Burnley Grammar School

@ Harry: Maybe you could upload the film elsewhere and send us the link either in the field 'Your URL' or just in plain text in the message itself.
Would be great

Why do you think girls would tease boys at school just because they could see what their bodies looked like without the top on. Where you seen like that in school and teased Nate in a PE class or something similar?

I remember the funny scene in Gregory's Girl when the Gordon Sinclair character is in the changing room and the girl comes in on him without his shirt and he laughably puts his fingers over his nipples to hide them from her. No modest shy boy would ever really do that in front of a girl.

Harry, how did you feel about being shirtless around girls? Did they ever tease you or the other boys? Could you upload your footage to YouTube?

I've a digitised copy of an old cine film my father took of me at school in June 1973 doing a physical education routine on the school playground when I was ten years old. There is no sound to it however. In it all of the boys, including myself are barechested in various coloured shorts while some girls are in a pure white unbranded short sleeved polo shirt. It appears to be a cloudy day with a lack of sunlight, some people can be seen watching and are in coats. In it I am walking along a beam about three feet off the ground with my arms held out and also vaulting over other boys who are bent over. It seems to be quite a good snapshot of the kind of PE I did at that age. A pity the forum doesn't have the ability to share digital photographic and film files.

Chris K your mention of your kit requirement in PE made me think about any old school literature I have hanging around the place and I managed to find some myself.

I was at a very normal mixed comprehensive school from 1973 until 1980 aged 11 to 18, in Cambridgeshire before going off to university where I studied modern history, hence why a site like this crossed my interest.

I did PE up to fifth form at age 16 and stopped but could have chosen to do a weekly class in one of the free periods if I had wanted to but chose to do an art course instead at the time. It was PE or artwork, the choice wasn't hard for me to make.

I've got a quite an interesting pamphlet with listings for PE on new intake at age 11 and another for age 14. This is the age 11 one below in part.

Boys PE kit outside varied dependant on time of year.

BOYS PE

BOYS WINTER
Studded football boots.
Black knee length socks.
Black shorts.
Blue sweatshirt.
Blue t-shirt.

BOYS SUMMER.
White plimsolls.
White ankle length socks.
White shorts.
Blue vest.

BOYS GYM
White shorts only.
No shirts or footwear are worn in our gym.

The literature goes on to state;

All boys must do football, rugby and running and reach a minimum competent standard ability in each.

All boys must do athletics and reach a competent standard ability as determined by their PE teacher.


Our school requires that all pupils who do PE must take a shower. Unless a teacher decides otherwise, showering is considered compulsory throughout all school years. Please make sure a towel is supplied as part of the PE kit at all times.

Exemptions only allowed on documented medical grounds supplied by parents for any PE activities and/or showering requirement. A written note is preferable but a telephone call will be accepted initially.


There are a few other bits and pieces and also a couple of black and white photographs including one which looks similar in style to the black and white one that comes with this discussion which was taken in our own school gym, the photo is an all boys one but we did share gym with girls during the first two years at school.

Both boys and girls had to take showers at our school.

I think I just about managed to reach the required standard if my marks were anything to go by although no idea how it was worked out.

Although our summer athletics vest was on the kit listing it did become optional and some people chose to take it off to do PE outside and sometimes our PE teachers told us to take them off.

They really did make us shower every time.

Some people I remember at school could be quite vocal about what they did and didn't like doing in PE in actual lesson content we did. One or two when we got older became quite bold and brazen at simply not showing up for PE at all or deliberately not bringing their PE kit and giving out obviously fake excuses we could all hear. That worked best outside but was doomed to fail in gym when an easy pair of shorts could be found. Could it be the reason some schools kept gym kit to the absolute minimum I wonder, so a failure to turn up to school with your PE kit was easily overcome.

Unlike on here, I don't ever remember many outward expressions of insecurity about having to do PE with no shirts on or anything like that, or worries about sharing communal activities such as the naked shower. We all used to be quite an accepting bunch about our lot didn't we.

