Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Ursula on 17th June 2025 at 19:00
What type of bare chested bodies did you men all sport at school as youngsters?




Looking back at old photographs of myself even when I was 21 years old where I have a few in existence with my body out what I noticed revisiting some of them some time ago was how much slimmer I was at the time than I realised and would have assumed without the evidence to prove it. I didn't feel as slim at the time as the photos of me clearly show. In one of them I clearly wore T-shirts a lot one year because my forearms look browner until above the elbow and I'm fully white body, almost like a white T-shirt, and that's a teenage photo so I must have had that look in school PE and I never really noticed it at the time or thought about it. So to answer your question based on my old photo's, slim with brown arms and a white body!

Always good to see a new comment on your shirtless running group Craig.

If you go out running in the mid afternoon sun at this time of year then I'd agree with that wife about you being nuts, but not for doing it shirtless.

Would you have got a group together of that size if it had been normal running without the bareskin aspect do you think? When I ran the school cross country without my shirt on in the 70's I definitely felt a lot more okay about it as we legged it down the street away from school than I would have been by myself, the group helped, although I won't claim I was ever that fussed about the whole thing like others here say they got.

I found your 1950's memory about "Children's Day" very interesting Timothy and also quite unusual.

Comment by: Gary on 17th June 2025 at 09:57
<A guy I know is still head of PE at a high school in Northern Ireland. He is retiring soon. I thought he already was. He told me he hasn't changed a thing.
It's quite a run down school and due for replacement.
Communal showering is compulsory and shirts vs skins is still daily practice.
His XC train shirtless by choice.
He believes shirtless training is more popular now than it has been for 25 years. His pupils are less reluctant than ever before about removing their tops.
Social media fitness influencers are the cause of the trend apparently.>




Real interesting comments Gary, considering you made an earlier more sceptical one on shirtless physical education in schools nowadays. There is something in what you have said for sure.

As many already know on here, I started a 'bareskins' running group through Whatsapp, which started off a couple of years back with just three of us. This time last summer it had built up to about 30 members, and now this year we are approaching our 80th member on the group. It has been remarkable how word of mouth and friends has seen an interest in guys of all ages wishing to come and join so they can meet up in various group sizes, at various times of the week and times of day, just to go running various distances in a bare chested state, free of tops. As I've said before, we have ages from late teens to a recent seventy year old, who was in remarkable shape it had to be said. Many of us have kept fit in our lives anyway, through running or other ways, but there is an appeal of doing so shirtless, or 'bareskins' as we call it, in a social group for a lot of guys, and some you would not expect it to appeal to, including those who are doing so to prove themselves about confidence, even one of two admitted shirtless shy men have tried and come back to do it again.

Nobody has joined our 'bareskins' running group just to make up the numbers, all who have joined have taken part properly more than once. We've run in small groups of three or four, or massive groups of almost 30. It would be quite remarkable if we could get the whole group of us to agree a time and date to do so at the same time, somehow I think that's unlikely though! Morning, afternoon, late night, we run a real variety of routes and times, and with the coming weather and heat we will be doing a few late night and even midnight runs with some of the guys.

I think it's a good thing that your friend thinks there is less reluctance to going shirtless and that there is an upsurge in positive attitudes to it, I agree that this is the case currently, and social media and things like whatsapp groups like ours are seeming to prove this.

We've got a man on our group at the moment and unsurprisingly shirtless activity gets talked about and those who have children have spoken about their offspring, one chap we have has said his own two sons are doing much PE in their school gym in bare chests nowadays, although I cannot be certain if he said it was compulsory or voluntary, I think it might have been the former. I know it can be a touchy subject whether schoolboys should even be doing PE at school without tops before we even talk about whether they are told to go shirtless or just allowed to if they wish. Going skins for PE has definitely not gone away, I know that.

The wife of one of our bareskin members thinks her husband is nuts and we are all nuts going out running like we do, but she's the exception. We have actually had a couple of female partners join us, wearing tops of course, but nearly always it's just the men.

What type of bare chested bodies did you men all sport at school as youngsters?

At seniors school, a traditional comprehensive school of the time in the 1980s we would sometimes find ourselves close to the boys when we went outside and could see them not far away doing their thing while we played hockey or netball. Lots of times we saw the boys PE class come out for PE without their tops on in their dozens of bare chests and we got told off a few times by our own PE teacher for being distracted looking in their direction instead of paying attention to our own lesson. My eyes wandered in their direction. Some of the girls found it amusing their PE teachers made them all come out like that. If we had ever shared the gym with them like that it could have proved interesting but it never happened.

