Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Terry on 29th April 2025 at 18:24


I have to admit. Terry. that the notion of naked P.E. seems hard to believe. Our teacher was a dirty old man of many years standing, but even he wouldn't have indulged in that sort of highly questionable behaviour - his cover would have been blown immediately. I can only think he must have attended the school I have mentioned previously (too many times, I know, so that readers are sick of me mentioning it). By coincidence that school WAS in Essex and the person(s) involved indulged themselves behind locked doors.

Yours Truly, you said 'We were allowed tops on all through our schooldays. On going up to secondary there was a long list of kit which our parents had to get for us and which always specified tops. I think I have have detailed it in an earlier post. Bare chests were never on the agenda for my lot. I don't know if being a catholic school they just had a more than usual injunction against bare flesh?. Catholic schools are weird places. I can only speculate.'


I've been led to believe the opposite of Catholic Schools in various films I've seen over the years, for both boys and girls.

Isn't it Catholic schools that went big on the whole naked swimming thing for instance, in America especially? I once read that this was commonest among such schools in particular, for whatever reason. But if you went to a Catholic school what made you give rise to that comment, other than your own experience?

I'm uncertain of your age Yours Truly but am guessing it's middle aged like many here, and on that basis I do indeed think you were unbelievably fortunate not to encounter any shirtless PE demands throughout schooldays as someone who would have found it tricky on them. I thought that was almost impossible! In your case with your views I think you won the lottery there on that.

It's worth also making clear that there must be lots out there who couldn't have cared less one way or the other about such mandates on going shirtless, but I do think the shower anxiety was far more widespread than is ever really acknowledged, but that should not surprise anyone.

Thanks for the empathy in your reply Greg, and to others who have mentioned my couple of comments here. It's nice to find a place just to put a few old thoughts out there with others who seem receptive to what I've said, and at 54 going on 55 I never thought I'd ever be mentioning such things.

School memories last a lifetime.


I liked the peeping clip in the film Karl. I hope they weren't really peeping though, because those lads weren't just acting, they really were stripped off. There was no chance any girls would get such a chance in my school. I'm always surprised to see films like that being quite so realistic. Brave boys there.

Uh-Oh, Essex Lad has returned to the jock straps, checking for pants down the shorts and naked PE.

Yellow card for you!

My P.E kit to bring on entry to secondary school in 1977 wasn't too expensive, nowadays some schools expect school branded uniform costing nearly £500 each, including branded PE kits. None of mine had any branding of school or manufacturer.

For the outside;

1 pair of knee length dark green thick socks.
1 pair of dark navy shorts.
1 green and navy shirt.
1 pair of football boots.
1 pair of Plimsolls (outside only spring/summer)
1 white and green vest (outside only spring/summer)
Plus towel for showering.

Inside;

1 pair of white shorts.
Towel for showering.


No boys were allowed to put a top on for PE in our sports hall, we always left the changing room direct for the place all shirtless. A weird one really when we all had a very usable PE vest that we wore outside in summer but it wasn't considered something we should put on in the sports hall as well and we were left in our mostly skinny skins states of dress, not universally a popular decision I seem to recall at first. They also didn't let us wear any type of trainers or plimsolls in the sports hall, because they were worried about scuff marks on the surface and also the sound of squeaking apparently had driven one PE teacher mad a few years previously! So the full traditional gym mode bare feet and bare chest it was for four years there.

What's the problem with skins PE at school, well it's got a lot to do with the age it happens and also being told to do it I think, kids don't like being told to do many things or even wear a uniform. I was largely alright with that most of the time. My personal dislike was a teacher forcing me to shower naked. I'm a man who can happily admit that as a schoolboy I found the whole issue around compulsory PE showers quite anxiety triggering for a long time. For some it can be incredibly daunting and almost intimidating to crowd into a small area with 30 or more others even if you know them all, and I reckon we didn't even need to take three quarters of all the showers we had to in school. One of our teachers always had his head peering in at us, eyes lowered. They thought we didn't notice, but we did.

I'd love to be able to humanise you with a real name Yours Truly but never mind, here goes anyway.

You're quite correct about a reticence to report being picked on or bullied at school, and not saying anything to those back at home, mum or dad, or even a brother or sister who might at least understand, especially if they are at school with you in another year.

I was the same. The sense that you don't want to show weakness to your peers in school is just a part of it, possibly like you, I didn't even want to show any possible weakness to my own family and never reported back a collection of incidents that happened to me.

Most of it was just verbal, but my mother was fond of telling me that old chestnut "sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me". Well, up to a point, it depends what type of hurt you are thinking about, and there's much more to getting hurt than a broken leg.

Then there's the kind of behaviour in school you get from others that is neither nasty comments and words, or physical hurt, but another kind which I shall detail.

I was in an art room one afternoon and we were doing a class using powder and oil painting and mixing up various colours with the powders and oils to create new colours and being asked questions about what colours would make which colours if mixed. It was one of those events where nothing led up to it and came completely out of the blue without warning.

I was sitting along an art bench concentrating on my own work and two boys came along behind me in opposite directions and both poured a big tin of mixed paint all over my head, one was black and the other was bright yellow. My hair was covered, it was in my eyes, some went in my mouth even, and all over my school clothes and lap, even onto my shoes and down my back and front inside my shirt, even though it was buttoned up with a tie in place.

I remember being in complete shock saying almost nothing as uproar developed around me. I was thirteen and a half years old at the time. The art teacher was one of my favourites and I was good at the subject and he liked me, was very mild mannered but knew when to be strict at the right moment. He nearly swiped these lads for doing that to me.

One thing I remember is a lot of girls seemed to find it hysterical but not the boys, you might be surprised to hear that. One of the culprits liked to consider me his friend too. With friends like that who needed school bullies/enemies, but then so called friends can sometimes also bully you and can get away with it.

I was left in this monumental great mess and my work had also been damaged too, plus mess all over the floor and work bench.

