Burnley Grammar School

In answer to John Lavender - I live adjacent to 250 acres of common land. I aim to run most mornings in Spring. Summer & early Autumn, on a combination of surfaces. For a change I can add in a canal tow-path & farm lanes & tracks. I aim to get out before 7.00am. The area has it's own micro-climate - at 7.00 it can be warm enough to strip off & run topless. I'm in my mid-60s BTW.

Rob, we didn't wear shirts because apparently a lot of parents complained about shirts getting muddy from cross country and then having to get all the stains out. It wasn't forbidden and a small number of guys did wear shirts for various reasons.

We got changed at school in the PE changing room and then got on the coach wearing PE shorts and our school uniform shirt, which we removed upon arrival. There is a tap available at the field under which you could quickly wash the mud off before getting on the coach.

No one forced us to wear tops at the gym. It's not really considered appropriate and no one did it. I personally preferred to wear a top and so did everyone else.

Well I can't see what's the reason to wear any top for PE.Boys have more freedom of movement not wearing shirt and it is much safer for gymnastics for instance.
They are shirtless for swimming lessons too.What is the difference?
And as you've written starting the lesson having no shirt on can stop the problem of fearing who will be the ones having to take off their shirt off for team games.No shirts only coloured bibs and the "problem" solved.

These Postings on this Thread are quite Interesting; does anyone on here still Run, either On Tarmac, Cross Country or Trail , or even more Extreme events like obstacle Races, and Run topless?
What sort of reactions do you get?
Eve though my Grammar-school days are well behind me I still remember them quite fondly and do still run without a Top quite Regularly.
My main Running is Training off-road and Parkruns, and also Obstacle Courses.

I was at a boys grammar school in the late fifties and never experienced shirts v skins as we were told when we arrived for our first PE lesson that when we got changed we must take everything off including pants and socks and come back into the gym wearing just shorts and plimsolls.This wasn't a problem for me or other boys in the class and was our kit from then until we left.We would sometimes get changed expecting a normal lesson to be told we were going out on a cross country run, so we went out barechested, as normal. We accepted this and got used to it in the same way as nude showers. I am pleased to see that this site has finally acknowledged that shirts v skins was a bad idea. Naturally, if boys are allowed to start off wearing shirts and then half of them are told to take them off, the shy ones are bound to be embarrassed being seen barechested by other boys wearing shirts.This causes them stress waiting to see who's going to be picked to be a skin.I am glad that we all had to be barechested all the time and able to move around freely without any embarrassment.If we were split into teams we used to have coloured bands to wear.I cannot understand why the system of shirts v skins persisted when schools could have been like us and so prevented the misery endured by many boys who could have gone on to enjoy being barechested well beyond their schooldays.

Young men today aren't soft, but a product of their surroundings.
We certainly didn't live in well insulated boxes with central heating. So ice on the inside of School Dormitory windows didn't have parents arriving with pitch forks!
I remember the toilet block was so cold the water froze in the toilets!
The old, overcrowded building provided limited hot water!
After cursing the PT master in younger years, we thanked him when we got older and realised he was conserving hot water so teams and older lads could have a hot shower at the end of training! Happy Days

Harry, That's a very interesting comment, thanks. So it was really all about choice. I was a shy and skinny 11-year old and, given the choice, I would have worn a gym vest, something under my shorts, and I wouldn't have showered in the nude with a lot of other boys. It sounds as if you were more confident. But I had no choice and it was surprising how quickly I adjusted and got to like the freedom.

It also meant that, when the inevitable happened and some joker sneaked up behind you and pulled down your shorts, you yanked them back up and laughed it off, whereas the shy me would have been mortified. Of course, if it happened when you were up a rope or hanging on to wall bars you couldn't pull them up until your feet were back on the floor.

I benefited from not having the choice to remain shy but not every boy did. Some changed carefully so that they were never naked in the changing room, whereas the confident ones couldn't have cared less.

William, some of the boys at my school disliked being in the skins team out of shyness and feeling self conscious about their bodies. I suppose I was fortunate that I enjoyed it more. You're right, of course we all did swimming without a top but maybe it made a difference that it was the same for everyone whereas in the gym only some boys had to go bare-chested. Perhaps that's a problem for my generation as opposed to yours - we're not required to do PE like that as a matter of course and therefore some boys are uncomfortable with it. Personally I wouldn't have minded if the regular uniform had been just shorts and trainers with no top.

Harry, You would have liked our gym lessons: no vests and teams differentiated by inch wide coloured sashes worn over the shoulder, so that teams would be skins, reds, blues etc. No extra layer to make us hot. You suggest that some boys would not like gym without vests. A few days ago I think Bradley said he could think of no reason for not wearing vests. Could one of you explain why please? I really don't understand since all men/boys are bare-chested for public swimming.

