Burnley Grammar School

PE gives me some very mixed recollections and a very unwelcome memory of one lowbrow moment.

Boys at school were only allowed to wear one pair of plain white shorts, no underwear beneath, in the gym. Although not exactly keen it was at least better than the other stuff of PE, the football and rugby that was the main sport outside we always got made to do. I hated both a lot. My young PE teacher knew this and one day told me I'd better make a lot more effort or else. I just couldn't be bothered though.

Next lesson when we went out for rugby he flipped on me and told me if I didn't like football and rugby perhaps I better go and get a leotard on and join the girls instead. He told me to mend my ways or he'd get a spare leotard from the girls PE office and make me put it on in front of the boys and wear it. But he didn't, it was all mouth.

It didn't make me any keener on football or rugby though. It was purgatory for me to do that, wet and mucky and cold, out in the rain, it always seemed to be raining when we played or blowing a gale.

Anyway he had a go at me along the same lines the next time again for not getting stuck into the rugby and throwing myself about like he wanted or chasing that bleedin' oval ball, and sent me off the pitch, came up to me and said he'd had enough of me and he was sending me off to the girls gym class where I obviously needed to be, and he left the boys briefly and marched me to their gym, told their teacher I was joining them if she'd take me, she agreed to that, and although he didn't force the spare leotard onto me he did make me change on the side of the girls gym class while they watched, out of my entire rugby PE kit and into just my shorts, black ones I wore for rugby and nothing else, everything off, I protested this but just got big gob earache off him and I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I took the kit off and had to join the girls gym class with only my shorts on and no top, shirtless, no footwear and a male PE teacher who said to the girls PE teacher I'd prefer to be with her girls. That bit was completely untrue, I wasn't soft or a girly lad at all, just hated football and rugby and that made me a girl in his eyes. It was a humiliating half hour or so and I really didn't know what to do with myself, my heart was pounding away and I felt faint with nerves and was actually shaking at times because of it and the total humiliation. I don't think those girls or their teacher understood how bad I felt, and my own teacher didn't care or he wouldn't have done it to me. Most of the girls seemed fine with me, but what a thing to do to a kid of 12, to make one boy by himself shirtless in the girls lesson just to make a point to a non rugby liking school pupil.

The real trouble happened after that lesson when I was made the butt of jokes during the rest of the week. It was not something I ever dared tell either of my parents because they'd have both been up that school wanting answers immediately and much as I'd have liked to see the PE teacher answer for what he did I just wanted a quiet life and to forget it. I would have rather been hit with the PE plimsoll in his office a few times actually, like some boys received.

It was a really nasty thing to do and was meant as a shock to make me wake up and put more enthusiasm into the rugby and football but it didn't work and he kind of bellowed a few more threats over the next few weeks but gave up eventually. That PE teacher tried to make me out to be a troublemaker but that was as far from the truth about me as you could get.

Year this happened was 1972.

Go down to 12.57pm on this live update on BBC News over the unexploded WWII bomb today in Paris and you can see a big white sign behind the police on a wall with a great big showerhead symbol on it which I noticed. I put the words into google translate and it was what I thought, a public shower facility in Paris, and I provide the website for it below as well as the item. We don't have anything like this in London or any other major cities or towns in the UK do we.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cz6l257gnjqt

https://www.saintdenis.fr/bains-douches

I couldn't agree more with you Alan, but I still think it's worth being available for the reasons that Terry mentioned a couple of days back.

The little lad you mention who got named, and some of the other prominent faces, you can't tell me that many of them didn't get a right old ribbing over this. We all know what kids are like, especially at school. We were them ourselves once. They'd have all been keen to see this and it's a sure thing they would have been shown it when finished, probably at school even before anyone else saw the broadcast, or if not then when broadcast. If you got filmed for something at school of course you were going to want to see it and the school was probably going to want to show it. Can you imagine sitting with that as a school group, boys and girls watching back at what they shot and that little lot coming up at you. That almost certainly happened. You can't tell me that those boys in that film didn't end up getting some mickey taking over doing that from some quarters, they just must have, and seen by their female teachers too. There's a comment underneath where someone mentions a class reaction to it and someone, I think it was an old teacher was on here a week or so back saying she got reactions with various classes looking at that, understandably, and these weren't even the ones involved. Even if the girls in that school did not see it, word always slips out about things like that, especially in school, and some would have made every effort to try and see that somehow because if I'm perfectly honest if I'd been at school and known the girls in my class or just the school had been filmed naked in the school showers I'd have been quite eager to see it, it's human nature, especially as a child.