I have no complaints about the way school taught me and the rules they made. I learnt quite a lot of life lessons about myself just through doing PE.

"Communal showers are vile things" - quote from Freddy.

They are just the most cost effective and quickest way to clean up a large group of people at the same time. That's all.

Perhaps we are going to see reparations being paid out before much longer for all those schoolchildren who were made to shower in school and had their human rights infringed by teachers failing to respect their personal privacy.

What a BIG ROLL EYES post that is from Freddy here.



You might have chosen to remain muddy Freddy but good luck pulling that one where I was at school. Do boys even get that muddy in PE lessons these days like they used to on the playing fields of old.

I had PE lessons where an entire class would come in absolutely soaked to the skin, all our kit wet through literally to our underwear in the worst of it, pelting rain lashing down, the ground like a mushy bog underfoot, the ball struggling to even bounce on parts of it. The mud could be legendary, our boots, our socks, our legs, shorts and if you dived then our tops too and even faces splattered, even our hair. The mess that entire classes of boys could return from PE in off the school fields is something I would not envisage happening as much nowadays, the parents would probably be complaining about the state of the kit, never mind the state of their little darlings.

But we also had PE lessons where you'd be hard pressed to find a drop of perspiration on anybody. That tended to be tedious lessons in gym where we did a lot of standing around watching certain apparatus. Trampoline springs to mind as a big bore were we spent most of our time leaning on the side of the thing watching members of class going up and down before having our turn.

You mention sending teachers to jail for forcing people like us to shower. But be realistic, what choice would you have if you came off from one of those lessons I first described. How could you possibly just get dressed and carry on your schoolday like that. That would have been far more irresponsible don't you think if you couldn't get cleaned up and what a strange school it would have been that expected you do do some of the things I did, and others, in all weathers and conditions, getting wet, dirty and sweating and not advising that you need to be showered after all that.

By your thinking every one of my seven PE teachers would be doing a combined total of 70 years in jail for just doing their job.

Looks to be him John. Not seen that before, thanks for the link.

This must be your teacher on this database then Tristan.

https://uk-database.org/2014/02/27/kevin-copestake-northwold/

Hi Kev, yes I also had a PE teacher visit presentation at school in 1985 along with I think it was a languages teacher who came along to represent other staff. I can't remember too much about what was said back then but a few days later we took a return trip to his school where the same two people actually showed us around the place. I was quite keen to see the facilities we'd have to use and we got taken to have a stand in the middle of the school sports hall which seemed enormous and slightly intimidating compared to what we were used to. We got taken along to the changing rooms but stayed outside the door and didn't get a look in because at the time there seemed to be a class using them. Our guide knocked and another PE teacher came out to say hello knowing we were all waiting outside the door and as he did so we heard the sound of running water, someone said something like what's that sound and he said we couldn't go in because the boys were having a shower. Someone in our group said 'will we have to do that' and he said you'll need to by the time you've finished PE at this school. He went back inside and left us to our PE teacher guide who told us not to worry about things like that. We then went off to the gymnasium itself and sat around talking about what sports we all liked with him. It was just boys as the girls had gone off separate with the languages teacher for their guided tour, I'm not sure why we needed to be separate like that, we all saw mostly the same things. I remember getting home and being asked about the guided tour and about what I'd seen and more or less saying I'd seen nothing much. But a few things did stick in my mind from our little tour around, the size of the place, the art room facilities that were awesome, a gruff looking teacher we passed in a corridor who looked like he was scowling at us as we passed him and the changing room door hello we had from the other teacher which got me wondering what it would be like having showers in school and I wished I could have had a quick look in to see beforehand what it looked like doing so.

Chris K
You refer to the lack of detail in your PE kit list.
When I was changing from Primary to Secondary school, I had to attend a presentation with my parents and during the evening the uniform requirements were explained.
Then the P E teacher stood up and said that for that lesson we would wear shorts(no colour specified) no top indoors and plimsolls no socks. Then he added also no underpants will be worn. Then he went on to list requirement for the swimming lessons.
As you say in your comments much was omitted, and when it came to the lesson were you permitted to wear underwear or had the school decided to withhold that from the instructions previously issued?

