Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Yours Truly on 4th July 2025 at 08:13


"Hi Alan,



".....In my experience teachers were very ready to exceed their authority...."

Very true, YT. I wish our school had been like yours and insisted on proper and full kit, and didn't have dirty old men watching us shower. I would have even been prepared to convert to Catholicism to feel more comfortable!, I was interested in one line that Tony wrote: (3rd July) "....not only were a number of PE teachers present while you showered, they actively watched and I have to say it, were staring straight at our penises quite often as they did so......."




I frankly think that far too much trust and reverence is given to professionals, many of whom hide behind their "caring" persona for their own gratification. For example, here is a BBC report this very week about a now disgraced GP. Note that the first complaints made against him occurred eight years ago, in other words he was able to carry on carrying on even though concerns had been signalled:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq8z78kln7go

I am sure Tony is just as suspicious as we are - and he has every right to be so. A P.E. teacher can be just as much a dirty old man as a G.P can. These sort of cases come before the courts far too often. In fairness, most of those convicted, in the case of doctors, usually involve female patients. However, in the case of pervert P.E. teachers they are almost invariably male. I am glad in this particular instance, the judge has treated the miscreant with the same severity he would have done had the complainants been female. What is outrageous about that case is that for eight years he was known to have been committing offences. Had that man been a lorry driver, for example, the police would have arrested him as soon as the complaints were made all those years ago, because he could hide behind his professional front, however , he was able to indulge himself and assault patients for many more years.

At the very least, teachers, be they P.E. teachers or geography masters should be banned from changing and showering facilities.


Comment by: Donna on 4th July 2025 at 17:14


"......Lovely old clips from the 50s Danny, I do think boys look just fine performing like that without their tops on, and not a single non white person in sight....."

A lot of women seem to have this attitude - they like to see boys and young men disporting themselves in this way, regardless of whether they are doing it by choice, or have been compelled to, and it is almost always by compulsion. No thought of how it makes the boys concerned. How would you have liked to have been filmed in a minimal bikini?. Typical. I also don't think it matters what colour their skin is, we all have the same inhibitions and feelings regardless of race and that remark seems gratuitous.

All that was 70 years ago - it is sad to think that only yesterday, teacher Anthony, by his own admission earlier this week said he would be conducting an open air sports day with the boys dressed the same as those all those years ago. Progress in education, and the understanding of the feelings of boys and young men has obviously passed that individual by. Perhaps he, and all those like him, who conduct such old fashioned lessons need to be retrained, and if unwilling to do so, be removed from their jobs.

All the women who took the girls classes for PE that I was in through my time at secondary school from 1978 - 85 watched over us while we showered, it's not just a boys thing at all. One even used to stand on the wooden bench raising herself an extra foot in the air so she got an even better viewpoint over us all. It was never an enjoyable thing to be told to do, and as I didn't have a sweat problem I was often good to go really, we used to play netball out in November in the cold and have to shower when we'd done that, yet there was no sweating, no dirt on us, and we'd been well and truly freshened up by the wind outside, but they still made us all strip for the showers regardless, and then sometimes complain about time moving on. I'm happy to report I was not asked to do any bare chested PE lessons at secondary school, but I do think I remember a handful in only my knicker underwear at first school about 1972 -74 time.

Lovely old clips from the 50s Danny, I do think boys look just fine performing like that without their tops on, and not a single non white person in sight.

You're on the ball to get a bee in your bonnet about two tier teaching Yours Truly.

When I was at primary middle school at the age of 9 which was 1979 we began swimming lessons in the summer months after a temporary pool was erected for our use. It wasn't as great as going to a proper swimming pool but did the job it was meant to do, enable us to learn some swimming strokes.

When we changed for swimming our class teacher Mrs Easton would come into the boys changing room and stay there keeping watch on us with her arms folded until we were ready to be led out. She thought because she had given birth to 3 sons of her own that it gave her the right to see all of us boys in her class too. She told us not to be silly when she noticed boys acting all coy and shy because she'd had 3 boys so knew what boys looked like. I remember how I used to keep my school shirt on until last, take my pants off and hope it was covering enough of my bottom and hiding my jiggly bits enough until I pulled up my swimming trunks, then took my shirt off, but I was obviously visible. Other boys did actually go full naked in front of her before pulling trunks on, and when we got back we had to dry down in front of her and that shirt trick getting ready wasn't so easy, some boys dried with their swimming trunks on, she used to tell them that they couldn't dry properly like that, and others just took them off and dried while naked with her in the room keeping guard. I actually remember these things remarkably well! I do not remember much towel hiding, and it never occurred to me to do that either when slipping pants and trunks on and off. I think towels were too tiny to tie around even our young waists.

Our teacher never stood in the girls changing room watching them, they were allowed to get on with things and line up by themselves when ready to be led to the pool. I think even 9 year olds know when an adult is slightly taking a few big liberties with their position and reasons. Having three male children she must have felt easily gave her the right to stand in on the boys in her class as we changed for swimming like that. She did the same for PE too much of the time.

When I was in the year above, Mrs Veitch took us and she never set foot in our changing room, only gently tapping the door to tell us to hurry up or tap it louder if there was too much noise. But she left us alone. I think she may have had a daughter but no boys of her own.

Boys PE in the school hall in 1979 was shirtless and barefoot, similar to swimming really, so we got used to that style of appearance and being so alongside the opposite sex at that quite young age long before senior school beckoned. My comprehensive was very similar to what has already been written by others, plenty of shirtless PE and skins games, mandated showering, so I won't bore with all that.

