Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

Charles,I expected to wear long trousers when I started my new school,but when my mother received the school uniform list it stated that boys'should wear long or grey short trousers'and much to my chagrin my mother that I should wear shorts.
I agree that we stood out more,mainly because,like you I was tall and my fellow pupils found it amusing to see a tall boy wearing shorts.
Also,when wearing shorts it gave an ideal target for teachers and parents to administer summary corporal punishment and as you say "it left embarrassing red marks.

Yes they were short. Also we were not allowed to have our long grey socks fall down . Thy had to be held up with garters. School rules at comp and infant middle that socks had to be up at all times.
I was also very tall and felt very visible with my shorts on. Certain teachers were also very inclined at smack boys legs when when they were in shorts, leaving an embarrassing red mark.
It was always a risk arguing with mum about me wearing shorts as she was not the type of lady to take kindly to such things.
When I did get home with legs marked from a teacher smacking she dealt with me straight away.

Charles,most boys at the school that I attended wore long trousers, mostly from the age of 11,so I was also in a minority wearing shorts for my secondary school that I attended.
If the shorts were absurdly brief like the shorts that I wore you would certainly feel the cold.

I didn't mind wearing shorts when everyone else at school was but when at comp and some wore shorts but most wore trousers I really didn't like that
I never really got used to the cold and wet especially at comp when it was virtually impossible to dry wet socks etc as we swapped rooms after every lesson.

Certainly I still wore short trousers until early 1961 when I was thirteen.

Back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, wearing short trousers all the time, whatever the season or weather, was normal for myself and almost every other boy I knew.

I particularly remember this being the case during the exceptionally long and cold Winter of 1962/63, when I was ten years of age and in the 'top' class at my primary school.

Each chilly morning my mother would ensure I put on a warm coat and scarf/gloves, then a woolly balaclava which covered most of my head, plus wellington boots.

But, strange as it may seem, there was never any thought given to swapping my usual short trousers for long ones.

Even stranger, my legs never felt cold, even if my hands and feet did. Perhaps all those years of wearing short trousers acclimatised my legs to the weather?

yes James, I vividly remember those red raw thighs in Winter.
I had about a three mile walk home from school. Part of that was over wide open parkland. It was freezing.
At home I always wore "house clothes" and I remember getting changed and warmed in front of the sitting room fire. We didnt have central heating back then
It was such a relief to warm your cold legs and feet by the fire

Tony H & Charles,

I also found it devastating to wear short pants to school and like ourselves,I'm sure others would found it so.
When complaining about the absurd brevity of the shorts,that was the fashion of the time and the longer style of shorts were out.
I agree they could be 'brutal'wearing them in cold weather,but as you say it used to'acclimatise us when
participating in sports in bitterly cold weather.
I remember my thighs were red raw in the winter and my legs were brown as berries in summer.
Knee stockings had to be held in place by tight fitting garters and the tops had to be turned over to show the bands of colours.
The worst part was was your bare thighs were red rawe

Similar memories Roy the teachers would move the crates next to the radiator it tasted dreadful!

When I was at Junior School in the 1950's the heating was very primitive to say the least and I remember the milk freezing with the cream being forced out of the top of the bottle.

Ross. Yes, we used to jump in puddles and try and splash as many other kids as poss. At school our socks dried on the radiators and we went barefoot

Ross - you had radiators! What luxury!

In junior school in the late 50s it was coal fires, and at Grammar School it was?? Some sort of central heating, I suppose - hardly very effective. I recall for a period in 4th form that a window was missing from one class-room.

Ahh yes I remember those cold soaking wet rain days. Walking to school I thought it was a brilliant idea to slash the puddles. Not so much liked it when I arrived at school and was told along with half a dozen others to take my socks off and work in bare feet while they spent the morning drying on the radiator.

Yes, on a wet day it was certainly possible to see who had walked or cycled to school as opposed to those who had caught the bus.
Getting wet on the way home wasn't too bad, but sitting in wet socks all day when it had rained on the way to school was not fun!

From what I remember, I was at school in the 60s, our socks were woollen so were quite warm and they reached almost to the knees, with those elastic garters some also mention.

The uniform shorts were alo quite long, reaching to knees or below length, and they were of thick material, so I don't remember being bothered about the cold wearing them.

As some others mention I also wore school shorts till I was about 14 and many other boys also wore them till that age.

Also as someone mentioned in a previous post the girls wore long white socks and short skirts and don't remember them wearing tights in winter so they were probably not allowed also. So it was probably more tough on girls than boys who could also wear long trousers anyway, but not girls.

Andrea. Another downside to wearing shorts was that socks were often soaked by the time I got to school. Until sec it wasn't much of a problem as we all put our wet socks on the radiators to dry. I can still see the steaming radiators but our socks dried.
At sec we didn't have a set classroom so we couldn't dry our socks. It was very uncomfy being in the wet socks.
Girls at comp had to wear white socks, either ankle or knee length. Tights weren't allowed.

I have posted previously that I had to wear grey shorts for school until I was about 14. In hind sight I suppose the only benefit was when we had to wear shorts for pe and outdoor games, my legs were already somewhat acclimatised to the cold and so it was not so great a discomfort when going outside for football.