I've never been FORCED to have showers after PE. At middle school I sometimes did if I had a lot of mud, but at upper school I never did because I preferred having mud on me than having to do that.

Communal showers are vile things, and any teacher who forces a child to have one should be jailed for ten years.

This admittedly contradicts my other belief that all PE teachers should be hanged upside down and flayed, but there you go.

Back in 1966 when I was at school aged eleven the PE block did not even have a proper changing room worth the name. There were no showers of any kind available to use. What we had instead was a row of large sink basins and had to use them when we came in from a class in gym or playing fields. This simply meant standing at the sink, shirt off using a flannel to wipe our top half and armpits. Our legs often neglected even though we wore shorts doing so.

Now doing this was a slow process and led to queueing up, even with sink sharing two to a basin. There were something like eight basins available. One morning an overconfident boy with dirty feet came back and while both teachers were not paying attention decided to climb up and actually stand with both his feet in one of the filled sink basins to do what he thought would make things easier, but in doing so he slipped in the wet falling hard onto the floor and broke both arms trying to soften his fall. It was getting caught and shouted at that made him jump, take fright and slip in the first place I think.

The sinks were big enough that if we had been allowed to (we weren't) then two normal sized twelve year olds could have sat in them legs crossed at a squeeze. One person easily.

That slipping incident more or less put paid to being allowed to use sink basins to wash and within two months the place had been gutted and some rudimentary communal showers were finally installed as a short term measure before the school got a proper upgrade a few years later to bring it up to modern requirements.

Our own personal hygiene was always something PE teachers took seriously at school and made us pay time and attention to even when we didn't think we needed to. I was only allowed one bath a week at home and until I was 8 I had to share with my sister sometimes and also until I was 13 with my brother, both a bit younger, so I welcomed the chance to use the school showers when they became available.

At home bath night for me was always on a Thursday for some reason and when my school switched the days we did PE one of them was on a Thursday but my bath night at home also remained on a Thursday too. My fathers bathing habits took precedence over his three children because of the job he did and he needed one many nights in the week.

I was always clean and well turned out both from home and school.

Going back to the start of the 1980's when I was a youngster just starting out I was at a grammar school in Tonbridge, called The Judd School where we had lots of lessons in PE where we never wore our vests, especially with one particular teacher who never let us do so in any of his lessons, everything we did on the inside and a hell of a lot on the outside too. I always felt strangely uncomfortable in his lessons in ways I didn't with other teachers. He was quite a young teacher, late 20's, early 30's at most. We always took showers same as anywhere else at the time would have done, nothing strange about that, but how many people had a PE teacher who would sometimes offer to dry your back with your towel for you, not many, but I saw that going on and just thought that was so weird even if your back is a bit hard to reach. There was always the easy technique for drying your back anyway. Once he'd got to know our class he actually shared showering with us one day and I couldn't get out quick enough, although apparently that was not exactly uncommon behaviour for the time either but it felt weird to me as a modest twelve or thirteen year old. I didn't really give this guy much thought until what must have been about ten years ago when his unusual surname (Mr Copestake) cropped up locally and I discovered there was a case being made against him surrounding his time at our school around about the time I was there and I think he got convicted of some offence and given about five years for something like befriending certain boys in PE and sharing a shower with them away from school at his home or something while they were still pupils at the school, along with inappropriate touching at school and away from school.

If you ever had a strong hunch about one of your PE teachers you were probably right. I was.

Chris K, I still have the note I was sent home with almost 50 years ago now that told my parents while I was still in primary school that they wanted me to start showering after PE following a school refit. I was just 10 at the time. I remember that nobody wanted to be the first one to drop their pants and show their willy until one of the others, a young boy I still remember called Toby did this and we all followed quite quickly. He was considered a very brave boy for doing that and being the first and we told him that.