I see the poster named Yours Truly has mentioned double standards a few times. Tell me about it! The double standard at school between myself and my own sister was not hard to notice even when we were so young. There is one thing about this double standard that makes no sense to me. Boys are treated as if they shouldn't care or be modest and have no right to be and have no sensitivities, while girls are treated the exact opposite to this. But go and read many peer reviewed articles on psychology and they will concede that boys have a general tendancy to be the most sensitive sex at the ages were are talking about, school age 10 to 18, but this is not reflected in the attitude and treatment of them, and us as we once were too.

Someone in the comments under it said the boys looked relaxed about that. Coming out the shower they looked anything but, very nervous to me actually and who could blame them.

Matthew S on 5th March
Matthew, they just must have been very hot perhaps? I would have thought at 18 they’d be able to make their own decision on whether to take their tops off if they were really hot? Sounds like they really could have done with a fan in there!

Graham D on 6th March
I’ve never heard that in some schools girls didn’t need to shower. How strange and I wonder why that was, especially if they were all just as active as the boys. Girls certainly had to shower in my school, and I remember we’d arrive from our music lesson and they’d be still in there, obviously only accessible from their side. By the time we’d changed and gone into the gym, they'd have left and gone to their music lesson. We alternated this every week during our second year, so around 13. What’s slightly odd is how showering was strictly enforced from the beginning, then much the same in the second year, but by the 3rd year when around 14 or so, everything became relaxed, with showering becoming optional. Strange that. Most boys didn’t bother then unless we’d become particularly muddy from games etc, It’s odd as we still did just as much activity during gym lessons. I would have thought we’d all perspire far more as we got older, than we did as 11 and 12 year olds.

Yes, the shower scene was definitely voyeuristic, and I think they were trying to push boundaries even further with the way they filmed the boys. It was deliberate and it was unnecessary.

Comment by: Graham D on 6th March 2025 at 03:33



".... Did you notice how the camera was placed at what seemed to be half a body height, so when some of the lads walked back out to their clothing they had to walk directly into the camera shot and it was more or less at groin height for the perfect view! The director didn't give a toss did he. He tried to catch every single one of them coming back out of that shower, and did his best to make sure they all got a moment on film at some point. If and when they volunteered I wonder if they even sensed what they were actually fully volunteering for. Actually it's not what those lads thought but what their own parents must have thought when they looked at the finished end result of filming that passed through my mind"

The thing I found especially nauseating in that film was they picked on one of the smallest and youngest boys in that class to be seen on camera removing his underpants before entering the shower. Also you have to consider that a fair percentage of that shower room must have been unusable because of the camera and the lighting set-up, it must have been physically as well as psychologically claustrophobic . If I had been the director I would have been extra cautious working with such young children, and he seemed to totally lack discretion or empathy. That, and the scene where they emerge from the shower with no towels till they got to their benches should most definitely been edited out of the completed film. They would only have lost a minute at most and could have been padded it out with some of the outdoor shots.

The trouble is Greg that some of us, me for instance, ended up in secondary schools were they made the boys like me take mandatory showers after PE while the girls teachers never made them do this. My school period covers bang on the period of that film, I was at a secondary school from 1977-82. I was 11 when I started that caper. Boys never could get out of going in the showers after almost any type of PE and were made to do it with any excuses for not fully stripping off and jumping in batted away by any teacher you cared to name who we ever had. My own older sister, just a year above me never showered, she told me this, because she was never made to or even told to by any of her teachers and this did seem to be the case with girls in my own class at the time and we all knew it. There were even girls who picked a couple of boys off and tried to find information on boys they liked about what they looked like undressed if you know what personal stuff I'm getting at. I know full well that the school literature that came with us on entry made it clear as a boy I was expected to shower after a PE lesson, but I'm not sure if they said the same for girls or not, but even if it did, they didn't hold to it like they did with boys like me, not in our secondary school which had a female headmistress and a female deputy as well. Infact Greg I am certain as I can be at this distance that I recall girls openly bragging sometimes to us that they didn't have to shower while we were being made to do it. Many of these girls were just as active as the boys were, when we went outside we could see what they were doing quite easily with their own teacher much of the time. Sometimes they even ran with us on the cross country with a combination class.

Like you Greg, now in this day and age I think I would say I'd have tried to keep out of sight in a film like that if I was part of it but I couldn't necessarily say so about the me in 1977. I accepted what I had to do quite easily and quickly unlike others. Did you notice how the camera was placed at what seemed to be half a body height, so when some of the lads walked back out to their clothing they had to walk directly into the camera shot and it was more or less at groin height for the perfect view! The director didn't give a toss did he. He tried to catch every single one of them coming back out of that shower, and did his best to make sure they all got a moment on film at some point. If and when they volunteered I wonder if they even sensed what they were actually fully volunteering for. Actually it's not what those lads thought but what their own parents must have thought when they looked at the finished end result of filming that passed through my mind.