Meant to say that the teacher didn't object to us wearing them.

Gary,

WE were bare chested for games that we participated in at the school that I attended. I wore sarin shorts by Adidas that were popular at the time which my mother chose and the teacher didn't to us wearing them.

"Comment by: Gary on 8th June 2025 at 21:13
I really cannot believe that any school in the UK has a compulsory shirtless PE kit in 2025. Lads deciding to do XC shirtless maybe, but compulsory bare chests would have parents beating on the Principals door and cause havoc on social media."

Seems I was very much mistaken.

A guy I know is still head of PE at a high school in Northern Ireland. He is retiring soon. I thought he already was. He told me he hasn't changed a thing.
It's quite a run down school and due for replacement.
Communal showering is compulsory and shirts vs skins is still daily practice.
His XC train shirtless by choice.
He believes shirtless training is more popular now than it has been for 25 years. His pupils are less reluctant than ever before about removing their tops.
Social media fitness influencers are the cause of the trend apparently.
And same goes for designer shorts selling in huge numbers last Christmas. The branded shorts being up to £100 cheaper than the tracksuit bottoms. The shorts also allow everyone to see their designer trainers.
You learn something new everyday!

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.

Trying to play a reasonable devil's advocate for these old PE teachers we had just for a moment, perhaps the reason for sending boys out in conditions like you Isaac have described was some strange way of instilling more effort from everyone and maybe if you are outside and feeling cold it might make you want to run that bit harder. When I had to run the school cross country in the winter I do know that the last thing I would have wanted to do was slacken off, which was something some of us used to do in the better conditions out of sight of a teacher if they had run well ahead of us, even to the point of casual walking sometimes! I'm not sure I'd have been casually walking any cross country run with my shirt off in the cold though. That would definitely have made me run I think. Am I onto something here?

Andy I was also a grammar lad in the seventies (1972-78) and remember a very fresh blowy day in the early autumn of '72 getting hauled outside with the rest of them for our first go at the "legendary school cross country" as they called it, and being very concerned that our PE teachers were taking us out in a surprisingly stripped down way, with a bare chest, which I recall feeling overwhelmed by and wondering why. We had already done a number of PE lessons in the school gym without any top on, which was largely expected.

I'm unsure what gave our school cross country so called "legendary" status, probably nothing to do with doing it bare chested, however the course was more like an old Krypton Factor assault course in parts, a hill climb, and a wade through a stream a couple of feet deep, depending on rainfall, that almost reached the waist sometimes and always went above the knees. We didn't need to do the stream part, it was chosen on purpose and the water was freezing. Some of us used to take our trainers off so we didn't get them soaked, although they got wet through anyway from the rest of the run in wet weather, some boys would just keep hold of their training shoes and not put them back on and carry on.

It was unbelievably intense for boys who were only twelve year olds, and I think I remember one of the teachers telling us we would "start as we mean to go on" thus throwing us right in at the deep end from the moment of arrival. They did make us run the cross country in our bare chests all through the winter months and the only qualification for not doing so was if the temperature outside was officially below 32 degrees, or zero! I don't believe there was much accounting for the wind chill either. Sometimes it felt like quite a brutalising experience on the worst days. I cannot explain why it was seen as so important to send such young lads as me out like that, but you can imagine all the cliches about making men of us and giving us discipline and stamina, much of it fatuous in my view.

There was never a peep out of anyone as we got sent on our "legendary cross countries" which took place every two weeks early in the morning.

Louise,

Hi,it's good to hear it from a girls perspective,but I can assure you it was considered very traumatic to shower absolutely naked in front of over thirty boys and our teachers. This embarrassing situation was approved by teachers and my parents,same as going bare chested for PE and games.

I went to a grammar school in the 1970's.

We had "normal" PE/sports kit, meaning white shorts with school crest, house banded vest, plimsolls, white socks for PE and cross country, plus the usual rugby, cricket kit. This had to be purchased from a particular shop and was expensive.

One of the parents started a campaign (via the local paper), concerned about the high cost, but also suggesting that boys didn't need a vest etc for sport. From memory it was along the lines of "all they need in the gym is a pair of shorts plus maybe plimsolls for cross country. They should run stripped to the waist, even in winter"

Not sure many of us agreed with this (especially bare chested in winter) , but lot of parents did !