Hi Alan,

'Justin, it might well be - in fact I think it was that those teachers were exceeding their authority. They insisted you shower and watch you do it?. I don't think they would dare do that today.'

In my experience teachers were very ready to exceed their authority.

From what I remember our teachers never used to stand and watch us in the showers, in fact I remember them making a deliberate point of not doing so. I never realised till reading this forum how unusual that was and it makes me speculate if there might have been some incident which a parent complained about and so the teaching staff were specifically directed not to stand and stare. Who knows.

We actually were left to get on with it by ourselves, it was a case of, get those balls out and no nonsense. Which we did. You weren't allowed dignity or vulnerability, those stayed on the benches with your pants and you got in there and got on with it. And it worked well enough.

I absolutely loathed my school days but honestly I don't remember any deviants. I'm so sorry to hear of your experiences, Alan. My school was like a real-life Grange Hill, with a cast of little bullies, nasty pompous tyrants and bumbling incompetents.

Comment by: Timothy on 16th June 2025 at 22:38
"I attended school in Leeds, where I was at a middle school in the mid fifties. I remember taking part in something called Children's Day back in 1955 and again in 1956 when I was ten years old. This took place in Leeds at the well known and large Roundhay Park area. It seemed like a huge event where schools from all over the area sent pupils to take part, many of us in sporting events and gymnastics. It certainly seemed well organised. I would describe elements of the day as being like a massive inter school sports day, but there was more than just sport about it. I am sure that members of the Royal Family once came to it, quite possibly even the young Queen.
There was one thing about it that fits in with this discussion a little which I remember well from both years I took part with my middle school. All the boys that went to the event, from whatever school, to do the sports and gymnastics did not wear shirts or vests. I remember all the boys as far as the eye could see from whatever school we came from were taking part in compulsory bare chests and so it was quite tricky to know exactly which boys were from which schools at some points. This is how I remember it, no boys at all, hundreds of us, without any tops on, and the crowds watching us were enormous. I think the event attracted many thousands of people to watch, and heaven only knows how many boys and girls from locally, it could be many hundreds or even a thousand or more quite possibly and all the boys went out shirtless. I might be wrong but I seem to remember some practice for events taking place also beforehand, as we mixed with other schools doing a variety of displays in synchronisation with each other in some very large groups, girls and boys took part alongside each other. This was not on a school weekday from memory but rather unusually for the day of rest which was important then I think, but may be wrong, that it took place on a Sunday. We all seemed to be very fit and active young children in those days and led disciplined lives."






I have just discovered two films from the 1950's about what you say on something called the "Yorkshire Film Archive" this evening after reading your comment from a couple of weeks ago. One of them is from the year you mention, the other from 4 years earlier. They both certainly corroborate your memory quite clearly, and in wonderful cine film colour. Maybe you can spot yourself.

Children's Day Leeds 1955, the gymnastics is mostly from 3 minutes onwards;

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/2499#:~:text=LEEDS%20CHILDREN'S%20DAY%20(1955)%20was,be%20asked%20to%20take%20part.


Children's Day Leeds in 1951, the boys gymnastics and PE begins around 5 minutes into it;

https://www.yfanefa.com/record/6222#:~:text=Description-,This%20is%20a%20film%20of%20Children's%20Day%20at%20Roundhay%20Park,boy%20in%20a%20policeman's%20uniform


This was apparently an event that took place at a place called Roundhay Park in Leeds for about 40 years from the early 1920's until the early 1960's involving lots of schools coming together from across the area.

The crowds watching are absolutely vast from one angle in one of these films. It's all very disciplined and choreographed, militaristic some might say, but it was the 1950's. A huge number of children are taking part, both boys and girls.

The boys doing the mass PE are almost without visible exception all barechested doing this, which suggests it was mandatory to be so, from whatever schools came together for it, they turned out exactly the same, even down to the black shorts, a look I recall all too well myself.

Looking at the boys here from the 1950's at these events was a reminder of my own sports days of the early 1980's which looked just the same for us boys, and was a big event with lots of spectators, but obviously nothing on this kind of grander scale.

I hope the links I've pasted up work so you can see this Timothy if you haven't before, and for any others. Apparently today (July 3rd) was the 70th anniversary of the 1955 event, and as there were many other children's days maybe others can find even more films from them. I struck gold finding your 1955 one Timothy. I noticed one film was showing up on the BFI (British Film Institute) site but was classed as unavailable to view.

It showcases perfectly the barechested culture of British PE for boys in this era and the decades that followed, as well as considerable fitness we used to be drilled into, and to not expect to feel self conscious even in front of crowds while we did it. I know the feeling well, and like Lance has said, I agree fully, I remember many times the butterflies and sinking feeling I got at the prospect of this kind of barechested PE, the sports days especially where tops were not allowed on, but after a year or so of getting this drilled into you, you do begin to lose the anxiety and fall into total acceptance of your lot.



Greg2, there was a great post you made about March this year that I always intended to answer but I was away shortly after spending a few weeks in LA, so I've been doing catch up since I returned in late May. I was reading pages of this site on a borrowed iPad on the 10 hour flight home on a BA A380 Airbus, and if you fly the same plane with Emirates you can actually have a shower at 38,000 feet on the flight because they give each passenger, not sure if it's just first class, a set five minutes of hot water to do so. If that had been available on the British Airways I would have done it just for the sake of being able to say I had done it even if I didn't need it. The mile high club of showering, alone, or do some pair up. Probably not the room even on those massive aircraft.