I work a lot in mindfulness coaching and think it would be a good idea if all schools had such a person on the staff. It might have been quite useful many years ago with a number of issues. Body related issues are always one of the top worries and to think that possibly our most insecure and self conscious age in our lives is possibly 10 to 16 and that is when most of us were forced into confronting communal nudity amongst each other or semi naked shirtless PE without a great deal of thought going into how that might affect each of us as individuals.

I got used to having to do PE shirtless but I still didn't like doing so very much and could never quite get rid of feeling incredibly self aware while I was in PE like it when the teacher wanted our shirts off time after time, skins v shirts stuff or just the whole class sometimes for some reason or another. It made my heart sink most times we did.

It was the same in the school showers. We were not provided with any choice about that. We had to remove all our clothing completely under the supervision of whatever teacher took us that day and wait for him to turn the showers on for us and walk sensibly into them together. He'd watch at the only entry/exit point to them while we showered and decide when we could all come back out again. Just the same as with shirtless PE, yes I got used to showers in school and having to be naked among a lot of other people but I never liked it and there was always every time a feeling of some kind of acute self awareness about myself, perhaps I'd even go so far as to say it fostered intense feelings of inadequacy.

Other people had a 180 degree different view. That was mine.

Answer to Steve.

No, we tended to run cross country in a vest but there were times when two or three took them off as we ran along and nothing was said. They just tucked the top into the shorts hanging down around the waist in some fashion. After we had run nearly everyone was pulling vests off even before we got back through the door to the changing rooms. Unlike some people on here, nobody ever told our cross country running group in PE that we all had to run bare chested because they had decided we must do so. But then most cross country running took place only from September until the Easter break so we would go a full five months at least not doing it and it resumed with the new school year again. We were always timed by our teachers and had our times registered in a little black book one of them had. Most run times seemed to be in the region of about 40 minutes on average and we always had to wait around for the slow finishers. I tended to be one of the median runners.

Indoors was barefoot mostly.

We had a checklist of what was considered the compulsory elements of PE and meeting certain criteria on fitness and achievement was quite a big part of it but PE showering was also a compulsory element.

Compulsory elements were quite the buzz word at school and applied to other subjects and even our appearance such as haircuts which was quite strict.

Sean on 16th April – I fully understand, appreciate and respect your feelings that ‘one-handed boxing’ was not for you. Indeed, I can think of several boys in my class who would have hated it, but personally I would have loved it. I usually looked forward to PE – not that I was any good at most of the activities, but I always anticipated a bit of freedom to run around, use up excess energy, get rid of pent-up frustrations, etc, instead of being sat at a desk wearing a shirt and tie and blazer, even in the summer no matter how hot it was. The reality however was usually that a lot of the time was spent doing seemingly endless circuit training – ten push-ups, ten sit-ups, ten star jumps, repeat, repeat, repeat. For me, it was boring, boring, boring! Excruciatingly so! I would have found your one-handed boxing tremendously exciting – something to really get the heart pumping and the adrenalin flowing. I’d have been fully focused and putting in maximum effort – which almost never happened in PE!
I’m a little intrigued as to how it worked in practice though, Sean. How were the pairings decided and who had which glove – surely a right-handed boy with the right-handed glove would have a significant advantage? And what did boys do with their ungloved hand – try to defend by keeping it in front of their bodies, try to catch hold of or push away their opponent’s gloved hand, or push his ungloved hand out of the way to try to land a clean punch, or what? I’d have made it a rule that the ungloved hand must be held behind one’s back! I can see some purpose to it – such an activity would involve hand-eye coordination, reaction times, etc, and as I said before, for me (and no doubt for quite a few of my mates), provided something different, interesting and exciting for once.