My art teacher was wondering what to do with me and called the other art teacher in the other room nearby, and they decided to get the headmaster to come along and deal with it. Meanwhile the culprits had been separated. Everyone else had stopped what they were doing.

The headmaster came along, asked who was responsible and told both culprits to get to outside his office immediately and wait there, not even asking for an explanation in the art room. That came from the art teacher and me.

What annoyed me most about my head was one of the first things he asked me was had I done anything to provoke them to do it, as if that made it alright! My art teacher chipped in fast and said absolutely not, and that was accepted.

I remember wiping all this paint off me with lots of bits of coloured art tissue and crepe paper that was lying about, the only thing we had at hand immediately and then someone finding an old bit of fabric, soaking it with hot water from the sink we had in the room and helping to wipe some of the mess off my face and hair.

The head teacher said we can't have you walking around school like that though, I remained a state, and my eyes were still stinging too and watering from the paint, making me look as if I had been crying but I hadn't. He suggested the solution was we need to get you into some clean clothes, and asked if I'd had PE that day, which I hadn't. A shame because I could have switched to that he said.

I still had this paint all through my hair and in my ears as well, so the headmaster told me just to sit tight while he went away for a minute or two. When he came back he had one of the PE teachers with him who said he could give me some clothing items to wear from lost property, that suited the headmaster and he left to deal with the culprits. My art teacher then allowed the PE teacher to take me off with him and he unlocked a vacant changing room and allowed me to have a full proper shower all to myself in the same one I normally used with all the boys after PE to get rid of all the paint from my hair, eyes and where it had gone down the back of my shirt and all over me before coming back and giving me a choice of shorts, sweatshirts and jogging trousers and even to borrow his rather large jacket too. I took the shorts and sweatshirt and all my other clothes went into a carrier bag. At least I was now clean. I spent the rest of the afternoon in shorts and sweatshirt with leather shoes on before walking home, and returning the clothing clean the next day, it went in the wash with all the paint splattered uniform as soon as I was home. We actually thought much of my uniform was ruined at first but a couple of washes that night and it was clean again.

At one point I thought I was going to be sent home like I was in that right mess which would have been awful, and I was really grateful for the spare bits and getting the shower to myself for as long as I needed it to clean properly and I made full use of the chance, I remember complaining about my stinging eyes and was told to open them and let water onto the eyeballs. As a precaution I was sent to see the school medic to explain what had gone in my eyes and got some instant eye drops but was alright.

I told all three teachers involved, my headmaster, the art teacher and the PE teacher that I would tell those back home what had happened and they were alright about that. But I didn't really want to tell them at all, but the state of my school clothing meant I had no choice but to cook up some explanation and I was going to have to make it good.

So instead of admitting it was a deliberate act of two boys drenching me in two large pots of paint straight over my head in art class, I concocted a story that it was all an accident where I'd walked through a door in art into a teacher carrying all our paints on a tray that had been sent flying and it had fallen over me. This explanation worked and I even got myself called careless!

I do remember in the days after this suddenly becoming terrified that one of these teachers was going to make contact with my parents and spill the truth out or that it would be mentioned at some future point when there was contact of some sort, but it never was, much to my relief.

As for the culprits, well in February 1980 they were both caned for that after their parents were informed and received detentions.

I think what got me the most in the aftermath was how those culprits acted resentful to me for their punishment for what they did to me!

Hi Mark,

'Interesting comments about your multiple school attendances John Painter, reinforcing the sense that in the eighties it was almost impossible to avoid some level of regular shirtless PE.

There are not many men on here who have suggested they did none at all, especially in the 70s or 80s, other than YT who may confirm he didn't do so if I've read that right?'

That is absolutely correct. We were allowed tops on all through our schooldays. On going up to secondary there was a long list of kit which our parents had to get for us and which always specified tops. I think I have have detailed it in an earlier post. Bare chests were never on the agenda for my lot. I don't know if being a catholic school they just had a more than usual injunction against bare flesh?. Catholic schools are weird places. I can only speculate.

I never discovered until I stumbled across this forum how unusual that was for the time and I now realise that I was actually comparatively lucky in my own schooldays. It didn't feel like it at the time, because I had my own struggles and challenges that went undiscovered for many years and just seemed to make everything twice as hard as it seemed to be for everybody else. (Thereagain, doesn't everybody think exactly the same? Unfortunately in life we are locked into our own perspective.)

'You mentioned feelings John. To be fair I don't know what I would have said to any teacher probing my innermost thoughts at the time. You had to keep up a sort of facade to your class mates don't forget and I think so many of us kept up this barrier around us so we were not being seen in a certain way even if we had certain thoughts and opinions, or feelings.'

That is just so true about teenage boys and their feelings. There is a very strong herd instinct which many teachers always just seemed to overlook. I didn't tell my parents when I was being bullied. Not just because of stepping out of the herd but also because speaking about it would have felt like reliving it. Speaking out about your issues is to confess that you have vulnerabilities and for boys that was the biggest taboo.

I would have been horrified to have been forced into a gym with girls my own age wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. I can't believe schools actually did that. Adolescents need more, not less, consideration than younger children because by your teens you are developing a sense of personal dignity and this should be respected and nurtured, not the opposite.

But I know I would still have done it if I had been made to

If you ask me beating a teenaged boy bent over in only shorts is a violation of psycho-social boundaries that are essential to the development of a normal, balanced, developing psyche. Not to mention the veiled sense of sexual submission implicit in the whole thing.

But you know what? I would have complied if it had been me. I would have bent over, taken my turn and just tried to bury the stinging and the festering humiliation and unfairness afterwards. Because to do otherwise would have required the courage to step out of line. The easiest thing was to comply.


'You could apply the same to the shower requirement I suppose. Would anyone dare raise their hand to indicate they were scared and anxious to shower?'