One other thing about LA, a lot of much older men in the age bracket of those on here, in their 40's and 50's, and even older than that like hanging out at places like Long Beach, Sunset Beach, Laguna Beach and even downtown LA in back to front caps, on skateboards and without tops on and just know they look good with a certain arrogance about their body language, acting like men and boys under 25.

Hi Justin Carney,

I think your story is absolutely standard for the time and even up to the present day. Boys have always been treated as second-class citizens. But apparently we rule the world.

I was at secondary school the same era as you, maybe just a few years younger. My school year went on a field trip that same time, somewhere up north as well.

We boys were given somewhat more leeway than you. Told at the start of the trip that hygiene was essential and we better get into them showers or else. But then we were just left to get on with it, it just being presumed we would do as told. When myself and an other boy were caught out having not showered our male teacher just indulged in a moment's mild exultation, as in "ah-ha-ha, I've caught you out" sort of thing and then gently ordered us into the showers on the spot.

We were intercepted on the way by Towel Lady, who I have mentioned before, who proceeded to scald our eardrums before threatening to strip us herself and stand over us and inspect us while we showered, which was something none of our male teachers, not even the really nasty one, ever did or even threatened, in reality. We totally believed her and meekly stripped and showered, feeling quite chastened and with our ears still ringing.

She was just a bully, who located two easy targets and went in for the kill. Unfortunately back in those days' teachers could just take liberties and go beyond the bounds. And because they could they did. Which is why we nowadays have ofsted..

I was never at that age aware of any double standard. But then maybe that was just me. Maybe I just wasn't noticing.

The 'In Loco Parentis' rule dates back, I believe, to the 1920s, where it was concocted to excuse a headmaster who had severely beaten a boy and was facing assault charges. Corporal punishment was coming into to its last days in in the first half of the 1980s. It was on the cards, it was gonna be abolished and so 'in loco parentis' was regularly invoked in the media.

It was all pure bollocks. My parents were my parents. They were the only people 'in loco parentis'. Some pompous little mini-tyrant with a rod in his hands, who felt all twisted up because he had failed to qualify for the bar exam, or get into banking or IT, was not.


I remember the real heyday of impromptu stripped-off-ness of was in primary school. I have stated previously how prevalent the practice seemed to be of getting boys -- and girls - out of their clothes in infant school. Whether it was PE or the annual school play or the traumatic, lingering horror of medical exams, there always seemed to be some justification for getting us into just our pants and bare feet. I mean, even our parents didn't do that to us.

Talking of sixth-form school residential trips, some time ago I did a facebook 'deep-dive', if you will, into my old school. Seemingly, back in the late-'60s, there was a regular residential trip to a stately home up the west-midlands,

This one year the sixth-formers snuck out to liven things up by buying alcohol from the village nearby. Unfortunately one of the returning girls was discovered and made to fess up and the whole thing was blown open. ,

The girls involved were made to hand over their stash and that was that. The boys involved had to take it in turn to make their way up to the room which the nuns (Yes, some of the teaching staff at my school were nuns, it was a weird place) had commandeered as a common room where they were expected to touch their toes to be lashed over their backsides with leather straps.

These boys were senior boys of seventeen or so. It is incredible they submitted to it.. t just makes me glad I wasn't born until the 1970s.

Simon W said -

<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>


Same here. I didn't like anyone telling me to do much in school, but I really didn't like our sports teachers telling me to remove my top and be bare chested. I liked it even less when they ordered us into the showers with bare everything. It gave me stomach flutters too Simon.

There's one thing among many that I remember about one PE teacher who took us for football in PE in the mid 1970's and it's that he weaponised shirtlessness against boys as a sanction on them. If you were not pulling your weight in PE he'd be up at you, start pulling your football top and make you get it right off and fall to the floor for press ups. The removal of the top was clearly designed as part of the sanction he applied.

You never did PE for very long at my school without becoming shirtless at some point, either sticking out as the only shirtless boy in class for some reason or the full class shirtless. The term for being shirtless was always - skins - some boys clearly recoiled when that got said aloud and the finger was pointed at them to peel the top off.

I found it easy to take. I often welcomed a shower after football which could be quite messy. Showering was rarely avoidable. I never had a problem with them forcing me to do that.

Comment by: Justin Carney on 3rd July 2025 at 14:53
'Back at home at that time I only ever used to have one bath per week, and never had anything more than a quick face wash before school at a sink basin, and I think many others would have been the same then. Did any boys here ever have a daily morning shower at home before going off to school in the seventies or eighties?'


I was a once a week bather, but we did have a basic dribbly shower at home. I used it now and then before school, not often though, and certainly there was no point on PE morning days as I'd be getting one at school guaranteed before the morning was out anyway.


Comment by: Alan on 3rd July 2025 at 18:39
'I used to shower every morning at home, in term time and holidays. But like me - I bet at home you were not watched as you did so?. That begs the question, if you were capable of being unsupervised during your ablutions at home, why not away?'


It's been said before I think, just imagine having your dad insist he stands at the bathroom door watching you stand there showering at any age from 11 to 16, and you'd be shouting at him to leave you alone and shut the door behind him, but not only were a number of PE teachers present while you showered, they actively watched and I have to say it, were staring straight at our penises quite often as they did so.

But everybody says the same don't they, wherever they went to school at this age, it's a very common theme of teachers watching on, sometimes uncomfortably close, yet there are no boys of secondary age who would put up with dad doing that, and no dads that would want to I'm sure. But your PE teacher, all's fine to be watching and looking away at you, and many others.

Supervising the boys changing room did not mean they had to literally have one foot in the showers watching our every move, something my own ones were frequently keen to do.