Interesting to read the comments on that old film link I left. I find it hard to believe how a whole mixed class would be so committed to that teacher’s instruction without a few, usually boys I would say, feeling slightly silly and self-conscious having to loose themselves so readily in all that self-expression stuff on demand. Most girls love dancing about much more than boys. Although I can remember having to do the ’self-expression’ routine at school, it was during infant and early junior school, and not the older ages just before secondary, as I thought these children seemed to be.

Just an interesting point, I wonder whether making boys do this in just a pair of shorts in this mixed setting, especially at that age, might make them feel a need to commit more effort than they would normally do, as some sort of self-imposed diversion tactic to take away from any discomfort some might feel?

Comment by: Chris 1970 on 15th June 2025 at 22:40



"Thanks for your reply Alan. I don't mind respecting people's customs in their own back yard's if I'm visiting, I see the temple thing as no more than going to someone's home and being asked to take my outdoor shoes off, it's just a courtesy. If you don't want to you don't go in. Are you saying you would not even submit to peer pressure in a large group of others and do so if the rest chose to, leaving you outside?......"

Hi Chris, No I would stay outside, if I found myself in a large group, which is unlikely. I have always believed in paddling my own canoe, and have done since I was a kid. I was never a joiner, or somebody that had to follow the crowd. Back when I was fifteen I would have played the guitar if I had wanted to follow the fashion of the day, but that wasn't for me. I have never wanted to be popular, or to pretend to like something I don't.

I think there are so many downsides to "peer pressure", we are all individuals, and we should be grateful for that, and exploit that. As I have no religious affiliations, you wouldn't catch me visiting any "places of worship" anyway. In many respects religion is the same as politics - you have a bunch of hypocrites towing the party line and their leaders motto is "do as I say, not as I do". I think the current situation is more akin to Groucho Marx "these are our policies, and if you don't like them, well, ..... we have others"

Hi Louise,

I think I am a decade or so younger than you but I started school in the mid-1970s and I can remember how shockingly callous teachers could be back then - and get away with it unchallenged.

I have learned from my sisters in recent years that female PE teachers could be just as nasty as our male ones. I heard the story of how my sister and her friend tried to forge sicknotes from their parents. They were busted immediately when the PE teacher recognised the other girl's handwriting, which was meant to be her mother's, and, according to my sister, slapped her hard across the face (there was no corporal punishment at my secondary school, so this would have been shocking to experience or witness) and snarled at them to get into the changing room and into their PE kit or else.

'I'm sure the boys must have had it easier than the girls, most boys don't care about showers with each other'

No. You're wrong. That is just so not true! I started to truant for the only time in my life when they made me do school showers at eleven. I see why you will have thought that though. Boys at that age are full of bravado and it's just not the done thing to admit to weakness and fear. Every one of us is going through the same bad experiences and we mask it with false bravado, and if you state openly what everybody else is suffering you are just letting the side down. Boys at that age mask everything so I see why you gained the impression that it didn't matter for us. But trust me. It fucking did matter.

What happened to you was only the same as what was happening to your male peers in the same era. If you trawl back through recent posts you will find accounts of what happened to boys who dared to try to resist the showers and the things that happened to them as a result.


Hi Alan,

I wonder nowadays why they still made us do Drama classes in our senior, O level years. As you say, it is the most irrelevant subject. It was surely an irrelevance that ought to have been replaced with a study hour, since we were leading up to our O levels.

The upside of it was, our Drama lessons were taken by a young, genial, warm-hearted Jewish lady, whose benevolent, light-hearted demeanour was in stark contrast to the majority of my secondary teachers, who seemed to harbour this simmering, seething anger. I regret to say her name is lost to the mists of time, not that I would have given it here. But I remember her fondly.

Thanks for your reply Alan. I don't mind respecting people's customs in their own back yard's if I'm visiting, I see the temple thing as no more than going to someone's home and being asked to take my outdoor shoes off, it's just a courtesy. If you don't want to you don't go in. Are you saying you would not even submit to peer pressure in a large group of others and do so if the rest chose to, leaving you outside?

The young people's black and white PE class film of them all over the floor contorting themselves didn't so much remind me of PE but more of the behaviour we undertook in drama at school, although we kept our tops on for that in nearly all cases. The 'old' lady in that video was probably only 45.

Comment by Louise.