Greg, I witnessed something touching on the double standard, if not quite as unpleasant as your experiences. It happened to others, rather than myself, but as I give no identifying details, there is no harm in my mentioning.

When I was eighteen, I took part in a theatre production at my further education department. In a dress rehearsal, the cast members were waiting about. The teacher in charge spoke to two classmates, young men, likewise eighteen or so, who were wearing heavy, cumbersome costumes. She told them, "You'll be hot", and instructed them to take them off; they did so, leaving them stripped to the waist in front of several female classmates. One young woman commented on this, audibly.

Nothing more was said by the teacher, who was only about ten years older than us. This was in 2003.

Comment by: Terry on 4th March 2025 at 19:58
The producer of that education TV series on health issues, Philip Grosset, reminds me very much of film producer Peter Greenaway, if anyone knows what I mean by that.



I think I know exactly what you mean by this. Greenaway is noted for many rather pretentious movies between about 30 and 40 years ago that involve a lot of skin in them from a lot of people and are quite full on with no tendancy for discretion. You didn't sign up to many of his movies if you were shy and insecure or bashful.

I think it was Tony who suggested that the school's programme featuring the PE would have been filmed just normally and there would be someone sitting waiting to film them after the class ended. That's doubtful to me and the clues are all within the programme itself.

Although not a film or movie maker I have worked many years ago in a backroom job to do with production on corporate promotional things that were made into VHS tapes for companies.

I've no idea if they consented or not, but that's not my reason for posting this. The changing room scenes were clearly not one take, or even one camera. There could have been two opr possibly three cameras there, or more likely the shower situation was re-shot what looks like possibly three times at least. There was the entry and exit scene, there was a more invasive scene with another camera, not seen in the exit and entry scene, and there was also the shot of their feet and a soap. What this suggests quite strongly from my own limited experience is that there were re-takes to get the various shot selections and angles required, with maybe one camera, that's the likeliest scenario. Wehen you add the boys entereing and immediately changing out of shirts or the boy on the bench removing underwear you could add a further two shooting sections to what I've already described.

Like with many things made for TV, even a few moments of broadcastable film can take a while to shoot, especiallu with multiple angles. So despite what was suggested, it's almost certain that it wasn't just a straightforward come in and wait to be filmed in one easy take. It will have taken a few goes and a bit of hanging around to get everything the director wanted until he was happy, and to people not familiar with how films are made or very young I'm sure it might have proved frustrating, esepcially considering the content and subject requiring total group nudity from everyone. I'm sure they were allowed to put a towel around themselves in any lengthy gaps between takes.

Even if there was consent there is no denying that in those days of the late 70's and early 80's there would have been little concern in terms of privacy or that something like that was destined for TV later on.

Hi Mark,

Firstly, why the hell is this even in the news in 2025? Much less the UK news? This practice was being phased out in American schools fifty years ago!

I read that article. It was actually worse than just nude swimming. Two men spoke of how they were punished in those lessons, actually paddled nude on a bare bottom. Once again the kind of infringement of personal boundaries that just would not have been tolerated for girls - paddling was strictly used only on boys.

Apparently the rationale for making the boys swim naked was that stray fibres from trunks would have clogged up the drainage system. Yet at the same time the girls were issued - not only allowed to wear but actually issued - swimsuits that were obviously far larger than the trunks they forbade boys. Plainly, as with communal showers, there was another agenda here, one that the teachers were not prepared to admit to the boys on its receiving end.

I do not think there was anything sinister about this hidden agenda, apart from the odd, opportunist deviant PE teacher.. It was simply a universally accepted principle that boys were to be toughened up. Part of this was that they were to be conditioned to learn to endure and disregard feelings of embarrassment and humiliation. To this end boys were simply treated worse than girls.

There were almost three hundred comments following this article. Clearly a lot of men still have strong feelings about being humiliated like this. Male commentators were roughly evenly divided between men who hated it and the usual 'I had no problem with it and so therefore anybody who says they did is just being silly' brigade.

There were also several comments from older women had to undergo communal showering at high school. Tellingly not one of them plied the old 'and it never did me any harm' line. Girls grow up with a much more pronounced sense of their own personal boundaries and the sanctity of those boundaries. This why they are much more inclined to protest if those boundaries are crossed - they feel justified in doing so. Boys, on the other hand, have always been conditioned to think that if they complain they are being 'unmanly'. And the primal tendency of other boys to mock them for exactly that only reinforces the dilemma. There is, and always has been, a very thin line between 'toughening up' and the slippery slope to abuse.

