teacher. Just how common is that in reality I wonder? It just feels rare.

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Comment by: Dave on 24th February 2024 at 23:23

Some of you asked about my e-mail adress. There is no special meaning of it. Some of my mates was kidding I was like a freedomfighter in my teenage years. I was rebellious sometimes but in an innocent teenage way. So I kept that name when I chose my mail.

Well I respect everyone's dignity but I've never thought having to be barechested in PE (for us only in shirts vs skins back then) as an attack to our dignity. Swimming lessons are the same as I wrote some days ago. Well wearing the vest is almost the same as barechested 'cause it doesn't cover too much. I think keeping our dignity is not about wearing vests or T-shirts. In spite all of these it is interesting that in some schools PE lesson of the 80's were stricter about PE kit than some 60's schools.

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Comment by: Mickey Grant on 24th February 2024 at 21:41

Is it too much of a side-step to muse what guys wore as sleepwear in mid/late teens? I was always T/boxers and hadn't had PJs for years. At our sixth form induction residential I was surprised the variation - from proper PJs through to just PJ bottoms or boxers.

I guess I didn't voluntarily go shirtless often at all!

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Comment by: Lisa on 24th February 2024 at 21:05

In my school in the late 70s a boys PE group came and joined us and I was so embarrassed when they all came filing into the PE hall without their shirts on and I think many girls were as well by just being around so many boys like that when we must have been something like thirteen at the time. I never noticed whether the boys might be feeling strange about it but know how I felt. I do remember feeling rather distracted by it all to see real boys like that as I didn't have any brothers or male cousins and my parents didn't go in for beach holidays so that was my first memorable time seeing the opposite sex undressed in the actual flesh so to speak, in school PE and I got an overdose of a couple of dozen of them at once. I do remember thinking many of them looked nice though.

I guess some of them might have been as embarrassed as I felt if these comments are anything to go by. But like is being said, that was how it was in school, pushed about and doing things you didn't like.

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Comment by: Chris 69 on 24th February 2024 at 18:11

I was born in Nov 69 which made all my teenage years sit within the eighties.

Like many other men who seem to be around my age on here, I had very similar outcomes in PE at that time.

Just went to the local comp like many of us.

Never was a fan of going bare chested in school PE. It made me feel very self conscious almost every time I did it. I definitely did not like being told to do so when we already had a kit we could wear.

Although we had a set PE kit for both indoors and outdoors which we had to bring on the right days, I'd say that when it came to going in the school gym for those days we must have actually put on the proper PE kit in about 20 percent of cases because the teachers weren't interested in boys doing PE covered up and all of them acted the same as each other and made us keep our tops off and do those lessons bare chested.

I saw the video clip from 83 with the PE display earlier upthread. A familiar scene there to me.

When we did stick the PE tops on I think it was either because we were doing one of those notorious skin and shirts games against each other or the PE teacher was feeling generous and having a good day or something. It's not worth trying to understand the why's of it all I think.

But my own father told me he never did PE like that in his school in the fifties and sixties period. He said he always wore a slim firm fitting white vest along with everyone else and never remembers doing PE in school at any age in a bare chest like I did in the eighties.

Going back another generation I have a grandfather who was in the navy and I have got many photo's of him on ship, and some include what they then called PT (physical training as opposed to education) and in all of them he is wearing a white vest as well. There are no bare chests to be seen in any of the photos I have from his navy days on ship.

Quite what all this means I have no idea.

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Comment by: Russell Spark on 24th February 2024 at 17:39

For the benefit of Frances who wrote that overnight perhaps a good time to simply paste up what I put here on 28th January incase you might have missed it.

Comment by: Russell Spark on 28th January 2024 at 11:24
P.E at school seemed very dictatorial. I can remember a somewhat scary man who I met in my early days at the big school, the usual style suburban home counties all abilities comprehensive. It's really quite true what Orson says about such memories staying with you, it's the same with me as someone who had my sixtieth birthday at Christmas just gone. I can still remember many lines teachers of all subjects used to come out with.

The scary PE teacher actually meant to scare us I think. I don't think I imagined it. It was all part of creating that first impression and making sure it stuck with you for future reference. It worked on me. He gathered us all fresh in our school uniforms in the changing room before the first lesson and i remember us all being cramped against each other with bags and bodies, shiny shoes on, blazers and ties and feeling very apprehensive indeed. There didn't seem to be a great deal of warmth or pleasure to see a group of new boys he was going to work with, not at first anyway.