' You could apply the same to the shower requirement I suppose. Would anyone dare raise their hand to indicate they were scared and anxious to shower?'

Comment by: Christine Sanderson on 28th April 2025 at 16:38


"if there is trouble they will believe me not you"

This is always a concerning type of comment, and a warning sign to me, it's an implied threat too."......

That was my charmer of a P.E. teachers catchphrase, Christine. We heard it on a regular basis from the second day of my secondary school life at 11 - the first time we had him, - till the end of the spring term the year I left (the summer term of that final year we could opt to do subjects that might help us in our work life - I seem to remember I chose more English and TD). To some degree I think he knew, since many were growing taller than him (not me, alas) there was slightly less power on his side, and what was the point - there would soon be a fresh batch of eleven year olds to intimidate, assuming he was one going to the new school opening that autumn (he was slightly younger than most of the teaching staff). I always rather hoped he became unemployed. You can see the modus operandi though, can't you? - put the fear of God into them from day one - I think people forget that children were in junior school in July then less than two months later they have an entirely different regime - there was little "punishment" in junior school, just a talking-to which was usually well deserved, but no threats, you were treated like children and called by your forename, then weeks later it was like borstal, surnames only, threats and painful "discipline". A child of eleven is very easy to manipulate, and will be overwhelmed. Most eleven year olds are much the same as they were as ten year olds (at least I think I was)

Enough about me - I am thinking of lads like Chris1970 who was humiliated, and so many others who were too. Especially if there was more than one P.E. teacher they must have known the tricks he got up to, it begs the question why did they not confront him or report him to the headmaster?. I won't rehearse what I have already said in reply to Chris, but this reinforces my view that all school inspections should be carried out unannounced, I believe those local government inspectors who inspect hygiene standards in food shops and restaurants do so with no notice at all, and judging by my local newspaper they catch many of them with their trousers down. I think what children and young adults are subjected to on a daily basis should also merit on the spot inspections. Schools should never have the opportunity to clean up their acts and have a dress rehearsal. Pervert teachers should never be protected. I strongly suspect Chris1970s was such a teacher.

We had a very agreeable teacher on here last week, (Simon) who doesn't force the lads to shower or force them to take tops off, and I would HOPE that more teachers are like him these days. I could most certainly have worked with him, and he would have got better results with me, and many of my classmates than our bully. Sadly, his contribution has not garnered much comment on here. From that strange no-mans-land of the semi-professional musician which I inhabited for a time, a leader will get much more cooperation and creativity from his musicians if he is tolerant and respectful - far better than the power crazy leader who shouts and screams through rehearsals. There is less creativity because everyone is so scared of a mistake you play for safety (literally) rather than risk the leaders tantrums if something goes wrong. They may get "discipline", but their boorish behaviour ensures that they are never respected. The same applies to the teaching profession.


Comment by: Henry on 28th April 2025 at 20:34



With all due respect to you, Henry, thank Christ I wasn't at Winchester. Clearly it did you no harm, but I am sure it damaged some of the less outgoing lads. You wouldn't know though, because they would never have told you. We just gritted our teeth, but the unpleasant memories stay with you for a very long time, Again, attitudes are very different in different areas. I can't begin to imagine what would have happened had you been caught having a J. Arthur in our place.

Greg2.

Your anecdote about the different way you were treated after having a peep at the girls through the door reminded me of a film I saw about 20 years ago called Everybody Loves Alice from it says in my link 2002, which I've managed to dredge up and hope the link works. In this amusing few seconds about 4 to 5 minutes into the start of the film the girls are the ones doing the peeping and get caught by a man. The boys are having fun until they discover they are being watched. It's treated lightly this way around, as you say, perhaps not quite so light if it was the other way.

The version I watched was in English, possibly dubbed, this appears to have been too.

I would have done the same at their ages!

Everyone Likes Alice:

https://m.ok.ru/video/2982731057772

Mark on 22nd April 2025 at 22:35 and 25th April 2025 at 16:46

Hi Mark, thanks for your kind comments.

We were just forced into a moment of childish curiosity really, as I expect you’ll understand. Despite what some might want to believe, when growing up I found girls to be just as curious about boys as we were about them, and they certainly were about me. It’s awkward and seems silly to mention but I come from a good looking family and I was a good looking kid -as was my brother at the same school four years before me- but my appearance all those years ago did sometimes cause a bit of trouble for me, and at times some awkwardnesses, but I was certainly never an extrovert. I wasn’t exactly a shrinking violet in character either, but I was always naturally bodily shy which didn’t help me, so always guarded around girls when growing up, unlike most boys, if follow my meaning. So I did find it a bit embarrassing, which those deliberately taunting girls seemed to enjoy, as they described how each of us looked. I do think we’re all a product of who and what we are, which affects our own personal experiences as we grow up.



Comment by: Yours Truly on 27th April 2025 at 19:47

Hi Yours Truly,

Thank you for your comment.

I’m not sure the girls even knew we were slippered for submitting to our own bit of reciprocating childish curiosity, as they never did mention anything about that. This was the only time I was ever slippered during my entire schooling, and I don’t think I knew of him slippering anyone else, but I wouldn’t have been surprised. There was one moment with him a few years later when we were all around 15, when one boy swung a punch at him in the changing room, which really shocked us all. I can’t remember what caused it apart from things building up and becoming compounded over the years. He wasn't a big man but he really was a bully.

I have to mention here that there is one little bit of that memory that I missed out, quite inadvertently, while writing that previous post. This is due to being occupied and irritated at the time with being reminded of the various topics discussed that boys had to put up with:

When we were getting our own back and looking through the keyhole at our classmate girls, as you can imagine, a bit of pushing and shoving started to take place. Then all of a sudden, a boy at the back of the group reached over us all to turn the handle and push the door to the shower right open! This certainly surprised the girls as they all screamed and ran out, slamming their changing room door behind them. Unfortunately for us, this was just the moment when our gym teacher walked in and started going berserk. It’s possible the girls might have heard his shouting, but at that same time they would have been in shock and startled anyway by what we’d just done, the poor things. At least those same girls who’d sat around our large map table with us in the Geography room the previous week, would have realised that us boys had a much more forthright way of demonstrating our revenge! But certainly in comparison to us, they must have been allowed a much more relaxing time while spying on us; it seems with enough time to make notes.