Finally, whilst I’m here, like Carter, being forced to be bare-chested for PE, did wonders for my self-confidence. Until I moved to secondary school, I was quite self-conscious and would do anything to avoid being shirtless in front of others. Being forced to be so in PE felt uncomfortable for the first couple of lessons, after which I started to quite enjoy it. It made me realise, though I would not have been able to phrase it in such terms at that age, that we are all different and we are all normal. I’m convinced that most of the body image hang ups many boys suffer from today simply would not exist if we still had sensible, practical PE kit policies in schools instead of trying to wrap kids in cotton wool. Typing this, has made me wonder how different my life might be today, had I not been forced to overcome my almost obsessive shyness about being shirtless – would I never have been able to sunbathe on a beach? Never go swimming with my kids? Maybe even never have kids if I was too scared to be naked with a girl!

By the way, unlike Chris K, my school’s uniform list (I can still remember it!) said “Indoor PE: White Shorts, White Ankle Socks and Plimsolls or bare feet, no shirt required”. By which, of course, it actually meant “no shirt allowed”. There was no need to “read between the lines” – it was all quite open and straightforward. And normal. This was an all boys state grammar school in the mid to late sixties.

Thanks Carter for your contributions.

Did you do indoor PE barefoot as well, or did you wear trainers ?

What about cross country, was that stripped to the waist also ?

Thanks.

I have in front of me my old comprehensive school uniform list for the newbies, given to our parents ahead of our start date that September. It's dated 8th July 1977. I found it amongst my parents belongings when I was having a sort out for them.

BOYS P.E -
Indoor Boys - Black P.E shorts.
Indoor Girls - Black Leotard.


I remember the discussion I had with my folks about that. I think me and they both thought, what else is there though, as if there had to be more on the list for an indoor P.E lesson. But it was correct. You read between the lines with this kind of uniform list. It was what it didn't say that was worth knowing. These kind of lists didn't actually seem to want to say out loud or in written print that the school P.E lesson would be a shirtless/barechested one, not forgetting barefoot with it too. I wonder why they didn't feel able to state it categorically, rather than just the - Black P.E shorts.

It's also like the line I have in the same list that says -

ALL BOYS P.E
Make sure to bring a towel.


No actual mention anywhere of the school requirement to shower that we had. The word doesn't even crop up, like they didn't dare say it out loud for some reason. Okay so you can read between the lines and work it out but why not say so properly and clearly.

When I came home from my first P.E lesson at this school one of the first questions my mum asked me was did I have a shower at school that day. She knew I thought of it as a bit of a big deal.

There is something about the kind of schools that Carter here mentions going to that just seems to instill an almost automatic all round confidence in people in a way that the vast majority of usual state schools used to fail miserably at even if they weren't actually poor schools.

Carter, thank you for the reply and your perspective.

Three main PE teachers at my secondary school in the 70s/80s and the one thing I truly detested about PE was the regular cross country that all the boys had to do when all the various PE ability groups came together as one large grouping of runners.

We always ran the cross country totally bare chested. PE teachers aslways seemed very keen to get boys in school like this. Not even allowed any jewellery either, watches or neck chains, it all had to come off. The reason for this was once explained to us - because it would make us all run faster, and the less warm it was outside the faster we'd run. I took that as typical PE teacher sarcasm and not a genuine explanation. Never forgot it though.

Back inside the gym hall we actually wore vests roughly two out of every three classes.

I'm 29, and left school 11 years ago having been sent to an independent school in Durham.

Never even considered such things an issue until I took a look here. I wouldn't have wanted to go to a school which nannyed me against doing things. Being seen bare chested even had the effect of making me quite confident among girls which was a bonus. I definitely became a more confident person in part because of it. We always ended with a hot shower too. Some people just end up easier in their own skin than others I suppose.

Carter on 15th April, I was also surprised you were doing PE bare-chested relatively recently. Don't mind my asking, but in what part of the country did you go to school?

Comment by: Carter on 15th April 2023 at 14:18
They should be shirtless in PE. No questions about it. I'm in my 20s and was in school not that long ago. But the boys all had to just wear shorts and went the full bare chest. It really helped me embrace my body. Being bare chested makes your stance better it improves your social skills too in my opinion. Also the girls in class (we shared sometimes) were also made to be used to guys shirtless. It's a normal thing. I still to this day don't wear a shirt most of the time in the garden over summer and leave the house like it for short trips about nearby. We're men. Men are allowed to be shirtless.