I don't normally want to rattle on about this kind of thing too much but when the contrast between your dad and your PE teacher was made it sure as hell made me think, 'yeah!' that's spot on weird when it dawns on you.


Were the teachers overstepping the mark in Justin's case, they'd probably just say they were doing their job, if you are away for a bit you have got to wash yourself and boys away at that age can get up to all kinds, my way would be to let them get on with it and decide for themselves. I noticed the double standard you mentioned Justin with the girlfriend, quite honestly it didn't surprise me to read that.

Justin, it might well be - in fact I think it was that those teachers were exceeding their authority. They insisted you shower and watch you do it?. I don't think they would dare do that today.

I used to shower every morning at home, in term time and holidays. But like me - I bet at home you were not watched as you did so?. That begs the question, if you were capable of being unsupervised during your ablutions at home, why not away?. I think that your teachers took it upon themselves to "supervise" you in that way suggests a certain tendency. I would hope very much they would not be allowed to do so today.

There are some real weirdos in the teaching profession

I think there was a touch of naivety within your comment Mary. I don't know if you yourself have any sons yourself, but many boys are often quietly very insecure about themselves, including their self image. I don't think that is any different now compared to sixty years ago or more, but the pressure nowadays to look perfect is probably greater, the trouble is that none of us are perfect. I agree with what you said Jason in your opening line.

Justin, snap! School field trips away were great fun, I went on two, staying in a hostel both times, when I was 15 and again when I was 17, girls came too. Something similar happened on the first one when I was 15. That teacher was also geography, we'd gone to the Scottish Highlands. Boys and girls did not share sleeping arrangements, we were kept well apart, and washing was done separately well apart. Everyone took showers under teacher orders on a couple of evenings there, not mornings. I think the attitude was that we'd paid for the use of the facilities so we must use them all! I didn't usually take baths or showers before school, only sometimes after school a couple of times a week. Sometimes if I took a bath my poor brother was told to get in my dirty water after me, one disadvantage of being the younger sibling!

Certainly nobody argued the toss that the teacher on the Highlands trip made us shower at the hostel. A lot of youngsters went on these kind of short stays away when they got older.

What the strict technical legalities of any teacher's remit were in exercising their powers is questionable I think. It's probably a rather grey area open to interpretation.

On trips away with school I remember two types of teacher, the ones who relaxed and became more chilled out with us and enjoyable to be around, and others who became right stressed out agitated miseries.

Quoting Alan here - "a P.E. teacher is just another teacher. No other teacher could make you appear naked before them, and no other teacher could tell you to remove your underwear and wear only shorts."


You may think so but I beg to differ with a real world example.

I was a normal comprehensive schoolboy, nice school but nothing special. In 1982 our fourth form geography teachers took boys from our class on a four day field visit to Cumbria to study the area during which we were booked into a Youth Hostel for four nights. There were about 16 of us, and two geography teachers, an all male trip. The girls went to another area of the country at the same time, with women. All very gender segregated, apartheid like. There may have been wider reasons for keeping boys and girls of 14 and 15 apart from each other over four day away, I don't know.

In that YH when we got up our geography teachers made us get sorted in the large bathroom which had a small communal shower that could fit about five or six in it at once, and our geography teachers made us all shower when we got up just like a PE teacher would after PE, and they both stood watching in the bathroom as batches of boys stood showering (naked) as others waited their turn. I even remember many brushing teeth at sinks with nothing on as they came out.

Once they had made all of us shower and watched us do it, and we'd cleaned our teeth, we got dressed and they made sure all of us were out of the bathroom of the YH and locked the door so they could do the same in total privacy without us coming back in on them. It was the same thing every morning for four days, dragging us out of bed quite early and making us shower. We always had to shower after PE anyway so it was no great deal in the sense of boys among each other privacy, we were used to seeing each other in that manner, but the assertive way even these non-PE teachers, a pair of geography teachers, quite mature aged men, went about making us shower together was the equal to any of our PE teachers at the time and came as a surprise I think.

When I was 15 I'd just got my first girlfriend and she went on the girls geography field visit to somewhere in Yorkshire at a YH, when we compared notes after getting back about where we had stayed she seemed to have been given more freedom on the trip than we had, and I know she told me they didn't get made to shower each morning but just did their own personal wash routine to themselves.

Back at home at that time I only ever used to have one bath per week, and never had anything more than a quick face wash before school at a sink basin, and I think many others would have been the same then. Did any boys here ever have a daily morning shower at home before going off to school in the seventies or eighties?

I think any teacher felt they had the right to do these things, the words loco parentis were always getting flung around every time we went on a school trip even if it was just a day out for six hours. It's not a term you hear much anymore.

Comment by: Paul on 2nd July 2025 at 20:11



".....As I see it I think every gym teacher has the right to tell his class of male pupils to go barechested/barefoot in just shorts if they want when in the actual gym at school. There should be no argument with that....."

Well, sorry Paul, you would get an argument from me. If I had a son at school being treated so badly in 2025 the headmaster would never hear the end of it, In my opinion , a P.E. teacher is just another teacher. No other teacher could make you appear naked before them, and no other teacher could tell you to remove your underwear and wear only shorts. We had such a P.E. teacher. As I have said before they add NOTHING to the academic achievements of school pupils, which is the main reason for going to school.

"Just shorts" in our school meant just that - but then the teacher was homosexual, and in my view before being employed, every teacher, especially P.E. teachers ought to undergo psychological assessment. No assessment, no job.