He was full of explaining rules. He kept saying "at this school". The one that got me was, and yes I can literally remember every word of it al this time later to perfection. "at this school you will shower whether you like it or not, starting today, and I don't want any excuses or any notes coming from any of your parents about it to me".

A few more bits of information and then it was "get out of your uniforms quickly, anyone brought their P.E vest?". Quite a few hands went up including mine. "Don't bother, you do P.E with me without that, you'll go without when I take you" and so we did. Another teacher always allowed us our P.E vest but we rarely had him. Footwear was never a regular gym option either whoever we had.

I disliked this teacher despite his slight mellowing as the years went on and he got to know us but his basic attitude just never changed and was accepted by not just us at school in his class but clearly by everyone he worked alongside who must have known what he was like.

Luckily for me I did not allow this to put me off enjoying keeping physically active in various ways, swimming, running, cycling, skiing and even some rowing after school and was not somebody who had some of the fears expressed on earlier pages but know he made many lives I shared at school less than happy while under his tutoring.

I ended up running one of the early London Marathons in a sub three hour time, I bet my P.E teacher couldn't have done that. I did run sirtless at school but only with the teacher I mentioned who did it with us that way but others we went out in shirts. Now I'm sixty I've been reading the comments on the new bareskin craze and wouldn't hesitate to give it a go. I saw the comment that was made a few weeks ago that less confident men have given it a go feeling safe in numbers doing so. If you are one of those types at least try it once it might just surprise you. I was okay with it at school but know others hated it.

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Comment by: Neil on 24th February 2024 at 17:21

Comment by: Frances on 24th February 2024
The eldest, now in his fifties, sailed through school and PE came easy. The younger, struggled a lot. We had a lot of talks at the time about things he didn't like doing in PE, which was just about everything really, apart from some of the summer games they used to play outside. I remember one troubling comment he made to me one day when he described his school gym as being like a prison for young offenders. I could never quite get to the cause of that reaction, looking back I might have taken it more seriously.


Ask him Frances! It's not too late to find out is it. Everyone has long memories of their time doing PE in school even if we got through it without much bother or concern. I wouldn't read too much into the young offenders prison comment if I were you. I rather know what he was thinking and I'd imagine many others will do too from those boys gyms in school years ago.

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Comment by: Alan on 24th February 2024 at 12:20

Comment by: Frances on 24th February 2024 at 03:18


"....... My other the youngest by five years disliked sport in general, wore smart clothes all the while, always stayed clean and liked more studious things such as reading books and finding out facts......
I remember one troubling comment he made to me one day when he described his school gym as being like a prison for young offenders. I could never quite get to the cause of that reaction, looking back I might have taken it more seriously."

Frances I can never sleep beyond about 2.45, whether I go to bed early or late. At least the brighter days are coming and I always love being awake, up, and alert by 4.30 in the summer mornings.

As you will probably guess, if you have read anything I have written on this topic, I have every sympathy with your younger son. The yelling, shouting and, frankly, bullying, - certainly of our P.E. teacher,- if you were not good at (or frankly uninterested in) his lessons was incredible. Many P.E. teachers are almost Evangelistic in their desire for everybody to be 100% proficient. Other subjects as well, but you lost any interest you might have had, when the teacher more or less encouraged the "good" students to join in with their derision. The worse you were the louder they shouted, all, alas, to very little purpose,

Somebody the other day made the very good point (it might have been the teacher himself) that he knew most boys loved and were good at football, and they kept their games at a high level, but for the group that were not, he made it more fun for them by having little five a side teams, so that, while they still took part, they were not involved with the hard core of football lovers. Such teachers seem rare. Perhaps less so now, than they were in the 1980s.

I was trying to make the point to Nick yesterday (23rd February 4.01 a.m.) that not everybody is comfortable in situations that he clearly had no problem with, and, when I was working in a band I was able to dress smartly. I always wore a suit, and collar and tie when I was playing. I always had this theory that if I played a wrong note it would not sound as bad (or as noticeable) as it would have been in jeans, tee shirt and long hair. I probably wasn't right, but that is how I felt. At least it gave me dignity, and some sense of control. When you have some loudmouth forcing you to take your clothes off that makes you lose all dignity in your own eyes.