James & Charles you have my sympathy regarding having to wear shorts in the cold winters.
Unlike some schools, mine didn't allow girls to wear tights with our skirts, just long socks. As I had to cycle to school my legs felt like icicles some days!

Tom,
Thanks for your posting on the topic of naked swimming. I still think that lad’s anxieties over having to swim naked were unnecessary, after the first lesson of having to swim naked lads got used to not wearing swimming trunks and it was no problem.

You’ve given excellent reasons why it is safer and healthier to swim naked; so I still think that schools that had compulsory naked swimming for boys were right and that the policy should never have been stopped. Rules can be character building when you are growing up, and naked swimming can help to reduce the chances of lads having body image issues.

Charles,Yes,I agree"I agree winters were brutal with shorts"
When most boys would wear long trousers and girls could wear tights we would have to suffer the indignity of wearing shorts.
I considered it an outdated convention to keep boys in shorts at our age,but my parents were quite proud of keeping me in shorts despite my age and insisted that I should go the"full term"in shorts.

John, it is not a fear of swimming naked, it is about being self-conscious and shy about showing your naked body.
As most who have had this experience at school are saying they soon got over this shyness and enjoyed swimming naked once they got over it.

Swimming naked is in fact fun and has a feeling of freedom.
According to experts it is also safer to swim naked if you get into difficulties while swimming without the hindrance of trunks.
It is also more comfortable to swim naked than when wearing trunks or speedos, they are either too tight or too loose.

The argument is probably whether it was right to force boys to swim naked whether they liked it or not.
There may have been several reasons for it in schools. Among them was tradition, that boys were more manageable and behaved better when naked in a large group in a pool environment with just one or two instructors, no worries about boys leaving wet swimsuits to rot in a changing room locker or having to take home wet suits in their school bag.
These are some of the reasons which sound very logical.

Thanks for the information re support.

From the majority of comments regarding schools which had a naked swimming rule for boys it appears that lads had no problem with it after their initial shock of the very first time that they were made to swim naked. This would seem to indicate that any fear of swimming nude is only in the mind and has been put there by society’s stupid and incorrect association of nudity with sex. There is no reason why swimwear needs to be worn at all at at a boys’ school.

Any fear of swimming naked was an irrational fear. I think that the schools that had a naked swimming rule were right to adopt that policy and should have continued with the rule as there was nothing wrong with it it.

To James. Gosh yes the winters were brutal with shorts. I had a long walk across open parkland and in winter my legs were so cold.
I had forgotten about the garters digging into the legs. At night when I got home and took them off there was always a deep ridge in my legs.

Tom
No we didn't have any female instructors although sometimes the Housemaster's wife oversaw our swimming lessons. Didn't bother us in the slightest. For inter-school tournaments we always wore speedos (navy blue was only allowed)

Tony H
No need for support under water ... that is the beauty of water buoyancy and why swimming naked is so much more natural

Gavin A,
Did you ever have female teachers, instructors, or other female staff present during your nude swim classes?

Did you have swim galas or competitions in the nude in front of mixed spectators?

Interesting reading about swimming lessons. I attended an all boys school 1961 to 66. We were bussed to the local municipal swimming pool for lessons. It was a private closed session during school time but we wore trunks now known colloquially as "speedos". (which now appear to be out of fashion)I do not know how I would have felt I we had to swim naked. However I suppose like on the comments on this page I would have got used to it after all we had a communal changing room. Furthermore at school after PE we had to have a shower which again was in a communal situation so I suppose the swimming would not be a problem. I just wonder if how it was not having any "support down below"in the water

Gavin A and Jack.

At the independent boys school I attended in the early 1950s naked swimming was mandatory. It was daunting at first but I did become used to it. My extra swimming tuition was also taught in the nude with a male instructor. Nothing was worn under any sports gear either. After Cricket there was more skinny dipping. Different days.

Charles,I think we were in a minority wearing short trousers at 14 years old and in case slightly older.
They were not compulsory at my secondary school that I attended and my parents took the option to keep in shorts despite my age.
It would mean that a much younger boy could be in long trousers while I was still shorts at 15.
Of course those long grey stockings had to be gartered to keep them in place that left ridges in my legs,which I found uncomfortable,but the worst aspect was wearing them in the cold winter months.
I never had a logical explanation why I had to wear short trousers when most of my contemporaries wear in long trousers.

Gavin A,
My school didn’t have it’s own swimming pool so once a fortnight we were bussed to the local pool. We had to wear speedos and it was a co-ed senior school so girls joined us lads for swimming lessons.

I was aware that nude swimming was compulsory at some schools though. My cousin’s boys only senior school had weekly swimming lessons for boys from age 11 to 18 and they always swam nude, costumes were forbidden. I discussed this with my cousin and he said that after the first lesson all lads completely forgot that they were naked and concentrated on swimming. So I wouldn’t have been bothered if I’d been made to do swimming nude as long I was amongst other lads. I wouldn’t have liked being forced to swim naked with girls around.

For Indoor PE we were always stripped to the waist and wore white shorts and there was a strict no underwear rule. Plimsols were allowed in the gym, I wouldn’t have liked to do gym in bare feet like some guys have described. I was perfectly happy doing PE shirtless, I would have hated having a hot, sweaty shirt sticking to my back.