We also ought to remember that Britain worships the ECHR, (often to our own detriment), there must be in the small print of that charter some reference to allowing people - "even" children, the right to privacy and dignity - even convicted criminals have that, even in prison, so why are school students not allowed those rights. There is no dignity in the whims of some P.E masters. To make any pupil, especially older ones, conform to those questionable rules is disgraceful - just to give a teacher his jollies, in all likelihood.

Hi Paul,

'As I see it I think every gym teacher has the right to tell his class of male pupils to go barechested/barefoot in just shorts if they want when in the actual gym at school. There should be no argument with that.'

You might have wanted to argue this with this to my late dad.

There was an extensive list of PE kit uniform items detailed when I went up to secondary school. Different tops - yes, at my school we got to wear tops indoors and out - different pairs of shorts and different footwear for indoors and out. It was a lot for a struggling working-class Irish couple like my parents to meet and I can just hear in my mind the sour reaction from my dad if he had ever heard that, after being directed to fork out for all that PE kit, the PE teacher decided to impose his own regime and we were doing it in shorts only. So, no. You don't have the right to impose your own regime.

Have you not read the recent comments from men who felt incredibly uncomfortable with that minimal kit?

And why only the boys? The same challenging principles will benefit the girls just as much. Make those girls strip!!! Mary's recent account was pretty fucking disgusting tbh. Make the girls wear bikinis. It will be character-building for them.

I have no arguments on showers apart from two things.

One: as long as they are equally imposed. There should not be any preferential treatment for girls. Girls should have to shower communally.

Two: they should be optional for both genders. Especially when, as at my school, you were going straight home afterwards, which made the showers feel utterly pointless and kind of ritualistic.

The teacher has the right, but the child doesn't have the counter right to refuse Paul?

A familiar feeling I encountered from teachers at school in 1990s compulsory bare chest PE lessons in my school gymnasium, it was permanently bare chests in that place. No say in it at all.

Yours Truly.

As I see it I think every gym teacher has the right to tell his class of male pupils to go barechested/barefoot in just shorts if they want when in the actual gym at school. There should be no argument with that.

But some people here have suggested this went further with themselves, and they did this on things like cross country outside school, or a sports day with viewing outsiders. In these circumstances I do think the normal gym rules should have been reconsidered with more flexibility.

There should be no argument on showers if they are needed, and anyone doing an hour of high physical activity needs a shower when finished.

I'll tell you what Mary, you would probably be taken aback by the answers you received if you were to ask the men to open up about their innermost feelings on many subjects.

I'm male, and quite confident, had what I thought were lots of quite confident friends in the 80's until I began getting in touch with some of them again online about 20 years ago or so, the usual chatter ensued about school and all that, what we liked, who we liked, what we hated, etc. I found out that a couple of my friends were anti-communal showers and one of them described himself as being scared when he had to start doing them at school. I didn't notice that, and shared the experience with him, and he never told me in those days, but a certain passage of time elapsed and all of a sudden all these free flowing admissions came out. I didn't care one bit about the showers at school, or the regular skins classes we got into, but found out others disliked the whole set up intensely about going skins for PE. These were people I knew well, and shared these things with.

Maybe many PE teachers held my way of thinking and thought everyone else was the same. It never once crossed my mind when I was young that other boys hated being skins in the school PE lesson or were so unhappy at having to communally shower in PE class that they thought it was a scary thing.

Makes you wonder doesn't it.

One of my frequent PE teachers was a considerable size, horribly bossy and very intimidating so might have made all that worse.

Hi Mary,

I'm replying to your post of 29 June.

You speak very eloquently and perceptively about the double standard between boys and girls.

What were your feelings about Simon's experiences? Because he clearly felt very unhappy about the regime he was subjected to. You seem to be suggesting that any man that harbours bad, humiliating memories of school PE has simply re-written their past. Your male classmates buried and hid whatever adverse feelings they might have had, just like some of the girls at my school no doubt did with the gym knickers thing. Don't take my word for this. Read Kim's post. The boys you knew had no choice but to mask their real feelings. .

I am still unsure of your perception of the boys' PE kit. It sounds like you approve of it and just take it for granted that boys were to be held up to a harsher standard than the girls. What you are maybe not be acknowledging is that in a society where it is just assumed that boys will grow up to treat women as equals, unequal treatment at a young age is a genuine problem, it breeds resentment which festers and in severe cases can lead to full-blown misogyny decades down the line. Boys need to be treated fairly. And you'll have to explain to me why it it is we always need to be 'toughened up'.

'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'

Did you approve of this? You certainly sound quite easy about it. It was done to make your male classmates feel vulnerable and therefore easier to control. But why was it only necessary for them and not your female classmates?

Did you agree with this 'discipline'? Why is it that boys need to be toughened up?

I think you are absolutely right, It was really intended not for any spurious 'hygiene' reason but as a means of discipline, of subjugating boys by making them feel humiliated and vulnerable. I just don't see why it always has to be boys that seemingly need this kind of treatment.

'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.'

What did your male classmates learn from being depersonalised and degraded that was of any lasting value?

I also take issue with your use of the word 'weaker'. It was clearly an impression you got from the boys being harshly treated and as if they were an inferior gender.

Dodging school communal showers was actually a whole sport in itself. Unfortunately it was a game that we always lost.

School showers/PE teacher 245 - Me 0.