It’s an interesting and amusing point you made about the two gym teachers chuckling together later in their staffroom, I’d never thought of that. I bet that did happen, but I wonder whether they both mentioned accurately to one another how they each dealt with it?


Comment by: Chris 1970 on 28th April 2025 at 02:47

Bless you Chris and what a swine of a gym teacher you had to suffer and I feel for you. I completely understand your mixed emotional rage as a boy of that age being dealt with like that, and not being able to do a thing about it. I promise you, you are not at all silly. I too have expelled personal moments on here, and it does somehow help to get things out of your system, but I’m so sorry you had to experience that.

It seems there’s something unique about boys’ gym teachers as compared to other subject teachers, as they hold such power over the boys while domineering in their changing room; an area where gym teachers can even control or abuse boys’ dignity, and all this during the most sensitive and unsure growing up years. It seems this can somehow become a strange psychological as well as physical terror, that both boys and gym teacher somehow acknowledge a deep understanding of: vulnerability aligned with invincibility? Whatever it is, it is not a position any overgrown playground bully should hold.

I really shouldn’t condone certain things, but due to what I sometimes read on here, I’ve often wished some of these ‘overgrown playground bullies’ might unexpectedly meet up a few years down the line with some of the school boys they once knew, who’ve since grown to over 6 feet tall, and now a little more able to look after themselves than they once could...for just a little bit of long overdue retribution?

Drawing together a couple of previous commentators here, a fellow school boarder Miles and also the recent one by Essex Lad which some people may find a little far fetched but I can attest to.

I attended Winchester School for Boys between 1972 and 1977, and although I loved the school and it gave me a top class education it had some of its own moments much like any other school.

As a general rule they liked to foster a team player attitude and the focus a lot of the time was based on this principle within PE, so rugby for instance was considered a must do sport for all boys regardless of size and ability.

My own sport of choice has always been tennis though!

Our PE kits were checked regularly and policed just as efficiently as the main school uniform. There was far more to the various outdoor kits we had than the indoors one for school gym lessons in PE, and there were two gym lessons per week and two outdoors lessons. My only no PE day was midweek on Wednesdays. Mondays and Thursdays were gym, Tuesday was often rugby and Friday afternoons were the day for the school cross country en masse in large number of boys, upwards of 80 to 100 of us sometimes.

I don't know about these days but in those days Winchester set the boys off on cross country in batches of timed ability and all ran without a top on the torso, as skins, a term we often used to describe the need to be a bare chest in PE. Someone mentioned running barefoot outside, well I certainly remember that being a choice a small handful were sometimes seen to make, but not for me, I kept running shoes on like most did.

The school gym was well equipped with anything you care to think of and it was all in good condition. If you can think of any piece of gym equipment we probably had it. We were skins in gym with dark shorts, nothing for the feet, but there was none of this no pants rule others talk of. I would wear the same pants all day that I'd worn in PE and never considered it unhygienic in the least.

I remember corporal punishment being meted out at Winchester, not that we saw it, just heard about it, or felt it if it was us. It was never me though, so I just heard about it from others. But that aside, there were always examples to be made of someone openly in front of others. A memorable one that draws in the Essex Lad comment was someone I shared class with who was made an example of for his unkempt creased shorts. Even in PE your shorts were not allowed to be creased, so you made sure to never screw such items up. Everything had to be name labelled with our surname inside it on the collar or waist. His creased shorts had to come off and be handed over and so did his pants. He had to put his hands on top of his head and run laps of the gym while we sniggered. That was being made an example of for lack of attention to appearance. The person in question spent a further few minutes doing gym naked with us before the teacher vanished and came back with another pair to stick on, lesson learned. I remember this happening and to be fair who it happened to did take it with great gusto and on the chin and brazened it out very effectively, such was the way we were conditioned to behave in adversity!

It may sound disgraceful but nakedness was common from everyone and everywhere at school anyway, PE was just one part of it. Showers most days etc, there were no secrets any of us in our classes were hiding from anyone else, we knew everything about each other and saw everything about each other and often even discussed everything about each other. Some of us, even though we were not homosexually inclined even used to get great fun out of sharing a session together in secret masturbating in front of each other, and one or two doing it to others. All part of a boys school, and for me all quite normal activity. I used to look forward to these furtive sessions. It didn't turn me homosexual though by going to an all boys school and doing such things and sharing a lot of skins gym and all that.

Much like Miles, at Winchester there was a sports day and we were all compulsory skins on that day, I seem to remember a lot of no shows among many of my friends families though, some who were far afield and it was too much disruption to travel for such a thing. I'm not sure all this skins PE was designed to convey a macho image like someone said about Miles post, rather it was just to convey the fitness and vitality of our youth more than anything.

Many boys I knew rather enjoyed getting their clothes off a lot of the time and I probably did too back then, we went to India one year and had a frightfully good time naked swimming in a length of the Ganges with some Indian locals, even though we weren't supposed to be doing that. What the locals must have thought about a collection of rather well brought up, and some quite posh white English boys doing that with them who knows.

Some schools can give you amazing confidence like mine did, a shame that so many state schools appear to do the complete opposite to their pupils.

Interesting comments about your multiple school attendances John Painter, reinforcing the sense that in the eighties it was almost impossible to avoid some level of regular shirtless PE.

There are not many men on here who have suggested they did none at all, especially in the 70s or 80s, other than YT who may confirm he didn't do so if I've read that right?