Where was the kindness and understanding from that teacher? Not nice at all.

I cried when I started doing PE at comprehensive school back in 1971 and an officious old madam of a teacher who was always shouting "Come on girls" at us, told me I must shower with the others. Her response.....to slap my face, tell me to stop the tears and then to pull my knickers right down to my ankles and tell me to step out of them. Pure 19th century, not even the 20th. Many of us had very long hair and were not even allowed to bring a shower cap to school to keep it dry when they made us shower after PE. I'm sure the boys must have had it easier than the girls, most boys don't care about showers with each other, most girls really did.

Comment by: Yours Truly on 15th June 2025 at 10:31


"......In my primary school in the late '70s we had a lesson called 'music and movement', in which we performed self-expressive dancing to various tape recording which could be either musical or spoken-word narratives. It was actually quite fun. We were allowed to do it in our clothes though, unlike PE and unlike those kids in that film.

Speaking of which, that film was something else. I'm not referring to the kids' PE kit, which was standard for that time. I'm referring to that teacher. Sweet Jesus! That post-war generation really did look different and distinctive, didn't they? Like a whole generation of Thora Hirds or something. Those exaggerated facial expressions looked frightening and unsettling and potentially disturbing to kids that age if you ask me. She looks like somebody slipped Mary Whitehouse an acid tab. Sheesh."......


She certainly looks a little off the latch. I have to say though that my school had nothing like that nonsense going on, with kids prancing round like that - how can they possibly equate treating children as if they were incipient ballet dancers with "education"?. That isn't education. I am sure not one of those poor girls or lads got a job based on their sessions with Miss Havisham - who I bet at home was devoted to her Tiddles (her cat) and her wireless listening to The Archers omnibus, while she munched her Rennies.
It's like "Drama" classes in school hours these days . Except for the very few (and most of them will be "resting" half their lives) a tiny percentage are star struck - such subjects should be extra mural and not part of the school timetable because they are pointless.

Greg, nice little film there. It takes me back to doing just the same, dressed just the same, in my lower schools in the 1970's. Things like PE as well as something called music & movement rather blurred the line between what was PE and what was not, but we dressed the same for both, much like your short film shows from an even earlier time. I remember teachers looking just the same in the 70's, but I did have a lot of quite chilled out teachers too, we could sit in class top free at this time of year sometimes.

Back in the 1970's at primary school you were actually allowed to sit in class on hot days and work without your top on at your table desk if you wanted. Imagine that now! I did that and many boys chose to, teachers we had would actually invite us to do that if we were too hot. We would even go and take our chairs and tables outside to work on nice days and some boys would not have a top on, having left it back in the classroom. Sometimes half the boys in class were like that. The headmistress fully approved because I remember her coming out and supervising us one day and thinking she would make us go in and get our shirts again but she didn't. Nobody had to do that of course, only PE or the music movement class meant we had to be a bare chest on teacher's direct say so. I think the bare chest look is quite a good one really for those of us in nice shape, which is almost everyone at that age. I never had a problem being seen that way in close proximity to girls in class at primary school and I don't even remember the girls taking much notice of us on such days.

Infact I am sure I am not mis-remembering this but I even remember a French teacher of mine at secondary school who sat us outside beside the classroom when I was somewhere about thirteen or fourteen and there being a handful of boys allowed to discard tops in his lesson, not me though, although he was a short, fat, quite old single gay man which might have explained it but that was something I found out after I left and didn't know at the time.

What a great time to go to school with such relaxed behaviour, certainly at the primary school age anyway.

That's nothing unusual Yours Truly. My school in the mid eighties made our parents buy a full PE kit for both indoors and outdoors with specific requirements on type and colour based on summer or winter, part of which included both a vest and a short sleeved polo top in for the school gym when I was twelve years old.

We almost never wore either item in gym. All four of my PE teachers acted like the tops were not needed and we did PE in the gym in bare chests under all four men who all flat refused to let boys stick tops on their bodies for gym PE.

The vest didn't even double up for summer athletics outdoors, we had another different one for that, and sometimes we got made to remove it outside too.

So parents, and children were expected to provide detailed items only for us to turn up at school and told none of it was allowed to be used. Did anyone else encounter this attitude from school teachers?