There was, I repeat, absolutely no need - then OR now - to make lads dress down like that, especially in their sensitive teenage years. The only reason they do it, in my view, is this power trip that teachers are on, and they know they can "make you" do it. If only they knew how loathed they are by the adult victims of their bluster. Just because they forget us, we don't forget them!




Comment by: Ethan on 23rd February 2024 at 13:00



Believe me, Ethan, Just like you, I dread the arrival of the toolmakers son and his acolytes and I dread to think what they will get up to. You will have no argument from me!

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Comment by: Frances on 24th February 2024 at 03:18

I'm a 78 year old insomniac mother of two boys. Both went to school in the 1980's as teenagers. I'd prefer not to name the school if that is alright because one of the languages teachers while they were there actually took her life and the inquest at the time recorded a suicide verdict due to staff bullying against her. So actually not just children at school face these problems but the staff can from each other too.

Although my own two sons came from the same home and the same upbringing they held many different ideas and attitudes to the world and the interests they took up. The eldest loved getting thrown about, doing things that made him dirty and he loved PE. He would get stuck into anything and still does. He was always out in the garden without much on any chance he got and still does when he comes to help do gardening over springtime and summer if it's nice out. My other the youngest by five years disliked sport in general, wore smart clothes all the while, always stayed clean and liked more studious things such as reading books and finding out facts.

The eldest, now in his fifties, sailed through school and PE came easy. The younger, struggled a lot. We had a lot of talks at the time about things he didn't like doing in PE, which was just about everything really, apart from some of the summer games they used to play outside. I remember one troubling comment he made to me one day when he described his school gym as being like a prison for young offenders. I could never quite get to the cause of that reaction, looking back I might have taken it more seriously.

That aside, the one thing that used to bother the younger one the most was simply taking his clothes off in front of anyone, even his family, after he was about ten years old. I noticed the change almost overnight. I remember him becoming very fearful of going to school and having to shower, and the school he was at had the added complication of doing the PE inside without anything on the upper body. His older brother left school just as he began there, and I remember he was always asking him questions.

They were both, and still are, very good looking boys. I would say that though wouldn't I, but it's true. Except they have vastly differing personalities poles apart about everything.

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Comment by: Stuart B on 23rd February 2024 at 21:30

A shame the clip wasn't a bit longer Ethan. It seems to be among this site with further general pics and vids of school in the 70s if anyone is interested.

https://www.gettyimages.ch/video/school-70s


Did that mere 8 seconds traumatise anyone here then? I say half jokingly.

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Comment by: Ethan on 23rd February 2024 at 13:00

Alan....."With all due respect, Nick, we sometimes forget that what we are comfortable doing, might not be the same for others."


I'm not going to like living under a Labour Government for the next few years but am going to have to put up with it whether I like it or not, with my background. With all due respect of course to you Alan too.

While I'm here, I stumbled across this very short little snippet film of the school gym as I remember it, not that I was too bothered. I was quite good at a few things.

Titled;
School boys climb ropes and ladders at gym class / UK
Climbing ropes dangle from rafter / boys climb ropes / boy swings through ladder and turns around / boys climb down ladder

https://www.gettyimages.ch/detail/video/school-boys-climb-ropes-and-ladders-at-gym-class-stock-videomaterial/mr_00106250?adppopup=true

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Comment by: Alan on 23rd February 2024 at 04:01

Comment by: Nick H on 22nd February 2024 at 21:45
Re; The 1983 Gym Display Boys Video.



"They were in front of a few parents I presume, so they've already seen their sons shirtless so many times, their friends in class obviously have and so have the teachers of PE, and just look at them all, normal looking and in perfect shape as far as the eye could see in that poor quality film clip....

.... It never crossed my mind that anyone I was in school with might actually be scared to remove their top and go shirtless in PE when we sometimes did that."


With all due respect, Nick, we sometimes forget that what we are comfortable doing, might not be the same for others. For example, I would have been quite happy to get up and play a solo on "A Night In Tunisia" on the trumpet. Would you?. I wouldn't expect others to do what I could do, and wouldn't regard them as "lesser" for not being able so to do. We all have different talents. I would not say, as you did, that those boys who were reluctant were "scared", but that some might have been uncomfortable or nervous.. What's wrong with that?. It's called being human.