You mentioned feelings John. To be fair I don't know what I would have said to any teacher probing my innermost thoughts at the time. You had to keep up a sort of facade to your class mates don't forget and I think so many of us kept up this barrier around us so we were not being seen in a certain way even if we had certain thoughts and opinions, or feelings.

For example, if you were sat with 20 other boys in PE for the first time at say eleven or twelve, or even younger for that matter, and the PE teacher actually asked for a show of hands from anyone who didn't want to take their top off, even if you didn't want to do it, do you think you would raise your hand? I think it's likely nobody would do so or wish to be the first to raise their hand. Would others agree with this? You could apply the same to the shower requirement I suppose. Would anyone dare raise their hand to indicate they were scared and anxious to shower? We all want to fit in at school with the crowd and I think that's why so much that gets talked about on here happened and went unquestioned when we all did it.

My own attempt at amateur psychology is over for the day!

Comment by: Yours Truly on 28th April 2025 at 15:05

Spencer probably thinks the two of you are the same person, well you do both say the very same type of things, often post entries quite close together and the identity numbers seem close and similar. You've even both named a poster on here who hasn't been around in a while too in each of your posts. You just seem a more reasonable version of Alan to me Yours Truly, unless Alan is trying to seem more reasonable under another guise. Anyway it might all just be a coincidence. I enjoy your comments all the same Yours Truly, less so the Alan ones if I'm honest.

"if there is trouble they will believe me not you"

This is always a concerning type of comment, and a warning sign to me, it's an implied threat too. It reliably suggests the person saying it knows they have something to hide. Children do tell lies, we all know that, some tell a lot of lies, but adults tell lies too, and I've known quite a few. Those who fall way short of expectations may well choose to resort to such comments to disguise their own shortcomings, behaviour they know to be unacceptable or far worse. I'm sorry you had to put up with such a teacher and one who actually said that aloud to you.

Chris, it begs the question doesn't it, why could the teacher not have simply called out your name to draw your attention, or if he had to touch you why not take hold of your wrist, but then again why not approach you before or wait until at least partly dressed. I agree with your assessment based on the facts you've provided. I've had some teachers describing their high stress levels to me before but that does not excuse loss of control or poor judgement.

Thanks for the response Alan,

I should also make it clear that all my other PE teachers came across as decent men, but doesn't it always seem the way that you have to put up with someone who is not.

The teacher in question that I've described could very well have been what you describe, he was certainly a right little shit to put it mildly even by '83 levels of teaching. I used to try and avoid direct eye contact with him as much as possible and if I'm not mistaken I could swear blind that in PE lessons we had with the man many of the boys heads were more cowed down than with any of the others. That's why I tended not to look at him, he might have picked up on that. But it still doesn't excuse unprovoked physical touching, even if it is just a pull on an ear, which can be damned painful when done with real intent, like it was in my case. What kind of person makes a sudden grab for someone by the ear just to gain there attention anyway when they are not looking at them, even more so when you are trying to walk to a bench to get a towel to dry and get dressed, and what thirteen year old in their right mind wants to stand in front of a teacher taking a bollocking with nothing on. Of course that's a deliberate decision that teacher made and there can be no doubt the humiliation must have been chosen as part of my telling off. I probably did need a speaking to about what I'd done, but not quite in that way. Infact all I needed was some advice and instruction to remedy something I'd done wrong. I cannot even recall a single time my own parents gave me a 'thick ear' though.

You mentioned a teacher using your forename to parents. It was the same with me, it was all first name terms in front of my parents but come Monday I was back to being just the shouty out surname half a dozen times a lesson. But even the good PE teachers did that, although I did have one teacher among the four I remember the most who did actually call me by my longer version forename quite a lot, Christopher, which rather stood out actually.

I was confined, for want of a better word, to an enormous amount of bare chest PE at school, not just for gym but for playing field athletics too. This was despite the fact that technically we were able to bring either a vest or a white plain tee-shirt, although the vest was prioritised. However when it came down to it on a day to day level in the actual lessons it seemed a neither was favoured much and my thoughts about it were simple acceptance. I have no idea why they tell you to bring this that and the other into school and then don't want you to wear it much of the time. I wasn't expected to bring exercise books into English or Maths and not get them out to study.

Thanks for your interest.

Response to Sussex Lad
I too was in secondary school from late 80s till mid 60s. Just as Sussex Lad we were subjected to "shorts only" for gym and games. We had to open our shorts before going into the gym so that our PE teacher could see that we weren't wearing pants under our shorts. if we were he made us strip off completely and workout in the gym naked. I can still remember the humiliation of it. PE teachers in those days delighted in their power over us. By the time we were 15 I remember we had a new young PE teacher and like Sussex Lad he suggested that we could wear a jockstrap as he put it "to stop your bits flapping about". None of us knew what it was so he lowered his shorts to show us and suggested where we could buy one. My dad helped me do that. I don't think anyone wears them any more

Hi Spencer,

I wasn't aware there was any big area of disagreement between Alan and myself. We might gravitate differently politically but who cares about that bunch.

'Male teachers go harder on boys than women teachers do on girls.'

Well, isn't that the truth.

Chris 1970, I will probably offend many people on here, and I want to make it clear I do NOT include the teacher Simon who was here a week or so ago showing us that there are some good teachers in the PE field today - I always hope that there are more Simon's now, but I am convinced that there was a degree of latent homosexuality, and, sadly paedophilia, in the "good old days" , before the days of police checks, they really didn't care who they gave jobs to. The insistence on no underwear, even "checks", like our teacher and the constant loitering around the showers "checking you had washed properly". In our case the insistence we left our towels back on the bench so you had to walk to the showers there and back with no covering. Frightening young lads when they are really vulnerable and nervous, when they go into seniors at 11, so that they can be sure that nothing will be said outside due to a mixture of embarrassment and fear (as our teacher never tired of reminding us "if there is trouble they will believe me not you" - he said it so often I can hear him now, even though he has probably been dead for years. As for those teachers who used to get into the showers with the boys (ours never did that by the way - far too canny), that should ring alarm bells to other teachers and the headmaster

If you did something that contravened the stupid rules, why did the teacher not say something immediately it happened, or at least said to you at the end of the lesson "I want a word with you, when you are showered and dressed". The fact that he chose to humiliate you in the way he did, suggests either he was a total obnoxious moronic bully or - and I think this is more likely - that he liked looking at you like that - and if he liked looking at you like that, what does that make him?.