The final insult is that when nude school swimming was abolished it was not out of consideration for the feelings of the boys but rather the sensibilities of girls who were demanding the right to participate in traditionally boys' sports.

But the exposure didn't end there. There were also medical exams at the start of each school year, and for the boys these were full-on affairs. Incredibly there was even a swimming test requirement as part of the application procedure at some US universities - guess which gender had to take this test nude?

Seemingly, if you were a young male in the US education system in times past, you were forced to accept that your privates weren't very, well, private. It seems incredible in a country which is in many other aspects so prudish.

Thankfully it never caught on back here in good old Blighty, apart from in some private boys' schools. I suppose it would be inevitable in an environment where it was believed that the best way to instil character in boys was to constantly cane them.

The Daily Mail must be having a bad week newswise. Yesterday I read an article on their website claiming that there is 'proof' that there were once aliens living on Mars. Not only that, but those aliens were human. Yup, human. Just like the swim thing this exact story has in fact been in the public domain for decades.

Unfortunately it remains unknown whether those alien humans had to do their school swimming lessons in the nude.

Terry on 2nd March
Terry, you’re saying all the correct things in your third paragraph, and working with film and photography archives is a large part of my work. All recorded material becomes increasingly important as time moves on, and I can assure you nothing is ‘washed away’ as I expect a copy of this school film will exist in the tv archives. But I certainly wouldn’t have been anywhere near the camera if filming had taken place in my school changing room!

I wouldn’t have minded in the least about the nudity in this film if it had included a similar section in the girls area, as that would have created balance by illustrating that girls too would be expected to shower in their next school. I’d have thought all watching children -when the giggling of surprise from girls, and embarrassment from boys, had subsided- might well have been left with the impression that girls wouldn’t have to shower, only boys. But I do agree that the way it was shot was unnecessarily gratuitous, especially when intended to be shown to a mixed class of children, with only boys filmed. I feel uncomfortable with that, and I have good reason to hold such views. It would have been so easy to have included both genders within the same amount of footage, and without shooting it that way at all.

Several awkward moments from my own childhood contributed to making me feel uncomfortable about the short nude bit in that film, when usual double standards permitted some really awful times for me while being looked after by some women in charge. Mainly these moments occurred during three months spent on a children’s ward when only 11, back in the late 60s with a fractured femur. There seemed to be no regard for boys privacy at times in that place, and I was often put in a situation where I was fully exposed to same aged girls in adjacent beds, due to being in traction and so unable to wear pyjama trousers. This really upset me at that time, as I was naturally always a bit bodily shy anyway. In comparison, whenever girls were dealt with, double layers of portable screens would appear, and all carefully placed around their beds. Some of the female nurses were really unkind and didn’t appear to care that boys might appreciate a little privacy, whereas others were really lovely and respectful, but as Alan says, it only needs a few bad apples. A few weeks earlier, when I was alone in a side room, I had a somewhat strange experience while being given a bed bath by two young, giggling, student nurses. I don’t want to go into details about this but I’m sure they would have got into trouble as they certainly abused the trust put upon them. Boys don’t say anything, as it would only compound embarrassment. Obviously an 11 year old girl would just never experience anything like this would she, as she’d never be allowed to be left alone in a room with nothing on while two 15/16 year old boys washed her down, especially while under the jurisdiction of the predominantly female staff of a children’s ward. There were other moments, including a far too touchy feely final junior school female teacher, who one day as I stood reading by her desk, suddenly pulled me across her knees to playfully slap my backside, to the hilarity of the class. I can’t think what she’d got from my reading that made her do that, but do remember feeling awkward as I returned to my seat. I believe all things like this are experiences only a young boy will have to put up with. As I was a good looking little kid, so in an innocent and childish way, I began to think certain things that happened like these were my fault.

So, due to experiencing such awkward moments, and there were others, as I grew up, it became the old double standards that I learnt to hate from such a young age. Consequently, just as Christine Sanderson predictably said, that she’d feel less comfortable had same aged girls been shown in that way rather than boys; due to my own experiences, I felt that with only boys being shown naked in this film, this just perpetuated and illustrated the expected disregard for boys privacy, even though the culture those boys found themselves in was probably a factor that encouraged them to comply. This is the very same reason I was treated the way I was just a few years earlier, and how this scene was directed, just pushed on this accepted disregard for young lads. This is what I didn’t like. I hope some can understand.