I saw a group of three boys cycling on their way to school past my home this morning just after eight o'clock, two of them were peddling to school without their tops on, presumably their blazers and ties were in the rucksacks on their backs. The third one had his blazer over the handlebars but kept his shirt and tie on. I would be very surprised if they were allowed to ride through the school gates like that, so possibly they got the uniform on around a corner just before they got there. When I thought about this they were being sensible, it allowed them to turn up to school without a sweaty shirt ringing wet. What I want to know is how some people get away without seeming to sweat while others perspire madly with no effort at all. I can't believe these schools are making them go in with thick blazers on and not allowing them to leave them at home.

Kim that's an absolutely mad story about your son there. He must have known he would get caught, but perhaps that's what he wanted. These arguments have done the rounds on here before about topless sports days, not something I encountered despite a high prevailence of shirtless PE in my school, but had it happened I think I'd have taken it on the chin, I was mostly unfazed by being stripped to the waist in the gym and don't think a sports day would have altered my feelings much.

Comment by: Kris on 1st July 2025 at 01:43
'Think about it, once upon a time, and even now, sons and daughters, boys and girls, not even teenagers some of them, and many of us, could be summarily stripped naked, the majority of us against our inner wishes and against our will, by any old PE teacher who came along and taught us. Remarkable isn't it, that any teacher had such power to do that to any of us.'



When you put it like that Kris it sounds bad doesn't it, but in the spirit of devil's advocate, was the reality of it so bad as that? Did they really have the kind of power you suggest, as Alan has made the point before asking what could any of them have done if anyone or everyone had refused all this. Could it also be that we as youngsters failed to realise the potential bargaining 'power' we might have had in school situations, this being a clear and obvious example of one that riles so many. The fact is that most of us just gave them this power over us, me included, and you've mentioned sheep and cattle, a term used previously more than once by others, maybe we were all a bit sheep like.

Hi Kim,

Well said!

I'm so sorry to hear your son went through that. I went through something similar around ten years before. Although in my case the primary issue was bullying and the mandatory football matches and the infinite degradation of communal showers were only the cherries on the shitcake.

I think the transition from primary to secondary school is one of the hardest experiences in anybody's life. You are not only going to a larger school environment but also feeling the sheen of childhood come off and the dullness of adult life start to seep in and it's just a sad time, although nobody ever speaks of it.

I certainly struggled to adapt and I still remember the grinding horror of having to adapt to something that was just too much for me at such a young age. It was like going to a prison where they let you go home every afternoon.

An earlier respondent on here suggested I must have won the lottery because I never had to do PE bare-chested . They must be right because we were always allowed/ specified tops all through my school days. It was still horrible though.

I never realised just how prevalent this shorts-only regime was until I stumbled across this forum. I was aware of it being a thing in the post-war austerity years, which makes sense for back then. In a climate of conscription, rationing and corporal punishment, where children were to be made to do as they are told and their feelings were not even a consideration, it made sense to reduce the burden on struggling parents by making boys' kit as minimal as possible, a pair of shorts and a towel and the teacher's gym slipper across said shorts if you got things wrong.
But not into the eighties and nineties. Children have feelings. And adults are meant to be responsible and professional.

'Trying to get answers out of my eldest was like hitting a brick wall'

Boys are like that. There was nothing more you could have done, it's just how boys are. I was badly bullied but said nothing to my parents. As youngsters we just clam up. I think there is this inherent sense of shame because we feel we ought to be able to deal with everything ourselves so we don't just feel the hurt of the incident, we also feel shame that we couldn't defend ourselves from it happening. Or maybe that's just me, I don't know..

One last thing. Do you mean to say your son only started secondary school at thirteen? Because my sisters and I and everybody else we knew went up at eleven. Until I found this forum I had never heard of kids starting at twelve, which quite a lot of respondents have cited, much less thirteen. Eleven years old was one of the worst years of my life and I can only speculate how differently things might have turned out if I had been spared the incipient doom of big school for a while.

I hope Mary reads your post. I think she needs to.

Comment by: Russ on 30th June 2025 at 17:07


"Whether people like it or not, Anthony has every right to tell those in his class how to dress, doesn't he? Nobody would argue that he, or anyone else, makes boys wear shorts for PE would they, so why should it really make any difference when he says they can't put a top on in the gym. Bare legs fine, bare chest not, is that how it is?....."

A fine speech for the defence, Russ!. I would like to point out though, that the extremely long hot period we are experiencing at the moment is very rare in this country. This time last year I remember it was cool and wet, and it is often chilly in the mornings, especially between September and April. It can also be very cold and damp, even in the Southern areas of the country (even worse of course the further North you go).

It is not that unusual, as we have all read on this site, for boys and men to be more concerned about their upper body, especially if you get teachers or other pupils making personal remarks. Legs are an afterthought, though I haven't worn shorts since I left school myself.

Perhaps due to my own experiences at school, it always rather concerns me when middle aged men have such a predilection for having boys running round half naked, which is compounded when they take such an interest in watching them shower, which happened in our school all the time. It should frankly, not be allowed, especially these days with all the "diversity" and "equal opportunities" that infest public service is in operation. There should be stronger safeguards for pupils. Of course, not all P.E. teachers have sinister motives, but there does seem to be, especially in the case we are discussing, a great desire to control and dominate ("obliged" was an interesting choice of word). People give a great deal away by the language . they chose to employ. "The guys" when referring to his pupils - the pseudo matey approach, to try to disguise the fact he is domineering. "Guys" - at 11??. A control freak at work.


Comment by: Kim on 30th June 2025 at 20:18



"....I had a lot of trouble with my eldest son, then aged thirteen, thirty two years ago when it came to PE lessons at school. He struggled to adapt to the culture that comes with the transition to secondary school and various requirements at that time from his own teachers of PE,"........