The fact that he was sweetness and light when the parents were around (just like ours - he even remembered you had a forename to them), suggests to me he was a dirty old man. I wonder how many parents, when one of these teachers got caught and appeared in court said "but he seemed such a NICE man..........." Famous last words!

One tiny incident that the teacher did to me in school lives with me to this day but I bet the arsehole that did it to me forgot it by the end of the day if not sooner.

The name physical education really did mean physical with one of my own PE teachers who was very physical in his teaching methods, especially in the gym, but also in his disciplinarian streak he had.

It was a routine gym lesson that day and I was finishing up my shower and walking out to get my towel to dry off, and our teacher that day was doing the usual stand and watch not far from the showers. I walked out, minding my own business and he shot his arm out at me without warning and grabbed my right ear, holding onto it and pinching it, and pulled me by the ear up to face him, telling me not to ignore him and that he wanted a word with me. My ear really hurt. I was made to stand and face him and get a bollocking for some minor thing in PE to do with misuse of equipment. I'd used something without securing it properly. That teacher deliberately chose to force me to stand right in front of him, entirely naked and take a telling off for about a minute without giving me the chance to even grab my towel or at least put my underwear back on. It was a deliberate and premeditated decision to humiliate me and it worked. Nothing could have prepared me for the way that made me feel, which was almost like a non person, so small. When he'd finished with me I turned around and felt his fingers dig into my back and push me away.

What happened with school and especially in PE classes like that nearly always stayed within school or the four walls of the changing room or gym. I would never speak about anything like that because I felt a sense of shame I'd been treated like that. I was a thirteen year old when that happened to me back in 1983.

I know I'm probably being silly and it seems a bit trivial in the scheme of things but it seemed like a massive deal to me at the time and affected me going forward because I really wanted to avoid PE and did consider being a truant for the first time ever in my life, my school attendance was almost perfect actually.

This is the perfect avenue to let off a bit of pent up steam about it to others who might just relate an understanding from within their own school gates.

Most people in my PE class had a similar story of their own they could tell at some point in time, but the veil of silence makes it the great unsaid, until you come to places like this and tell people.

I have a visceral dislike for any teacher, and my PE teacher was the worst by far, who deliberately set others up for a fall or to humiliate, but what really got me was turning up with both my parents to open evening and the charm offensive this same teacher put on for the parents like mine in full view of people like me, it was like a full personality transplant, then back to normal come Monday's gym lesson with him.

'Seems like a nice man' was the parents view. Mine was he's a shit. They responded to that thinking I must be exaggerating. I wasn't. Even when friends came round and said he's a shit they thought they were exaggerating too, based on one parents evening when he gave an oscar winning performance for the adults in the room.

Whenever I knew I didn't have this one specific man for PE my mood lightened significantly.

Because of my dad's work commitments he moved the family about a lot when I was young which I really didn't like very much as I kept losing friends and having to find new ones, no mobiles and internet to keep in touch.

I went to three different schools between the age of 11 and 17, and spent a year at the first one, two at the next and three at the last one. The schools were in Hampshire, Cheshire and Yorkshire, so a broad section of England, during the 1980s.

At all three schools the gym part of doing PE was exactly the same as many here describe doing, boys did not wear shirts, vests or anything else, and it was fully across the class shirtless by mandate. The only difference was the colour of shorts worn, and in two of the schools we could wear plimsolls on our feet or not, but the last one was no plimsolls only the bare foot look. In the second of the three I went to they let you put any choice of your own shorts on, which was great, but sat weird with me to the strict no tops instruction. So my memory of 80s PE across three schools is shirts coming off.

I remember when I knew I was on my way to yet another third secondary school when I was 14 thinking it can't possibly be the same in PE as the other two were, but nope, it was and although I was quite used to doing PE that way I was surprised by it. As I was a newcomer to that school at 14 and settling in among the established pupils already there I was asked when I arrived by inquisitive people in class what my other school was like I'd come from and told them just like theirs!

Like many, at first I struggled with feelings of self consciousness about it but that was drummed out of me by stealth I think.

The shower situation was almost identical at all three schools, always mandatory to do, everyone in, and the set up was much the same and the way it happened. Lukewarm water, teachers watching us rinsing our bits, two schools allowed soap, another only let us shower with plain old water.

No girls were part of any of my shirtless gym classes thankfully. If I'd seen any filing into gym while I was in there shirtless I think I would have gone crimson. I did think fear they might sometime join us for something but they never did.

Nobody ever mentioned their 'feelings' about any of this kind of thing at the time and nobody ever asked us either, well you wouldn't expect a male PE teacher to ask boys how they felt about much would you.

Hi Greg2,

'You like to think you’re just starting to grow up around 11, and certainly some boys are more developed than others by that age and you really should be deserving of some respect.'

That was exactly what I felt at that age. It's bizarre that they enforce showering for boys and girls at exactly that age when they are becoming more sensitive to their identity and bodies. And the more so since you will most likely never have to do it as an adult. It is not a useful or essential life skill.

Your post made me feel really angry when I read it. I'm so sorry that happened to you. Girls would never have been treated that way. Well, as you found out.

Did the girls ever say anything afterwards about the slippering? They must have heard your teacher shouting not to mention the impacts and your cries and realised what was going on. No doubt your and their PE teachers must have discussed your punishment in the staffroom later and had a good chuckle about it. Did your PE teacher slipper you boys often? Presumably the girls got to gloat at the sight of bare bruised bums in their weekly spying.