I wonder if the teacher who filmed that display 41 years ago got permission from every lad to film them?. You can be sure he didn't seek them out to get their permission to place it on You Tube decades later.

Just a couple of weeks ago I went to see quite a famous musician performing at the Pizza Express jazz club in Soho, and a bloke quite near me had the audacity to get his mobile phone out to record sound and vision. I doubt it would have even crossed his mind to ask permission of either the musician or the trio who were backing him. Just because you can do a thing doesn't mean to say you should do it. Forty odd years ago he would have had to take a camera and a cassette tape recorder into that club, to achieve the same object, and I very much doubt he would have had the space, let alone the permission, to do what he did so casually a few weeks ago.

Again with this teacher, I daresay he thought he could do what he liked because he had the power to do so.

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Comment by: Nick H on 22nd February 2024 at 21:45

Re; The 1983 Gym Display Boys Video.

No problem with that at all. PE is supposed to push you out of your comfort zone. Get shirtless and enjoy it. That's a great gym look. What is exactly wrong with what is being done there, the boys all look fine and fit, so where does the problem arise exactly?

They were in front of a few parents I presume, so they've already seen their sons shirtless so many times, their friends in class obviously have and so have the teachers of PE, and just look at them all, normal looking and in perfect shape as far as the eye could see in that poor quality film clip.

I'm sure they all went off for a nice hot shower afterwards with each other too. That's school in the early 80s for you and at many other times before that and since. It never crossed my mind that anyone I was in school with might actually be scared to remove their top and go shirtless in PE when we sometimes did that.

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Comment by: Neil on 22nd February 2024 at 19:16

Comment by: Chris G on 22nd February 2024 at 17:33
Just tried to look at this - it doesn't seem to be available any more!


The link provided by Dave does still work. I just checked it out as of 7pm tonight. This should start at 8m23s regards the part talked about today.

https://youtu.be/yvk1Moxdva0?feature=shared&t=503


Comment by: Simon Mayer on 22nd February 2024.

Quite an interesting little story of your own private experience on a public day there. At least you got thanked for doing it. It is a pity when you do something like that which made such an impact on you and there is no record of it that you know of. But with things as they are nowadays, never say never, this internet thing may yet turn up something one day from someone if it hasn't already.

Why are so many people who use this forum insomniacs, or are they just very late to bed or very early to rise? Last night was a bit busy!

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Comment by: Alan on 22nd February 2024 at 17:40

Comment by: Nigel on 21st February 2024 at 23:29


"I'd have been horrified if my school had made me do that!

It actually brought back some of those old days feelings I used to have just watching it."


Me too, Nigel, where that last line is concerned. And pace Neil saying that all the participants "took part willingly", I wonder? - we can't possibly know, 41 years later - certainly Simon Mayer in a similar situation gives the lie to that, and I suspect there were many more Simon's both in 1977 and 1983. it reminds you of the old army saying "I want three volunteers - you, you and you!". Those lads are now in their fifties and if some of them were aware that video is still around, it would be interesting to hear their views on it today. Was it entirely voluntary?. Sometimes you can be good at something and roped in to do it, whether you want to or not, through that other favourite expression "peer pressure". It looks too well drilled and choreographed to be "fun", though I suppose the mums and dads in the audience enjoyed it.
Comment by: Jack on 22nd February 2024 at 07:57
#

"News: Japan Naked Man Festival To End After A Thousand Years"


A nation mourns! :-)


Comment by: Gary on 22nd February 2024 at 15:33



I did a little detective work - it seems this school was in Walthamstow E17 (the name Sidney Chaplin rang a bell, many of the E London schools carried the names of long dead local dignitaries) and it looks like the man Broughton, who posted the film was a PE master there from 1970 until 1985. The school is now defunct, but unlike mine was retained and renamed and carries on, hopefully in a more enlightened way. Mine luckily became a supermarket. It seems typical of those dreary East London schools of the time:

Walthamstow Memories - Sidney Chaplin Secondary School

Walthamstow Memories - Sidney Chaplin Secondary School
Dedicated to the memories of those who were born, arrived, lived, worked or died in Walthamstow, formerly an Urb...