Bradley, thank you for explaining about speedo jammers. When you did cross country did you go in the coach already stripped off? It's a sign of the times that you had to have a coach to take you to a field rather than run there.So you are telling me that you didn't wear shirts because if you fell over you would have got your shirts muddy and wouldn't have had time to wash them before the next lesson in the gym.Why did they make you wear a shirt in the gym anyway? I know personally it was much more practicable and comfortable without.Finally, I bet also the coach got more than a little muddy inside .

Harold1, I recently finished school so I can answer your question. Most of the time we did wear tops for PE lessons. Yes, it did cause them to be sweaty so they were put in the washing machine after a few lessons. Teams were differentiated using bibs. Cross country, which took place three times a year, was done in a field a few minutes away from the school by coach and was done shirtless because there were sections which were very muddy and slippery and you were guaranteed to fall over.

In reply to your question Harold1, I was at school six years ago and the answer was both - sort of! We did wear T-shirts for our PE lessons but there were a large number of boys in the class so sometimes we had to divide into four or even six teams. When that happened some boys put bibs on over their T-shirts, some stayed as they were and some had to play with no top at all. Personally I liked to be on the shirtless team, it felt more natural and comfortable but some boys didn't see it that way. From reading these comments it looks like I would have enjoyed doing PE 40-50 years earlier!

I can remember those days during PE lessons when we would be exhausted and sweating. Wearing a shirt would have been a nightmare since all the sweat would stick to it and would probably sweat more when wearing one.

Does anyone know whether schools do PE lessons shirtless? And if they wear shirts, how are teams differentiated? Surely bibs would add even more clothing and lead to even more discomfort and sweating?

Rob, sorry I think you misunderstood me when I wrote about wearing speedos. I was talking about speedo jammers, not speedo briefs. For example,

http://www.speedostore.co.uk/mens-endurance-jammer/800722.html

They are a lot tighter and streamlined than normal trunks and are the best for swimming competitively. They cover the leg and thigh hair so there is less friction with the water, allowing for slightly faster swimming. Olympic swimmers wear them, although it's a more expensive version for them!

Rob,
I don't wear speedos to get an advantage. At swimming competitions, everyone wears them so not wearing one would be a disadvantage since you will be a little bit slower. It's also the same reason that everyone wears swim caps on their heads- the friction between the hair and the water slows you down ever so slightly.

Hope that answers your question

Thank you Rob and William for the explanation.

Gerald, yes normally the purpose of wearing underpants is to stop sweat, and other body fluids, from reaching your trousers, but in the gym we used to sweat profusely and unless we all had a change of underwear it was better to wear nothing under our shorts, which were easy to wash,than to replace our sweaty underwear after showering. I never heard anyone complain about not being able to wear anything under their shorts and never felt embarrassed about it.We were all boys and having to strip off and wear just shorts and plimsolls both in the gym and outside, including cross country runs made us feel relaxed about ourselves and more confident.

Gerald, You were expected to sweat during gym, which was why you had a shower nude afterwards. What's the point of a shower if you then put sweaty pants back on? The crotch is the last place you want an accumulation of stale sweat, which was why wearing pants in gym was considered unhygienic.

Charles - that was the experience of quite a few of us, thanks for speaking up. Nothing soft about wearing a jockstrap, indeed quite commonsensical!

Bradley,learning to swim at your old school obviously made you keen to get more involved in the sport.In your quest to
go faster by wearing Speedos does that mean you also have to shave your body hair before competitions?

Charles, You are right, there is nothing soft about a jockstrap but we never saw them. I doubt whether most of us knew what they were, but then I was at school a few years before you. Neither did I see the white nylon shorts that some contributors have described. Ours were cotton like those in the photo

Rob, The photo is exactly like the gym lessons I had at grammar school. As it was taken in 1959, we can be pretty sure from the many comments below that the boys were wearing nothing under their shorts; and it doesn't seem to bother them to judge from the boys on the ropes and the beam. The reason I think is that we were all in the same boat. If I had been the only boy to do a handstand with my legs held, I might well have been embarrassed to have everything under the shorts on display; but the fact that we all did it was a great antidote to feeling awkward. I didn't understand at the time but this relaxed approach gave us confidence.

We became attached to our shorts and really tried to make them last! We grew into them. Rolling the waistband to keep them up also pulled up the legs and made them a tighter fit, which was just as well for a boy of 15 and it made the shorts feel good. I can hear the youngsters saying that this all sounds a bit dodgy, but we really didn't think anything of it.

We all understand why today is so much less relaxed, although I had not realised that there are schools today where the pupils never have showers, but have we thrown the baby out with the bath water? It is hard not to feel sorry for some of the young men today who seem to be so inhibited that they do not remove their chlorine soaked trunks when they have a shower after swimming.