There were horrifying stories of what used to go on at my secondary school in the good old days. Your story puts me in mind of something similar.

There were two male teachers that would work in tandem. They would barge into the PE changing rooms at the end of the lesson - so just when the boys were exiting the showers, so that's stark naked. They would bellow out a list of names and those boys named had to step forward and touch their toes. Stark naked. This could be for any sort of classroom offence even down to forgetting homework. The offending boys were beaten stark naked and touching their toes.

Try and tell me there wasn't something extra going on there.







I know I would have been the same in the same circumstances. as yours. I would have touched my toes and accepted the pain as well for the sake of a quiet life and tried to not dwell on the humiliation.

Comment by: Spencer on 27th April 2025 at 17:00

Nothing serious, Spencer - certainly not on our views of compulsion and double standards at school. It is more political in the literal sense. I run my own business and I am not enamoured of the current government, and it's policies, YT is more sympathetic to them. That's all there is to it - I am sure YT is a nice bloke, and in all other respects we have much more in common than that which divides us.

This is directed to Yours Truly and also Alan.

I would like the both of you to tell us where the big areas of disagreement you have with each other are?


On double standards, someone has already said something similar I think further along, but at my senior school, 1989-94, the boys showers were mandatory but the girls were voluntary and none of them seemed to take them but boys like me were given no choice in the matter. Male teachers go harder on boys than women teachers do on girls.

Comment by: Ian on 26th April 2025 at 15:02
Revolution, NOW!!!
To add to the whingeing, bellyaching, griping and moaning.
Goodbye cruel world, I'm off to the pub!



Alright Ian, slightly amusing, but within your little joke here there is something worth picking up on.

Without probably meaning to, you have actually made yourself sound remarkably like one of my old PE teachers who often showed complete disdain for many lads and their "issues" on a number of things, everything from stripped naked shower reluctance, tops off anxiety, picking teams, certain sports some didn't want to do, and so many more other things. The fella, John Pinkerton, or "Pinky" as we called him, was always moaning at us for moaning and almost never backed down on anything at all. There was a more agreeable PE teacher we nicknamed "Perky", who was called Don Perkins, so we had Pinky and Perky. But to the ones in class who simply hated all PE they were probably pigs that made them do things they hated, I sympathise to some extent, who wouldn't.

You mentioned bellyaching here. Now that takes me back to the 1970s in school. That was one of the favourite excuses boys used to give to get out of doing PE in my school changing room. I remember hearing it a lot. Infact I might even have used it myself once. I was no fan of winter rugby. Not many boys could pull the stomach ache excuse off but I think someone did manage to get sent to the medical office one time so must have been convincing, or actually genuine.

Perhaps some of them missed a trick here, they should have indulged in underage pub drinking before PE and turned up saying we were hungover and couldn't even walk in a straight line! We had some teachers who used to go down to the local Rose and Crown for a drink at lunchtime together. I know some of us would have liked to do the same when we got a touch older at 14 or 15 but if they were in there we'd be out, and anyway our uniform would give us all away.

I appear to have been one of the more lucky boys at school because anything the PE teacher threw at me I was able to soak up quite easily without feeling any sense of dread about it or very much anxiety. Our school gym was the full bare chest and bare foot requirement from age of eleven and it suited me alright, thankfully. I remember being curious about showers and seeing everyone I knew stark naked at school and being amused by the sight of one or two of them, but was never too apprehensive about being sent into them and often whipped my shorts off and jumped in quite fast just to get it done with. I think I remember some mild shower teasing but it was never anything too serious and would be defined as juvenile banter mostly.

That being said, you couldn't not be aware other boys in the PE changing room often had difficulties and were dealt with quite abruptly with a PE teacher or two.

We would never ever have been expected to question any teacher on the school requirement we had to shower with each other and remove all clothing to do so. We would never be expected to question any teacher telling us we could not stick a shirt on for PE either, a near permanent secondary school experience.

I do remember our PE teacher, Mr "Pinky" Pinkerton, sometime around 1975 it must have been, taking someone who hadn't showered into a large cupboard in our changing room, slamming the door and coming out again with a training shoe in his hand that he'd clearly just hit him with, we could still hear with the door shut, he must have been done three times I think. He'd gone in the cupboard with his gym shorts on and came out holding them and then flew like lightning into the showers. This is young lads of eleven or twelve, not bigger boys. That changing room cupboard was used on a few, but not many, occasions like that. It seemed quite sinister in a way that we could not see it but knew what was happening behind that door, even if it was only a few seconds and back out.

If that kind of thing has happened to you at school I don't suppose you forget it, I remember and I was just a bystander to it. I was never treated that way by a teacher. The closest I can think of is having various teachers smack or tap me on the top of the head with exercise books, a firm favourite of some of them, sometimes gently, but sometimes quite hard.

I spent the 70's often casually fishing with a friend on a riverbank and in summertime we would sit there with a transistor radio listening to Radio 1 just like we looked in our PE lesson, sometimes even wearing the same PE shorts from school, and if we were not fishing we would sometimes just jump in the water and splash about by ourselves, and walk the distance home wet and dripping dry, if we hadn't taken any other clothing with us, which was often.

We did absolutely no swimming at secondary school which I could never understand. We only ever did some swimming at middle school, but not a great deal. I would have liked to do much more. When we went swimming at middle school, it wasn't "in PE" that we did it, we already had two PE lessons in the week, going swimming was seen as something extra.

At the school sports day the younger boys didn't wear tops but the older boys were allowed to. I can't really explain that distinction. That would seem to be a double standard between boys at our school, between the under and over 14's. My school was mixed.

Hi Tony,

Point taken. I could well have been mistaken and if I was I apologise.