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Comment by: Chris G on 22nd February 2024 at 17:33

"Comment by: Dave on 21st February 2024 at 15:36
Sorry I haven't sent the link in my last comment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvk1Moxdva0"

Just tried to look at this - it doesn't seem to be available any more!

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Comment by: Ross on 22nd February 2024 at 15:46

Thankyou Bill for that positive response.

Ross.

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Comment by: Gary on 22nd February 2024 at 15:33

Comment by: Nigel on 21st February 2024 at 23:29
Am I missing something here? Dave's YT film, this part from about eight and a half minutes in for a minute or two looked less like a gym lesson and more like a Miss World parade from those days, except for boys. All they were doing was lining up and then trotting around in circles for the pleasure of those watching and getting applauded at the end, for what exactly?
I'd have been horrified if my school had made me do that!
It actually brought back some of those old days feelings I used to have just watching it.



I think I would have been too, just running around in circles in that manner. They needed large numbers on their wrists, it was like some kind of viewing parade. But at least they got the gym shoes, I went without those in my school gym as well, but you are correct and just looking at something such as that takes you right back to your own days, especially if like me and others your own school dictated this was the way they wanted you in their gym for PE.

I thought the gym set up looked a bit of a rabble really, boys hanging off the wall frames, random people hanging around the sides, the part with the boys line up and synchronised turning and off was the only part that looked neat and orderly. I'm also willing to bet that it was not a parent that took that but most probably someone on the teaching staff who did that and stuck it on there. Quite surprising there are so few comments under it, you might have thought with all those boys and girls one or two might have noticed it and commented since it's been up.

I can only begin to imagine what an old film of me in PE might look like if it had ever been taken and I had a chance to look back at it. I think it would both horrify, embarrass and fascinate me in equal measure to see myself as I was doing such things in school gym in similar style to those boys.

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Comment by: Bill on 22nd February 2024 at 14:12

Comment by - Ross on 21st February 2024.
I may as well show my hand here. I took a screenshot of what Bill wrote on this forum and emailed a copy of his comment as it appeared here direct to the school he mentioned.
From my inbox I will share a cut and paste reply I had below;
-Hello Ross,
Thankyou for your recent query and attachment. The statement you provided by that gentleman has been seen and the details confirmed to me by the physical education team here at Queensbury Academy and I hope this answer meets with your satisfaction. Good luck with your future research.-
That was the reply and authenticated the comment made here that interested me as a 37 year old bare chest averse schoolboy myself from not too many miles away.




No complaint about this at all Ross. I am perfectly relaxed about this because it was an honest observation, one I have now made on three occasions since the first one I saw on 27th November three months ago, so for anyone wishing for anything more abrasive I'm sorry to disappoint and I'm pleased they gave you a reply even if it did take such a long time. Details matter and verification is fine by me.

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Comment by: Jack on 22nd February 2024 at 07:57

News: Japan Naked Man Festival To End After A Thousand Years.

It seems there are no longer enough younger people willing to strip off and get naked around loads of other people anymore as the older generation once did as the demographic ages.

Just google, plenty of news items about it. I'd never heard of it until a paper review last night spoke about it on the telly.

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Comment by: Andy on 22nd February 2024 at 05:46

Comment by: Barry on 21st February 2024 at 16:30
What freedom are you fighting for Dave?

Yes, come on Dave, I'd like to know what your rather interesting email address is all about.

Comment by: Ross on 21st February 2024 at 22:08
I may as well show my hand here. I took a screenshot of what Bill wrote on this forum and emailed a copy of his comment as it appeared here.

Cheeky but I love this and your cheek, you journos. I wasn't sure when I first read what you did. I am looking forward to Bill's reaction.

Comment by: Orson on 21st February 2024 at 18:47
But the more remarkable thing is he thought I was actually exaggerating to the point of lying when I told him they used to make men like me, when we were boys and teenagers at school, actually strip stark bo**ock naked without being given a choice in the matter and send us all off to shower like that with each other.
Incredible wouldn't you agree, a 19 year old thinks the things done at school in the recent past and probably in many back in the UK today are one big embellishment or exaggeration.