I can't pretend that gym and games were all fun at school. Sometimes we were dreadfully cold but I would rather have had the physical hardship than leave school with hang ups about bodies and body image - not that we knew what body image was.

Interesting to read these comments, takes me back to my childhood!

Looking back, the no pants rule was very unnecessary. William, I don't quite understand your point about pants being unhygienic. Surely, the purpose of wearing underwear is to stop sweat from reaching the shorts/trousers? Personally, I always thought it was a stupid rule and I'm glad today's teens don't have to put up with it.

I don't think schools are too soft, just less harsh. Wetsuits in swimming is a good way to encourage more people who may be self conscious to take up swimming. Jockstraps/underwear are important for safety. I do think that today's teens are as confident and strong as we were, just that they didn't have to deal with unnecessarily harsh rules for PE

William,we've just described the same gym kit and how we wore the same shorts from the first year until we left.We were sometimes sent out on a cross country run in our gym period, admittedly usually only between April and October,and we also did athletics in the summer term. All this was still in just shorts and plimsolls; did the same apply to you? In the winter we played football and wore a shirt but with nothing on under our shorts it was certainly very cold at times. Nude showers were obligatory after all the above activities, but like you and many others we accepted it without question and got used to it. However,apart from the cold, I can say that I actually enjoyed it most of the time and it didn't do me any harm, but I don't think most of today's lads would cope with it, which is a pity because it would do them good in many ways.

William
Nothing soft about wearing a jockstrap when you are 16+ years ... just common sense ... Went to school in 60-70s

I have just seen this item and was staggered by the number of comments. I can confirm what most of the others have said about gym and games at boys schools in the early '60s. For gym I wore plimsolls without socks, no vest and shorts with nothing underneath, which made 20 star jumps a bit of a laugh. Any boy wearing pants would be told to take them off because it was unhygienic to sweat in pants. Nude showers after gym were compulsory and supervised by the gym master. Our shorts were baggy in the first form but it was a tradition to hang on to shorts for as long as possible, so by the fourth form we had to roll over the waistband to keep them up because the elastic was weak. We wore nothing under shorts for cross country, athletics, rugby and hockey, no matter how cold it was. Sometimes after games our fingers were so numb that we could not do up shirt buttons but it did us no lasting harm. We had to get on with it and not make a fuss. Jock straps, wet suits for swimming and games only in good weather would have been unimaginable. How soft schools have become!

Bradley, times change because when I was young lad, my parents used to encourage me to take my shirt off and get the sun and fresh air to my body as it was good for me. I used to play outside with other boys and in the summer we often took our shirts off.I later got the impression that our parents were keen to ensure that none of us got rickets as I know my grandmother suffered from it as a child.At primary school any sort of PE was done in our ordinary clothes without taking anything off, but when I went to the boys grammar school at the first lesson we were told to change into just shorts with nothing underneath and plimsolls, no socks and stripped to the waist.This wasn't a problem for me as I had been used to going shirtless for some years and was our kit throughout our school years.It is evident from this website that this was also the norm at most schools for many years.

Similar to Toby our uniform listed a white vest. But from day 1 our PE teachers both insisted on bare chests, regardless of weather conditions!

Mums insisted we wore vests in winter so most ended up being used as underwear.
We used bibs to distinguish teams, but vests were prohibited.
Having PE outdoors first thing on a winter morning was pure lunacy. From Mum insisting on a vest under 3 or 4 layers to going without a vest for an hour on frozen ground.
Always followed by a cold shower.
Prisoners were treated better.

Andrew, our pool was not in an enclosed area and the pool was visible from one of the other school buildings, so you can understand why it would not have been appropriate to not wear trunks.
Our school did prioritise sports and we did get tired after lessons.

Toby, I find it surprising that a teacher would tell students to not wear a shirt during PE lessons, especially at all times in the year. What was the reason given for this rule? It seems pretty unnecessary to me. At my school, I only remember taking shirts off in PE lessons during the summer, only when it was too warm or for certain occasions; it was very rare.

Lewis, speedos are more popular now than before. For competitive swimming, they are much better than other swimming trunks because they are more streamlined and can improve swimming times by quite a lot. I myself wear them for competitions and galas as they really do help your swimming time.

Lewis,although I was still wearing shorts at 14, I would have considered it far too old to be still wearing shorts.
I had to wear shorts 24/7 and they were quite comfortable to wear,albeit they were of an absurd brevity,hence they were referred to as'short shorts'.

John I was in the same situation as you. Although most boys in secondary school wore long trousers, my parents considered me too short for longs and consequently I was wearing shorts until about late 13's or 14. The upshot of this was that not many shops sold grey shorts for older boys and so the one s I had were quite tight and uncomfortable. Without being too indelicate this caused my underpants to cause me discomfort.

Furthermore it was not very pleasant in winter. Short shorts and long woollen socks. What a great day when I was finally allowed to wear longs!