That could have been me, Kim. I can only speak personally. In the July in my last year at junior school we were treated like children, called by our first names all the time, praised (over-praised, certainly in my case), for most work - P.E was just fun exercises. In September when I went to secondary the whole regime changed - always shouted at, surnames only all the time, constant criticism (like the over-praise in earlier years, totally out of proportion) - we were treated as if we had been sent to borstal. The slightest mis-step yelled at and often punished, P.E. lessons with a gay martinet, who was just a little bit too interested in us the older we got. School became a punishment, something to be dreaded each day. It still is, obviously for many, and like your son, I often truanted from P.E.lessons in my later days at school.

The American bandleader, Terry Gibbs (still with us at 100) used to give all his musicians one piece of advice, which I think should be given to all student teachers - "Don't take yourself TOO seriously". His point was that, though you should always be professional, music was a fun occupation designed to give pleasure, and you always carried on learning. To be too po-faced was a killer in the enjoyment department, and turned listeners off.

My view is, and always has been, that the less academic a subject is, the more self-important and dictatorial the teacher will be. He/she is well aware that if he and his subject were to disappear, it would not make any difference to the number of doctors, engineers, mechanics, scientists - and - yes - musicians we would have. His subject is a mere interlude, which will play very little, if any, part in the pupil's chosen career (unless he wants to be Andy Murray, Wayne Rooney or Tom Daley). They never forget their own un-importance in the scheme of things, and always need to compensate by being aggressive .They are very aware of their false importance to academia.

You can rarely expect any empathy from them. There has only ever been one teacher on this site, a man called Simon, a few weeks ago, who said that in his class boys could wear what they liked and showering wasn't compulsory. I hope there are more with his more compassionate, liberal views coming through teacher training college these days. It doesn't surprise me that your son's school failed to engage with you. They just hide behind their otiose "rules" and are unable or unwilling to explain them.

It would be interesting to know how he turned out, and I am sure the 45 year old is much happier than the 13 year old he was. At the time you go through it, though, you feel very alone. Like him, I never talked about school at home.

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 29th June 2025 at 21:39
'Many of the guys will probably be relieved to be able to leave the school uniform off and do PE in bare chests tomorrow at school, which is the intention of me and a couple of colleagues who have already spoken online via video on Microsoft Teams tonight about our week ahead, which includes a sports day outside on Friday.'



Please tell us how your Monday heatwave school day went Anthony, and were they relieved, quite literally of their shirts or not. There seems some confusion to me as to whether you insist on some kind of outside bare chest type of PE or not. Maybe you could clear that one up.

What will your sports day entail at the end of this week, and what kind of PE kit is expected from them, you will definitely light a fuse if you say you tell them to do it shirtless that's for sure! Some people have been on here and said they had to do sports day that way in front of a watching crowd. Not all school sports days have visitors, does yours?

Think about it, once upon a time, and even now, sons and daughters, boys and girls, not even teenagers some of them, and many of us, could be summarily stripped naked, the majority of us against our inner wishes and against our will, by any old PE teacher who came along and taught us. Remarkable isn't it, that any teacher had such power to do that to any of us.

Kim, my PE teachers used to shepherd us into our school shower like we were sheep to be herded, truly we were cattle, he used to shout at us to hurry up stripping all our clothing off and physically manhandle some of us into the shower, crammed in together and once satisfied only then would he allow us the water he would turn on. This water started off stone cold before warming up every time.

I have never forgotten this, and I have no doubt that some of them enjoyed this aspect of the job and the discomfiture it gave a lot of us.

Your personal view on how to treat sensitive boys Anthony, please.

I had a lot of trouble with my eldest son, then aged thirteen, thirty two years ago when it came to PE lessons at school. He struggled to adapt to the culture that comes with the transition to secondary school and various requirements at that time from his own teachers of PE, especially showers which he didn't like at all, but also the wish those teachers then had for a lot of classes to be taken bare chests. In his school the gym component of PE was generally taken this way. The final straw came in June 1993 when me and my partner turned up for his school sports afternoon to find he wasn't even in school and we didn't know where he was for about three hours. I remember the sports afternoon very well because most, if not all the boys we watched either doing gymnastics or races were in bare chests (they all looked nice by the way) and although he never admitted to the real reasons he was not at school that afternoon at the time I was strongly inclined to believe the PE dress code might have played some part with his unauthorised absence.

Trying to get answers out of my eldest was like hitting a brick wall, and so it was with the school too. It felt like they closed ranks to me and I was quite surprised how dismissive and unconcerned they were about things like showers/shirts off anxiety and how unwilling they were to confront issues with worried boys not turning up possibly because of these type of things, except to give them detentions or even a full suspension was threatened at one stage.

Within months of entering secondary school in 1992 my eldest changed from happy go lucky with good attendance to much more morose and absenteeism, much of it I connected to PE lessons.

Whether people like it or not, Anthony has every right to tell those in his class how to dress, doesn't he? Nobody would argue that he, or anyone else, makes boys wear shorts for PE would they, so why should it really make any difference when he says they can't put a top on in the gym. Bare legs fine, bare chest not, is that how it is?

It probably would be more comfortable in a cool school gym with shirts off in this weather we have now, but obviously it would be madness to send anyone outside for an hour just after lunch with a bare chest, even with sunscreen in my opinion.

I well remember being sent out on the school cross country in warm sunny weather and not enjoying it very much, it was uncomfortable even with our tops off and no sweaty fabric clinging to us. I always found the colder days running shirtless more acceptable or those with cloud cover. I even remember us getting caught in the rain a number of times.