Nick, Tony and Matthew.

Agree, very poorly written. From what I can work out it could also be read that the head teacher, or any other teacher, could refuse to let boys go swimming in bare chests, and let's be honest, even the really sensitive and anxious would see that as mad wouldn't they? Turning a boys swim lesson into a big wet t-shirt contest.

There again from the opposite end, it suggests to me any girls brave enough to hang out with the boys topless would be able to. Equally mad!

Why do schools have to create such stupid rules. If a girl thinks she's a boy she should still have to wear the girls outfit and if a boy thinks he's a girl he should still be treated as a boy is. They are at school and under eighteen.

Comment by: Nick H on 5th March 2025 at 05:47

Oh dearie me. It sounds like your old school has been captured by a very silly woke as hell head teacher or his/her acolytes.

'Male identified students'....three words and seven syllables to say - BOYS!

You don't 'indentify' as a male, or a boy, or a man, 'you are' one. It's not a choice. I know that people recently have been talking about some radicals trying to cancel women but this looks like a school trying to cancel boys and men too.

Matthew I don't know whether you agree with me, or if anyone else does, but the way I read what's been put here by Nick is that his old school seems to be suggesting that yes boys can be shirtless in swimming/PE or whatever but that if a female pupil, a girl, actually wanted and asked to be topless in any activity that boys were shirtless in, that they would oblige this request. Unlikely I'm sure, but that seems to be the upshot of this to me.

This type of current ideological radicalism with school bosses is far more concerning and troubling than some of the most recent concerns that have been written on other matters.

Nick H, after re-reading the passage, I now think it means that biologically male pupils, or transgender pupils identifying as boys, may swim bare-chested or do PE bare-chested, unless the head says otherwise.

It is very badly worded, whatever the meaning. Sorry if my attempts to decipher it are clumsy.

Hi Mark, I took a look at that article in the Mail. It is pretty typical for articles on the subject in the media in recent years. All these articles seem to have a similar slant: saying how bizarre it was to “make“ or "force" boys swim naked as the day they were all born right up to their mid teens and sometimes beyond. As the writers are invariably younger, they really have not a clue as to what was going on.

I wonder what makes the Daily Mail suddenly write up an article on that subject matter at this point in time, as it was mainly an American requirement.

The idea at that time, now seeming quaint to the Johnny-come-latelies, was that we boys and soon enough men were all made the same. Therefore in a setting in which young males, boys at school, or male teachers, are respecting each other, there is no problem and should be no problem for anyone in such classes even if they are all bare arsed and having penises all on show. Sure, if some young person showed up without any experience of it he might have been surprised. But the activity of showering and swimming together without clothes, was nothing remarkable or unusual at the time. Never mind the ignorance of effete smarties in the 21st century.

Nick H, I suspect that sentence is designed to cater for transgender pupils. Perhaps it means that biologically male pupils (boys, basically), whether transgender or not, may swim bare-chested or do PE bare-chested, unless the head says otherwise.

That's just my interpretation; perhaps I'm mistaken.

This was in the Daily Mail paper just last week. An item about how boys at school in America in the 60's and 70's were often forced to have swimming lessons with each other at school in the pool entirely naked without any costume at all. Some remain very unhappy to this day.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14414043/Minnesota-men-public-schools-naked-swimming.html

This clothing wording in respect of school sport/PE currently sits among the lengthy school rules on my former secondary school website, exact quote sentence;

'Policy allows the school head teacher to impose discretionary restrictions, such as restricting male identified students to go bare chested but only as part of their standard swim wear for that limited activity, and permits discretionary exceptions such as allowing males to play sports PE bare chested but only if offered fairly to any female identified students who would make the same request.'

WTAF is this saying?

The producer of that education TV series on health issues, Philip Grosset, reminds me very much of film producer Peter Greenaway, if anyone knows what I mean by that.

I was at school a lot more recently than most on here seem to be, my primary school was 2001 - 2004, and even then the boys in my own primary school would get undressed for PE lessons in the main building assembly area and were not allowed to stick a top on to do PE which we all did bare chested. We also shared most of these times with the girls in our class too like you do at primary school with your own class. The PE was all taken by female teachers, some quite young. I knew some friends that were starting to get uncomfortable with it as they got older. When we got to secondary school we did a lot less PE like that, it just happened a few times a term on the team games. We had to shower for the first two years at secondary school and then they seemed to stop telling us to do it, so nobody really carried on with it.