I agree with you. It's incredibly stupid to think you Orson are effectively imagining something most British men have done on here and is easily provable. Why so hard to imagine I wonder.

Comment by: Jonathan H on 21st February 2024 at 17:20
No lad should be worried about being seen in bare chest doing some gym, with his mates, among a few girls or a wider crowd like the video appears to show. I wasn't.
It's only through taking the kind of attitude I have that I think you build on real lasting confidence.

Quite right Jonathan. I'll allow anyone to be nervous in a crowd maybe, and even in front of a girl, but to get over it. With other boys should never pose a problem. I agree that confidence is the key.

Comment by: Russ on 21st February 2024 at 15:48
I don't think anybody engaged with my comment previously made about modern PE classes. If you are out in PE at half ten in the morning doing some rugby in this weather how do you stay clean, and how is it possible to do some of the things I remember me and my own sons doing and not clean up afterwards? Mud and dirt was a permanent part of PE for me at school over the winter months outdoors. Don't they allow them tio get like that anymore or something?

Let me do so. They either don't let them get actual dirt on them anymore, or they do and expect them to wipe it off with a packet of wet wipes or similar. If you've played rugger at school just get in the bloody showers afterwards. It can never be a clean game. Its always been sweat and muck. How can you not shower after rugby, or don't they play it much anymore?

Comment by: Michael on 21st February 2024 at 10:39
Referring to previous comments about early contributions to this section, I reckon there is a cathartic function; a psychological relief through the open expression of emotions, by being able to relate one's past experiences.

You could well be right about this. It's cheaper than paying for a psychologist anyway.

Comment by: Lance on 20th February 2024 at 23:18
I also liked the post by Mark Twyford as well. Despite my own personal feelings on the shirtless issue in PE and my own feelings how I felt when like that I would never have wanted to be the only one in PE wearing a top so it comes as no surprise to read that story how it ended up.

Pleased to hear you say this. I also agree, Mark Twyford was a bit of an outlier of a teacher there but it worked. He knew it would that's why and you admit it would for you. Common sense really isn't it.

Comment by: Will on 19th February 2024 at 23:23
Yorkshire Dad.
Take shirts off in PE in summer to avoid heat exhaustion. That would not be caused by shirt wearing. More likely dehydration and lack of fluids. Provide water instead. Going bare chested won't be that effective. I agree with you, it's an odd one that.

How come an actual head teacher can't know this common sense fact. You don't need to justify any PE attire, even going shirtless. Just do it and be damned.

Comment by: Gary on 19th February 2024 at 18:21
I'll add my own praise for what I saw written here by Mark Twyford last night which I think was so nicely said. We have heard too much about "Roberts" and not enough about the decency many of our teachers had, as Mark said, in some quite difficult circumstances on occasion.

Exactly this. I need say no more.

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Comment by: Simon Mayer on 22nd February 2024 at 04:28

Sidney Chaplin Secondary Modern School Gym Display 1983, the film Dave placed here. Firstly it's not an hour long, just 28 minutes. It looks to have come off someone's VHS tape long ago. But a nice find, whoever placed it on YouTube must have had a son or maybe daughter at the school and been more than happy to share it more widely, or perhaps it was taken by a teacher and shared.

You'd probably be frowned upon for wanting to take a film of that type with the boys all wearing shirts nowadays, never mind shirts off the lot of them. I don't think I noticed a single boy wearing one, but some girls were hard to tell from boys as it was rather blurred and like others I didn't sit through the whole thing, just flicked through quickly.

I remember being coerced into something quite similar at my school back in early June 1977 as part of the Queen's Silver Jubilee would you believe, out on the school playground. We had a soft grassy field but they chose the tarmac covered with PE mats instead. Like the boys here, we were given either red, white or blue shorts. Most of our regular PE shorts were white at the time, I wore blue ones from home and somehow enough red were found to make up the numbers needed for others.