Whatever I may have thought of something, especially in PE, I never took the view that any teacher who took us didn't have the right to inform us what he wanted from us, even if that meant telling us we were being sent out in bare chests in the cool and damp, or the hot and humid to run two or three miles.

I don't think current PE teachers would deliberately send their pupils out for runs on afternoons of 90 degrees nowadays, even with shirts, but I sure remember many PE lessons in my time where the class was pushed to the point of what must have been dehydration and heat exhaustion and there being a rush for the drinking fountain, unhygenic things, bottled water unheard of.

Charles, it is not for me to defend this teacher, but he actually wrote:-
"........Pupils are encouraged to bring a sunscreen with a SPF of 30 or more, preferably 50 for going outside in summer, even in tops, with the sun at its strongest. They will not be allowed outside on a sunny day in a bare chest unless they have applied protection first, including the face. ". It is indeed true that skin cancer is more likely to occur with people forced to go out in strong sunshine , as this teacher's pupils are. I repeat that you need Factor 50, not 30, according to current medical advice..

May I also remind you, Charles, that 1965 is now sixty years ago, and though children/young adults were treated as if they didn't matter in those days, we have moved on (one would hope), and show them more empathy and respect. and, also, there are all host of reasons why some lads feel uncomfortable being forced into nudity or near nudity. I have already explained mine, and have no intention of rehearsing them again.

I think you'd find it very hard to get a sunburn inside any school gym even with some sunlight coming down through the often high up windows. I'm sure the teacher here knows what he is doing and doesn't send boys out in the midday sun to burn to a crisp without coverage, but of course you can get a quick and easy sunburn, especially us whities with pale skin quite fast even on a much cooler day, and with wind, and even underwater. I'm always careful on my regular holidays to Portugal.

Don't forget that some boys will actually want to get outside without tops on in this weather, I always did and still do, and I don't suppose this teacher will refuse by the sound of it, as long as they cream up. There will be other teachers that probably refuse to allow boys any chance to be outside shirtless in strong sunshine, or at any time, even if they'd like to be.

As far as I'm concerned, and I'm a bit of an old codger now, this is the healthy way of things and it's the schools that don't shower, or even refuse to let their students shower and mothball such facilities, and demand they all cover up with this that and the other that create the greater issues.

If you've got a phobia or are just a bit uncomfortable with yourself the best way to begin the process of overcoming it is not to avoid it but face up to it head on.

I've got a couple of junior school grandsons at the moment a few years away from secondary education. If any of this comes up in the future for them when I no doubt ask them what they've got up to, I'd say embrace it and don't push back against it. I never had a problem with my own kids showering in school for PE and even if they had disliked it, I would have told them not to be so silly, all boys have the same things, we are all so very similar while al[ being different at the same time.

I was at a grammar school in the sixties, starting in '65, and we were expected to act like big boys even when we were little boys. It would have been unthinkable for anyone to even talk about "being forced" to be shirtless in the PE we did, or "being forced" to take the nude showers with one another. To complain about these things would have been seen as slightly immature I think, rightly or wrongly, but these really were the days of peak stiff British upper lip even for children who proved to be very resilient. My grammar school even made the younger ones swim in the school pool with nothing on, all of us who went swimming had to line up and walk through a shower with nothing on before we could jump in the school pool, and if you were the younger ones they didn't even bother with you going for your swimming trunks until you were fourteen. As a grammar kid of the sixties I found it quite liberating to have all the normal barriers removed like that.

Comment by: Anthony Hayman on 29th June 2025 at 21:39





".....I see nothing wrong with obliging the guys to either remove all top clothing for PE and conduct themselves in their bare chest, even less so in current conditions.

How could you not shower after working out in such heat and humidity, as far as I am concerned it would be completely wrong to send anyone off and away from PE without a shower, it's the right thing to do.......


........Pupils are encouraged to bring a sunscreen with a SPF of 30 or more, preferably 50 for going outside in summer, even in tops, with the sun at its strongest. They will not be allowed outside on a sunny day in a bare chest unless they have applied protection first, including the face. Sometimes baseball or even beanie hats are permitted outside.

Note: I'm known as Anthony or Ant, I've never been called Tony."


A tip for any of Mr. Hayman's pupils who don't want to run around half naked today. Just forget to bring your sunscreen boys!

You refer to showering again - as I have said countless times, I like showers, but I like to take them alone, and certainly NOT with somebody watching me while I do it, which is what so many teachers do.

The more you write, Anthony, the more convinced I am that you don't teach in a standard comprehensive school. I suggest it is either a private school or a public school. Am I right?. I did wonder why you and your colleagues needed to discuss the week ahead, when it appears you adhere to the same old, same old every week, but that is your affair. Parents who can afford shorts with crests on them and sunscreen are certainly not poor - where I live there are several food banks and I don't think school, sunscreen would be on on the list of essentials, and you need Factor 50 in the current heat, 30 isn't strong enough, according to dermatologists concerned about skin cancer. I have read newspaper articles addressed to holidaymakers, which suggests that a light coloured top be worn in hot weather - and the weather is at it's hottest during school hours, but we musn't let that interfere with tradition, must we?.

We all have our sensitivities, but I am lucky that name snobbery has never been one of mine. I was in a band where there was already an Alan, so I became Al. I didn't mind in the least - it sounds more friendly, and so to some people I am "Al", to this day. Embrace the informality, enjoy the friendliness implied. Even Anthony Blair, PM and now leader-man of a worldwide "Institute" said 'call me Tony'.