Comment by: Tom on 3rd March 2025 at 17:09


I will point out to you - though I suspect you know it perfectly well already, - I was referring to that old film being available on You Tube available for anyone, regardless of occupation, to watch unedited. I made no reference to teachers in the post you referred to, merely those people who want to watch it more than half a century later., and seem to regard it as some masterpiece of ATV..

What I do find surprising are the number of people who rush on here to defend the programme. It reminds you of the experts who rushed to court to defend the publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover, claiming it to be a work of "great literary merit", when it was nothing of the sort, unless repeated use of the "F" word constitutes literary merit.

A tale of two very different games teachers I had at secondary school in the late 80's.

One would sit on the bench that faced away from the showers and not watch us at all after he'd turned the tap to get the water going which was near the bench he sat on. He nearly always kept his back to us until we all finished and were dressing again. He was full aware of his surroundings though, we all knew that.

Another would actually stand on another bench beside our school showers and keep watch directly over the tiled shower wall divide thingy and look down on all of us from above showering with a very good view. Sometimes he was quiet and other times he was mouthing away about this and that but you couldn't hear properly for the sound of running water.

The one who turned his back on us was the far stricter PE teacher who liked things done properly in his lessons and tended to go with surname only usage and was keen on having a disciplined attitude to everything.

The one who watched over us closely was the softer easy going one, the more affable bloke who was on first name usage with us and treated us all like his best pals act.

We always used to get a better lesson out of the first teacher rather than the second and preferred him, and we respected him far more too.

Last line from the Alan early morning comment today..."If you want an idea of British life fifty years ago, there are far more innocuous programmes broadcast on a regular basis on numerous TV channels, much more edifying than that sordid peep show."

There you have it. "Sordid peep show". This says more about how you view the world Alan. The others are right who have confronted you on this. You are taking something that to most of us is a thoroughly mundane and unremarkable piece of film and almost attempting to turn it into pornography, sexualising a normal childhood school activity. By your definition that presumably makes every single PE teacher, not just the men but the women as well, a viewer and observer to a "sordid peep show" three or four times per school day all week long when they ended their PE lessons with us and told us to get freshened up.

Your language is quite extreme and almost frightening but seems like a product of your well documented upbringing and recently admitted homosexuality.

There have been a lot of schooldays worriers and admitted shy kids and all that on here who still manage to talk a lot more measured common sense and sound reasonable about it all, people like Matthew, Danny and Greg the most recent ones I've read.

Comment by: Don on 3rd March 2025 at 03:33



"The state of this nonsense above from this chap. You are always annoyed by something, people like you are never happier than when they are annoyed by something or other.

But let me tell you what I find really repulsive about some of the things you say like this above. It's the way I've seen you nonchalantly smear other people and throw doubt on others motivations so easily and without shame. It never ends does it. In this latest example you are now smearing someone for having recorded something and kept it for many years, going so far as to describe it as 'preserved'...."

First a dictionary definition from the Oxford Dictionary:

Preserved: "maintained in its original or existing state::"

A fair enough word to use for a programme that is AT LEAST 55 years old and possibly older. I am sorry you don't agree, but argue that one with the lexicographers at Oxford, not me.

I don't think the rest of your bluster is worth responding to, - for somebody who complains about others "getting annoyed" you sound pretty annoyed yourself!. I continue to make the point that the locker room/shower scene ought to be edited out, and that is the main argument against that programme here. People showering looks the same throughout the ages so there is no educational, historical or artistic merit in retaining that segment, especially with the hideous "humorous" bassoon music dubbed on. It is, I maintain, voyeuristic, and I make no apologies for saying that.

Hi Faye,

'Am I the first 'girl' to come on here and lay claim to topless gym lessosn at school then?'

Would you believe that you're actually not?

There was another woman poster, quite a while back now, either on here or another of the school PE related threads. She stated how on her very first PE lesson in her first year at a mixed grammar her woman PE teacher made the girls all take their tops off. She said that she was very stern and assertive about this and made it plain that for their first year no tops were to be worn in PE. They didn't wear a PE kit at all. They did it in nothing but their knickers. From their second year on they were allowed leotards. And this was in a secondary school. She even said how her mum was fine about it, just flippantly remarking, 'great, less laundry for me then'.

Boys and girls should be treated the same. It's amazing in this feminist era how many women automatically, unconsciously assume girls should have certain privileges.

I'm the same age and generation as you. In my infant school we had to do it in just our underwear as well. But at least they let us keep our vests on. In junior school we were allowed to bring any t-shirts and shorts, (which is what I have been advocating on here,) with footwear optional inside and compulsory outside. In secondary school there were various different items of PE wear but tops were always worn. I was luckier than a lot of other male posters on here who were forced to topless PE, sometimes with girls present.