The boys were asked (translate into told) to be fully shirtless on that occasion, like the '83 film clip, the same as the gym was for normal PE at the time for boys in my school. I was sort of okay with it and got used to it being the thing we did. That summer I was a fourteen year old with the usual slim limbs and waist you saw on many boys of the time and a hint of rib. I remember having to stand with my feet together, shoulders back, stomach in (not hard at that age) chest puffed out and head up at the start as they played the national anthem before we began an athletic style gym routine, which involved a lot of running quite fast, jumping over things, cartwheels and even the use of hoops. There was no horse involved though or any heavy gym equipment as such. At an estimate there were 80 of us taking part, split evenly into boys and girls. We spent about two weeks beforehand rehearsing with a group of our PE teachers, both male and female, often under the gaze of the headmaster too. They took it so seriously, as if the Queen herself was going to be watching us, or some other VIP. But it was just a parental crowd. In all the rehearsals it was treated as PE and I was shirtless, in blue shorts and white footwear. I think we all had to have white feet, and no socks. I remember one teacher getting really short tempered at one stage with us and mouthing off and grabbing boys by the arms and pulling them about and into positions and all kinds like that.

Those of us that took part were 'the chosen ones', technically we volunteered but in reality we were chosen, and not expected to say no, because we were the better ones at this kind of PE. Let's put it this way, if it had been a case of placing my name on a piece of paper to do it I probably wouldn't have picked up the pen but getting the 'chosen one' request directly you just did not say no to it or feel you could do so. Damn it, I remember thinking when I was 'chosen' not by my regular male PE teacher but by one of the girls female teachers on recommendation of my own usual PE teacher for gym that year.

After all that I don't even have a record of the day. I have absolutely no pictures of this event but I'm sure somebody has somewhere, there were enough people watching. Someone must have taken at least a couple of polaroids somewhere or more. For all I know someone even took a film, possibly that would be cine, not VHS in that year though. Looking at the boys from 1983 takes me back to my own school six years earlier. It makes me realise there just has to be a record of my own somewhere out there squirreled away, or even on a website somewhere I've yet to discover.

I was definitely shy and remember being so nervous, mostly about making a mistake in front of a lot of people, there was ample possibility to land yourself with an nasty thump straight onto the hard tarmac if you missed the mats making a mistake and we had no protection. I think I probably tried to blot out my shirtlessness at the time and not think about it. At least I was one of about 40 others so could kind of melt into proceedings among all the action, as long as I did my bit and made no mistakes that is. The whole thing must have lasted barely 10 minutes I'm sure and was done to piano music played over an amplifier with dreadful screeching feedback at one point. All through rehearsals they couldn't get that bit right. It was all depending on good weather and there was no back up plan to go inside that I remember, and on the day it wasn't exactly the greatest June day I ever remember, a bit fresh and windy and no sun shone and we were kept waiting for ages hanging about once we changed ready for it.

About a week afterwards those of us who took part got given a certificate style letter thanking us from the principle PE teacher, signed also by the headmaster. I have no clue where that's gone either.

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Comment by: Alan on 22nd February 2024 at 03:57

Comment by: Neil on 21st February 2024 at 23:11
and
Comment by: Ross on 21st February 2024 at 2208

Neil: I opened a can of worms by mentioning those early pages. The number of times the words "stripped to the waist", and "discipline" and "how grown up" such PE garb made them look was so great that if you had as pound for every time they were used, you could take a week off work, and have change for a box of matches. .

That filmed display (the poor picture quality of course being due to inadequate lighting in what was probably an evening event) took place not long after the Falklands war, but even that, in my view didn't justify that military look. But we have to remember it was over 40 years ago now, and if such events take place today, it would no doubt be under the aegis of an athletics club, not a local school. Times change, and attitudes and appearance change with them.

As regards trying to persuade Nathan to explain why some of his classes are still done sans shirts, I gave up on that long ago. I reached the conclusion there was no real reason for it.


Ross: Speaking for myself, I never doubted the voracity of what Bill said for a moment. He seemed quite open and genuine, and in mentioning the school,, he was quite unambiguous.

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Comment by: Harold on 22nd February 2024 at 02:39

How differently some people see the same world, Nigel and Neil.

From Miss World to military recruit wannabe's looking at the same film.

The PE teachers at that school looked to be doing a good job.

The bare chests, par for the course wasn't it. For me I just look on it as part of the school uniform.

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Comment by: Mike on 22nd February 2024 at 02:18

Comment by: Ross on 21st February 2024 at 22:08

Quite extraordinary. But it just proves that those who give out detail with their claims are likeliest to be taken seriously and truthful. This explains why Bill avoided the pile on that came the way of someone else who made a similar claim.

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