Good post this. I like reading younger ones, although obviously a site like this lends itself to an older person just because of what it is. What's interesting too is that shirtless PE is still very much around. How does it improve social skills though exactly? That bit I didn't get.

I'm not a boxing fan at all. But if professionals and amateurs choose to do it then who am I to stop them and that's their decision. If there is a boxing club or something voluntary in a school and it interests you and your parents consent then that's reasonable with choice and consent. But when it comes to a PE teacher instigating boxing of any kind which involves physical beating with an entire class drawn into it regardless of personal choice and only at a teacher instruction then I do have an issue with that kind of thing. No PE teacher should have the right to be able to tell his class to start punching each other, even if he does say avoid the head.

I saw the comment about the need for teachers to take a psychiatric test or analysis of some kind to prove their fitness for the job. Unsure if the poster thinks that should apply to all teachers or whether he meant just the PE ones. But anyway maybe my old PE teacher who took me for a year during 1976/77 should be considered.

Along with all the usual stuff everyone did in gym we did some quite unique "sports". I had a teacher who brought in his own pair of boxing gloves, huge things they seemed. I was reminded of this when I took a look at the Birth Of A Nation film left on here a couple of weeks ago where the PE teacher put some boxing gloves on the poor kid an d said it would stop him playing with himself if I recall it right.

So this PE teacher of mine was quite the fan of boxing but it wasn't really a part of PE at my school. By the way I'm another who took gym generally as standard while wearing only shorts, never needing our feet or tops covering unless instructed otherwise. So this teacher would pair boys up and hand his one boxing glove to one boy and another to the other in the pair, so one had a left handed and the other a right. We then had to fight each other in front of the other boys one handed boxing and could punch as hard as we liked but never at the head, just at anywhere else, mainly the body. No chance of a KO but we were scored on body punches to the torso and legs. We did it for a couple of minutes each, took the gloves off and another pair had a go and we watched.

I never really understood what the hell we were doing it for. I think our teacher got more enjoyment out of it than us. Some boys really went for it and I just pretended a bit. But even with just one glove on some of us took a fair beating and our chests came up red with a good punch and it was still easy to send someone over onto the floor. We did this on mats so any fall was broken and soft. It was just a made up "sport" that our PE teacher got us going at and seemed designed to bring out aggression. He also had us go at kickboxing in the gym one time after we did the one arm boxing, just encouraging us all across the gym to start launching our legs at various opponents with our bared feet. It worked up a bit of energy but I took some persuading it was doing me any favours and felt more traditional gym PE was preferable. The same PE teacher also took the school judo club as well so was involved and had a taste for all things directly physical between boys which I didn't share.

They should be shirtless in PE. No questions about it. I'm in my 20s and was in school not that long ago. But the boys all had to just wear shorts and went the full bare chest. It really helped me embrace my body. Being bare chested makes your stance better it improves your social skills too in my opinion. Also the girls in class (we shared sometimes) were also made to be used to guys shirtless. It's a normal thing. I still to this day don't wear a shirt most of the time in the garden over summer and leave the house like it for short trips about nearby. We're men. Men are allowed to be shirtless.

In answer to your question to me, Robbie, you might well be right, but they were not around at my dump, and these days teachers are not allowed to rule by fear and threats. Could I ask what decade you went to school in, and what sort of school it was (comp/grammar/whatever)?

To answer the question about earning respect, I should say you earn it through encouraging others to share your interest and your specialization, to remember that some people, hard though they might try, will never measure up to your own ability, and to have tolerance for that but still try to encourage ,and not go for condescending sarcasm, belittling others and by -to use an old expression - acting like a gentleman, not raising your voice or your hand and certainly not by threatening behaviour. I only had experience with school masters, not mistresses, though I am sure there were some tyrants amongst those as well.