I can only remember one boy, from a poor family, doing PE in infants in nothing but his pants, and I can remember looking at him and inwardly shuddering ang thinking how thankful I was not to have to do that.

I think that back in that era there was a very casual attitude towards the dignity of children, like they hadn't developed any sense of it yet. This wasn't always true, like in my case.

It is interesting that you describe the girls at your junior school as wearing a 'proper' PE kit, as opposed to the boys, who continued to be stripped. It says a lot.

There is another double standard unrelated to gender. You say you did not start school until age five. Where I grew up everybody started at age four. My first year of school was traumatic and deeply unhappy. It felt like being sent to prison. I wonder how differently it might have been if I had not had to start till the following year.

Comment by: Frank on 2nd March 2025 at 21:38
(also Terry same date)

..."This is symptomatic of a problem we have nowadays. I must say I really find this projected empathising a bit hard to take from you Alan and the subsequent desire to ban things on that basis. It's this kind of nonsense that leads to a situation where something that was designed for and shown to quite young children at the time for their own educational needs is now age restricted to the over 18's. The absurdity of this cannot surely be missed by anyone......."

Life is full of absurdity, as we all know. One of the things I enjoy is to listen to and watch old British comedy radio and TV shows and Carry On films. These days apart from verbal warnings "that this show was made 50 years ago and it does reflect language and attitudes of its time". You need not worry about that, because the BBC will have excised any hurty words prior to transmission, and it is not unusual for a programme which had a running time of 28 minutes reduced to about 25 minutes. Similarly on TV at the moment they are repeating Steptoe & Son and again words are bleeped out and sometimes entire lines and exchanges edited out. Last week for example they showed an episode where they go the cinema - Harold wants to see Fellini's 8 And A Half and the old man wants to see a nudist film. They even managed to distort the poster advertising the latter so a woman's breasts are pixilated, so that the picture is distorted and the next line is cut. ITV repeat Carry On films and whole scenes are cut. I can guarantee that not one of those scenes involves nude children. I have some of the Steptoe's on video and even sound recordings issued by Pye of complete shows taken from the original soundtracks, so I know just how innocuous some of the excised lines are.

If the work of two of our greatest comedy writers (Alan Simpson and Ray Galton) can be butchered, (Dr Bowdler did the same thing with Shakespearian texts) to make it more "acceptable" to modern audiences, then I see no problem in making that dubious schools programme be put on the banned list. I repeat - why do people wish to see it?. If you want an idea of British life fifty years ago, there are far more innocuous programmes broadcast on a regular basis on numerous TV channels, much more edifying than that sordid peep show.

Comment by: Alan on 2nd March 2025 at 16:31
Unless one of those men who took part in that film comes forward to explain the procedures we will never know. I think it is the pretend innocence of TV executives and school heads that annoys me most. I seem to remember that Schools broadcasting would run all term and each programme would either do stand-alones or a short season on one topic, then move on to something totally different. Odd that of the dozens of programmes that went out, this episode was preserved on a VHS tape in somebody's home. I understand the school where it was recorded no longer exists. Perhaps that is just as well.


^^this above^^

The state of this nonsense above from this chap. You are always annoyed by something, people like you are never happier than when they are annoyed by something or other.

But let me tell you what I find really repulsive about some of the things you say like this above. It's the way I've seen you nonchalantly smear other people and throw doubt on others motivations so easily and without shame. It never ends does it. In this latest example you are now smearing someone for having recorded something and kept it for many years, going so far as to describe it as 'preserved'. We all know full well what you are really driving at Alan and it's a nasty insinuated smear and like other accusations you make, you have no justification for saying these things in the way you do. It's also not true, there are many other editions from the same source as well on the Vintage Schools TV channel, not just the one under scrutiny here at the moment.

The problem isn't the television programme and its details, it's you and anyone else who can't accept the past for what it was and can't see such total innocence without thinking malevolent thoughts about the situation.

I think Tony you made the more reasonable and thoughtful post for those here who hold such views, and did so in a well written and non judgemental manner and although I would not have written what you said I did at least agree with your final line - 'I think this show raises so many interesting questions around the whole issue of privacy, exploitation, double standards, procedure and consent before you even get to think of the actual content.'

Fair enough Tony, I'll buy into that point of view. I will not buy into yours Alan because you always overdo it.

Like you Greg I've been braodly empathetic to much of Alan's backstory content and how it leads to his views now but Alan I must take issue with you describing that programme as repulsive, that's way too strong and I disagree with banning things too.