Hi Toby P,

So, your parents were specifically directed to purchase blue vests which your teacher ordered you to discard on a whim? This is just another example of teachers making up their own rules which they shouldn't be allowed to do. It is also yet another instance of women teachers keeping boys down. It was my impression all through my school years that all teachers but especially women, felt that boys needed to be put firmly in their box. And they made you strip like that outside and in front of the girls as well!!

At the pre-pubescent ages you state they would have been justified in making the girls take the lesson topless for the exact same reason. Why didn't they do that then?

I can actually remember an instance of 'reverse' topless PE from my own primary days. One time, unusually, we had a woman teacher taking us for football out on the fields. Although attractive she was permanently channelling her inner dominatrix, she always seemed to be angry and she was perpetually shouting, telling kids off and dishing out detentions for very little, and everybody in her class hated her.

This was a sweltering hot day and several of the boys asked her for permission to take off their tops. In a totally uncharacteristic act of benevolence she allowed them to do so and they whipped off their tops and had a thoroughly fun time playing football in just their shorts.


Hi Greg2,

In my primary school in the late '70s we had a lesson called 'music and movement', in which we performed self-expressive dancing to various tape recording which could be either musical or spoken-word narratives. It was actually quite fun. We were allowed to do it in our clothes though, unlike PE and unlike those kids in that film.

Speaking of which, that film was something else. I'm not referring to the kids' PE kit, which was standard for that time. I'm referring to that teacher. Sweet Jesus! That post-war generation really did look different and distinctive, didn't they? Like a whole generation of Thora Hirds or something. Those exaggerated facial expressions looked frightening and unsettling and potentially disturbing to kids that age if you ask me. She looks like somebody slipped Mary Whitehouse an acid tab. Sheesh.

I think you'll find most boys were shy I certainly was. I'm sure the teachers recognised that and tried to bring you out of your comfort zone particularly for 9-11 year olds.
Our school official kit was a blue PE vest, shorts, trainers however after changing for the first time we were given a lecture about the expectation to perform gym stripped down at all times. When we went into the gym the girls were there ready to start and it was their teacher who told us to take off our vests and throw them down by the wall. Everyone did so and no doubt some felt more awkward than others. After the first few joint lessons we started to get used to being barechested and the girls were comfortable seeing us without vests on both indoors and outside during Games lessons.

I like to look through old documentary film archives from various countries around the world. Usually to be found on such sites are footage covering street scenes, and with various local events important to the area being recorded. All of this I find interesting and important to have been documented. I’ve recently been exploring the National Library of Scotland, and amongst such old footage appeared this short film, ‘intended to aid primary school teachers’ entitled, Expressive Movement for Primary School Children c1959. It covers what most primary school children would have been expected to do in PE/PT lessons of the time. I wonder whether such self expression is still encouraged for today’s children in a similar way?

I’m sure I remember doing much the same as this when I was at Junior School, but in my case this would have been in the 60s, though I don’t think such things had changed so much compared to 1959 back then. I don’t remember having to be shirtless though during such a lesson, but I might be wrong. All boys here are shirtless and seem to have changed into a pair of black shorts. The girls appear to be in their regulation navy blue knickers of the time with white vests, and all with bare feet, and all being conducted in affairs by a particularly expressive teacher. Interesting, great and important footage, recording how things were for primary aged children engaged in such activities at that time.
https://movingimage.nls.uk/film/3846

Following on my comment earlier this week, and reading what Spike has said here, you sound similar to my view here Spike. I'm quite shy too but that doesn't mean I automatically recoil from things that are not in my comfort zone so to speak. I think the trouble with some people who were made to do things in school they disliked a lot, especially when it was PE related and involved loss of clothing, is that they took it far too personally in some way and their sensitivity thermostat was set very low which triggered them easily over something like not wearing tops. Most of our teachers were not setting out to deliberately humiliate us.

When I was at school and deliberately chose to go skins when I preferred shirts I was trying to prove something to myself and others.

I haven't read back through too many of the earlier comments beyond the last month but would I be right in saying that there are no comments on here from anyone who admits they actually point blank refused to be shirtless in their PE lessons, or to take showers? I think it would have been quite brave to openly tell a gym teacher you were uncomfortable or too shy to take a top off and be shirtless in PE in the company of other boys.

Comment by: Spike on 13th June 2025 at 21:07


I think the fact is, Spike, that some people are lucky enough not to be self-conscious, or if they are, are able to hide or disguise it better than I would, for example. You clearly had good self knowledge and was able to master it.