The only thing we ever had to remove for Drama lessons were our shoes and socks and even at eleven I regarded that as an indignity. Fortunately even this changed in, I think, my second term when our previous Drama teacher left to be replaced by a young Jewish lady who was lively, friendly and easygoing and who casually abolished that rule.

Comment by: Sussex Lad on 27th April 2025 at 09:37


"In my secondary school in the late 1950s, PE in the gym and outside in the summer was optionally, and generally universally, topless......."

You were better off than us 20/30 years later SL!. No prizes for guessing what option I would have taken



Comment by: Yours Truly on 27th April 2025 at 08:03
Hi Alan,

"I was at school in the '80s when corporal punishment was going out. There was no caning or whatever else in my time, even for those one or two truly nasty cases that frankly deserved it, ...."

I was right at the start of the decade YT, and in retrospect I think the old buggers who taught us felt safer knowing they had that degree of control over us, but it was grossly overused, even for very minor transgressions. The slipper was also favoured by some for trivial things like not bring a red pen in for a maths lesson. They really were past it. Of course, more enlightened educationalists had been arguing the case for stopping CP for years, and I think this just encouraged them to hit and run while they could. That said, some of the lads went out of their way to court it - the lads I mentioned who tried to get around the no pants rule - often Mr. R would take a smoke out in the yard between lessons (he was the epitome of healthy living - he had the beer gut to prove it!). They must have known he would see, but instead of saying anything he would wait till they were up the ropes to "confirm" it (probably giving himself a cheap thrill at the same time). The lads broke the rules (and what a daft rule it was), but he seemed to enjoy their discomfiture by "letting them get away with it" for 10 minutes.

I agree with the bloke yesterday (I'm sorry his name has escaped me) who had my own views - let them wear, or not wear what they like. Simon the teacher the other day had a much more relaxed view, and I hope many more are now like him. With boys and girls maturing far earlier, I think their sense of dignity should at all costs be safeguarded. Each decade seems to bring the process quicker - I can never remember a lad with a moustache at school, and certainly not a beard. I am just surprised they get away with it - I am sure we wouldn't.0ooya

Hi Gary S,

They really did use to perform foreskin checks. It was to ensure that the little fellow was retracting properly. I think they really did the foot check as well. There was a poster on one of these forums several years back now who spoke of his medical exams at an elite grammar school. He was referred for circumcision after his first exam at age eleven. He recounted coming to the sudden realisation in the showers several weeks later that there was now barely a foreskin to be seen among his whole school year. The doctor, who was either over-zealous or just not very good at his job, had referred almost the whole lot of them for unnecessary surgery.

He also recounted his second medical aged fourteen. The boys were queued up in just their PE shorts, which were worn without underwear and which were removed on command in the doctor's office. He was one of several boys who the headmaster came out and caned for talking quietly amongst themselves. He then had to go and face the doctor with a stripey bum.

I can't believe you really believed they would let you get off doing PE!

There was Towel Lady who threatened me and another boy with the dire threat of standing over us while we undressed and showered. That was quite enough to get us stripped and scrubbing! A recent poster here, a former teacher I think, pointed out that there was no law back then stopping her from carrying through on her threat.

A lot of people, men and women have mentioned keeping their underwear on for their exams. No such luck here. My primary school wasn't big on the consideration of childrens' dignity. But on the other hand we were never made to queue up in just our pants or sports shorts. We were summoned out of class one at a time and our exams were private affairs.

I am profoundly grateful that I never had to suffer a medical exam in secondary school. Anything like that is an affront after you have reached puberty. It was bad enough as an eight-year-old and the communal showers were just tyranny. Other people weren't so lucky and a neighbouring friend who went to a different school had to have an full exam at the beginning of every school year.

And that's the thing. Given the insistence that these exams were essential it was surprising just how patchy their presence was across different schools and LEAs. If you found yourself bare balls and cringing in the nurse's office it really was just your bad luck.

In my secondary school in the late 1950s, PE in the gym and outside in the summer was optionally, and generally universally, topless. Money for luxuries such as PE vests was scarce and, as other posters have indicated, not wearing a vest for PE was an effective way of ultimately dispensing with wearing vests altogether. As for underpants, they took were optional, and many of us went commando, not just for PE but generally, especially in summertime. The nearest we came to any teacher intervention in that area was when I was about 14 and our PE teacher recommended us to start wearing some form of support, either pants or jock-strap. Most of us had never heard of the latter item and had to go home and ask Dad what that was.

Hi Tony,

Just a reply to your post from 22 April.

The girls in that clip come across as happy and confident. Why wouldn't they be. They were allowed to cover up completely. The boys, as you say, look timid and subdued. And to compound it all the filmmakers singled out two boys to be their subjects. I would have been absolutely horrified to have to do PE like that in front of the girls, much less to then have a camera pointed at me. but then we were only boys, after all. Our feelings didn't matter.

Hi Alan,

I was at school in the '80s when corporal punishment was going out. There was no caning or whatever else in my time, even for those one or two truly nasty cases that frankly deserved it, but what there was, was plenty of informal CP and right from my first year in infant school I was seeing other children being slapped, walloped, shaken and shouted at. It was completely arbitrary, depending purely on when the teacher lost their temper and this is surely the main reason it had to go.

I received it numerous times during my final year of primary, where I was in the class of a male teacher who had an explosive temper that he refused to make any effort to control. When he wasn't hitting boys he was shouting. And it was only the boys. The girls were never touched. Despite being shy and well-behaved I came in for my unfair share of his large, hard hand, usually for trivial reasons if any at all and always in front of the whole class. You then had to do the walk of shame back to your seat past the triumphant smirks of the girls, for whom it was strictly a spectator sport.

There was this girl on whom I nursed a secret pre-teen crush. It was definitely not reciprocated, she despised me. One day, going back to my seat our eyes locked just for a moment and I can still remember the gloating, exultant contempt on her face as I passed by with my stinging arse. I felt crushed.

Oh well.