Greg, you said - 'I’m certainly not condoning the programme as I too have said previously that I wish it would be taken down. I think it displays the cruel double standards that only boys would be subjected to, with a complete disregard for how they might feel.'

For me this comment of yours makes the case quite strongly for keeping things like that available and in the public domain as a modern historical archive. To see quite clearly how times change even in a very short passage of time. I don't want to see things washed away out of existence as if they never happened in the past, no matter how uncomfortable they may look. I would not object if that was me there if I had originally agreed to be part of it, whilst still being able to admit and agree to all the double standards etc and arguments that have been made that boys like me and you put up with when young. The more we can see from the past the more we can learn from it, and that is the case here, the programme has unwittingly served a wider later purpose you might say.

There's also a lot of sense in what Frank has said here too.

This is symptomatic of a problem we have nowadays. I must say I really find this projected empathising a bit hard to take from you Alan and the subsequent desire to ban things on that basis. It's this kind of nonsense that leads to a situation where something that was designed for and shown to quite young children at the time for their own educational needs is now age restricted to the over 18's. The absurdity of this cannot surely be missed by anyone.

My own children were primary school age in the 1970s and I still remember all the consent forms I used to get given to sign even on things like school trips, swimming and medical emergency issues to name three things there. I'd wager a decent sum of money that proper consent was followed by all involved, and I'd also wager another sizable sum that those involved would worry a lot less about it if they saw it again than you are Alan. They probably all know it's out there.

Have you seen the rest of the Good Health archive, there's a lot more where that came from.

Comment by: Greg2 on 2nd March 2025 at 13:39


We are not disagreeing Greg,, and I am not trying to start an argument - I was merely making the point that a lot of things that are said as - let's call it "state speak" - cover a multitude of sins. It is akin to the Chief Commissioner of Metropolitan Police when claims to be "shocked" when one of his officers gets caught doing something he shouldn't have been. Once, yes and he might well be shocked, but it is like a biting dog - when one gets caught it seems to be the law of nature one hears about more and more cases . There have been so many cases in the past couple of years he should stop being shocked and do something about it. We hope that nothing untoward can happen, but it often does, and what I find especially reprehensible is that in these days of CCTV (we are the most closely watched society in Western Europe, with more cameras per head of the population, yet they still can't catch fly-tippers!), and all sorts of checks, so many people find a way of circumventing the system. Is it carelessness, or too great a reliance on the systems in place, or that the systems are not as foolproof as they are made out to be.

Unless one of those men who took part in that film comes forward to explain the procedures we will never know. I think it is the pretend innocence of TV executives and school heads that annoys me most - are they seriously trying to pretend they were unaware that there were paedophiles prior to that film being made, and you can only wonder at the motives of the person who saved that isolated example of that series. I seem to remember that Schools broadcasting would run all term and each programme would either do stand-alones or a short season on one topic, then move on to something totally different. Odd that of the dozens of programmes that went out, this episode was preserved on a VHS tape in somebody's home. I understand the school where it was recorded no longer exists. Perhaps that is just as well.

Comment by: Alan on 2nd March
Alan, for goodness sake, I've kept out of your previous posts that seemed to rile so many, as I've often had some empathy for what seemed such awful schooling, and such a dodgy gym teacher who so obviously disturbed you. But here you seem to be getting worked up due to your own chosen interpretation of an English language word that already has its own meaning. In this case it’s nothing more than to make sure that a procedure was in place to help protect people, especially minors, who might appear in a television programme. It’s ensuring respect, and care. Are you disagreeing with those things? Yes I know the interpretation of those words resulted in a programme which those very same words would’t allow today, but it was a long time ago, and they were very different times. I’m certainly not condoning the programme as I too have said previously that I wish it would be taken down. I think it displays the cruel double standards that only boys would be subjected to, with a complete disregard for how they might feel.

I also despair at the way so many have posted on here giving the impression they can’t wait to see it. I also found difficult Christine Sanderson’s comment that, ’It does intrinsically feel and look more acceptable to see boys in such a situation than girls and I would have felt less comfortable with girls shown in the same precise manner from that school at that age' which I saw as such a predictable comment from a female only able to give an interpretation from her own adult point of view, instead of trying, at least, to imagine how it might have been from the boy's, or at least the child's, point of view. I see this in itself as a failing for someone whose work is to inspect schools.

I’ll give up now trying help people understand that it’s unlikely those showering boys would have been forced to do as seen. I can’t prove it, and I could be wrong as it was a long time ago. I just think it would be unlikely. I’ve learnt long ago that in the end people continue to believe whatever they want to believe for their own reasons, including it seems their own meaning they give to words.