I also have to admit I am by nature a rebel, and I strongly disliked then (and now) being "told" what to do, and as it is less painful to rebel these days than it was back then, I wish more lads and girls would start to ignore stupid "rules" which are totally unnecessary, and be the individualists they are meant to be.

When you get to men aged over 40 I think the amount of us who got the skins treatment in PE rises dramatically to well over 90% and possibly near 100% on showers for boys at least. Everyone used to shower at school, no ifs no buts, you did it and any sensitivities about it were pushed aside and you were made to face up to your own and others naked bodies no matter how terribly shy or anxious anyone was about it.

My take on being shirtless in PE though. I'm 49 so you can work out from that when I would have been at school. When I was in my very early teens I was what they used to call 'stick thin' which when undressed was very obvious, to me anyway. I'm not someone who would have walked though the local park or downtown with my shirt off at the time, although I might have picked a quiet corner somewhere with a friend and sunbathed while listening to a battery operated radio at the time, just lounging about somewhere nice and peaceful and quiet. I do remember just one occasion when I went fishing with someone from school on a hot and humid day in a very quiet area and he took his top off and after a few minutes I felt brave enough to volunteer the same, mostly due to the heat really. Other than that I would not do so. I was very self critical about my slim frame at that age and often checked myself out in the mirror trying to see if I was gaining any muscle or weight.

At school in PE there was one lesson in the gym each week when nine times out of ten we were shirtless as a whole class, as far as I knew it was the school's thing rather than the teacher's. Despite my slim frame and lack of desire to take my top off because of that, I was never upset or troubled by skins in PE which I saw as a good legitimate way that I could be shirtless in a proper environment to do so where it was fine to be and expected. At school in such lessons I never noticed anyone looking at my body in a critical way or saying anything about how I looked when I had my shirt off and was a skin above the waist. The teachers never said anything critical about my body or how I looked and nobody in class did. I also don't remember anyone else saying anything to others. I guess we all accepted what we were and how we were. The most critical person who had a go at me about my body and my shirtless look was infact none other than myself at the end of the day. There were other boys in class just like me anyway, and there were a couple of clearly overweight boys but even they did not seem to attract negative attention about their weight.

So I can lay claim to being quite self critical about my body and not really ever wishing to expose myself to the wider world out of school as a skin very often but at the same time feeling alright about school expecting me to do that in gym week after week, and just because you are very thin with little muscle definition doesn't mean you're unfit. I've got a marathon runner type physique still and can knock out half marathon distance without thinking of it.

As a tourist I would certainly remove my top to sightsee the temple if I was asked to do that. I think most men would do that and it shouldn't be seen as a problem to do.

Do some grown men just have a problem being shirtless in front of other grown men like they did as boys in school?

PE showers were the school religion, the act we all had to bow down to.

Not sure I would have wanted my head teacher towelling my back dry, I didn't even like mum doing that to me when I was seven!

Hi Alan,

'Out of date "rules" have no relevance to us - for example, when did any of us covet our neighbour's ox?. You would be hard pressed to find one in London'

Never wanted an ox in my life. Nasty, smelly things which would take up loads of room, cost a fortune for food and healthcare and crap copiously. Presumably these must have been the go-to status symbols for men in ancient times before we had cars and Rolex watches.

What has far more unsettling implications in the ten commandments is that two of them - the fourth and the tenth - make mention of slaves: 'everybody in your house, including your slaves, shall observe the Sabbath' and 'thou shalt not envy your neighbours' possessions up to and including their slaves'. At no point in the ten commandments is slavery itself as a practice ever condemned - there is no commandment stating 'thou shalt not hold thy fellow man in slavery'. This by itself invalidates the entire christian message.

I couldn't agree with you more. It has never been more urgent that we as a species move on from the Bronze Age.

Comment by: Chris 1970 on 12th June 2025 at 20:09


"You wouldn't have stripped to the waist and been bare chested so you could enter the temple then Alan, even if the others all did?"........

Definitely not Chris!. Apart from all else I do not subscribe to any religion and it's edicts, so I would be making a thorough going hypocrite of myself to pander to their rules. It is interesting to read about various religious customs, but I scratch my head and think - why the hell do they have these bizarre customs?. It is akin to the grotesque "underwear-free" PE lessons, there is virtually logical reason for it - it just grew out of somebody's fetish.

Out of date "rules" have no relevance to us - for example, when did any of us covet our neighbour's ox?. You would be hard pressed to find one in London