Burnley Grammar School

Sam and Steve both with comments about toughening up and making men of boys during PE. What does it even mean anyway?

You never hear about girls and making women out of them do you.

Bernard

Thanks for your response.

We had to run cross country shirtless, but wore plimsolls. Other than one lad who always ran bare foot - his choice, or maybe his fathers (his dad was military and believed "boys need toughening up etc")

I would have hated being barefoot, but maybe we had a different type of course to you. Not just because of ground conditions, but also it would have seemed even more of a punishment on a freezing day in winter to be not only forced to strip to the waist, but also to have to strip to all but nothing, in that we world have worn only a thin pair of shorts and been on full public view.

Are you saying you were running ankle deep in thick wet mud with literally nothing on your feet Bernard in those conditions, with it also raining and having to go out stripped off bare chested too at the same time, and you approved of that? What a mess you must have made coming back into change with all that muck on your feet. The showers must have looked a right state.

But I guess you boys like getting muddy don't you at that age and perhaps still wouldn't mind. All that mud must have given your lot great feet, as long as it was the right sort of mud!

What school and where Bernard?

Why do so few people actually name names on here.

I had a PE teacher who took our whole class out cross country running one day right through the centre of town (Banbury) and back to school again TOTALLY SHIRTLESS the lot of us. I just wanted to hide and kept looking at the ground as we went. Absolute tool. He was one of those 'it'll make men of you types'. I think it was in 1979, late summer, just back to school.

I'd like to respond to Tom's comment of 6th April 2023.

I was dismayed to read your comment Tom. I can assure you, and others that even fifty plus years ago kicking a child in school would be considered well beyond acceptable.

I was actually very surprised to see the drama from 1983 showing a boy being hit in his PE lesson like that because that was not something I ever encountered even many years before that time, in the late 1960's or 1970's and it is not how many I knew behaved.

By the beginning of the 1980's although corporal punishment in schools remained legal for a further few years until I think it was about 1986 when it finally ended, many teachers would not have gone near using any kind of physical admonishment in school by that point.

I was interested to see you Alan say you received the cane in school yourself, are you not a 1980's schoolboy. What did you receive it for?

I remember in my early days teaching and hearing from an old hand in my first school about his long career which must have stretched back pre-war and him telling me how he used to strike this boy and that boy time and again for this and that, to which I said something like well if you had to keep doing it over and over to the same boys again and again then it really wasn't working was it.

Steve - Yes barefoot and stripped to the waist. We thought it a bit odd to start with but appreciated it after the first heavy rain. Our route had several sections which became very muddy after heavy rain. Plimsolls were the alternative and these would soon have become detached from the feet they were meant to be on. It was really a sensible kit - we didn't have to stop a number of times to retrieve filthy plimsolls. In addition, muddy feet were a lot easier to clean than mud-encased plimsolls.
It was not uncommon to fall over and get very dirty so it was practical to only have a pair of shorts that needed cleaning - my mother certainly appreciated that!
I was very fortunate in that my school tended not to do things on a whim - there was usually a good reason even when the rules might have seemed strange to start with.

Matt, seems a sensible arrangement.

Bernard

Did you have to run cross country barefoot as well as stripped to the waist ?

If so, how did boys/parents react to that.

Thanks

Though I in no way condone violence towards or against anybody, did anybody else see this story?:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11954249/More-one-10-teachers-physically-assaulted-pupil-year-survey-finds.html


I wonder what percentage of pupils were assaulted by teachers for no good reason when they were allowed to use corporal punishment? - and it is not that many years ago, either.

Hi Claire, thanks for your interest. We were all told which form we were going into before we started and that remained fixed and each class had it's own colour. My class wore green shorts and the other colours were red, blue and yellow.

Matt - were shorts colours allocated permanently. In house colours or similar, or did you have several pairs in different colours to choose from?

Matt - we were stripped to the waist like you, inside and out, all year round and wore different colour shorts to distinguish teams outside as well as being barefoot. It meant we had little kit to remember and no-one was made to wear a shirt. I think this was fairer than playing shirts and skins.
Cross country in the middle of winter could be a bit challenging but you got used to the cold after the first five or ten minutes. No-one seemed particularly bothered by our basic kit and I certainly wouldn't have changed it. This was in the 60s and applied to the whole school.

I had an older brother who went to the same (grammar) school - he was 3 years older than me, and we shared a bedroom.

So I more or less knew what to expected, namely indoor pe in only shorts, cross country bare backed and so on.

He was caned a few times, and I saw the results - clearly much worse once he was in the 4th year and got the heavier cane.

What I didn't expect was the association of surnames by one of the PE teachers, who immediately picked up he was my brother - thus I was "trouble" By the 2nd cross country run he had me down as "lazy" and pretty soon I was in gym detention and slippered for "now trying" in his lessons. My first caning soon followed !

Joe, yes that took me by surprise. Like you we were stripped to the waist regardless of activity or weather. We wore different coloured shorts to distinguish between teams.

John, It's not just at senior school level though. From the moment I began at middle school we did PE in the hall without tops (and took showers) as boys and many of the PE lessons were combined and basically just the everyday full normal class together under the supervison of both male and female teachers at the time. We also did parents day PE showcase annually, twice in my case where we did a gymnastics display and much more. I did not much like parental performances of any kind especially like that but the choice was never ours to make. My dad thought we were doing something special when he saw it and didn't realise that was how we did normal PE in middle school and I think he was a bit surprised.

I'm going back to 1969/70 with this when I'm not sure if there was any national set standard for determining how one school or another conducted PE lessons with regards to what we did and what we wore or if we must shower or not. It's one of those mysteries to me about who made these actual decisions and I've had a flick back through quite a lot of pages here and nobody else seems to have any ideas I've stumbled across yet.

Replying to Nathan,

Like you my experience of PE was very similar and having to be PE stripped to the waist at Senior School was no shock because I knew that was the kit rule that my older brother had.

I think if lads had been prepared what to expect it wouldn’t have been a big deal for them having to do PE bare chested. Most lads at my school preferred it to having to wear a hot sweaty top.

Comment by: Terry on 6th April 2023 at 20:39

Saw that live myself. You beat me to it.

Check out Stuart Agnew here tonight on the GB News Channel, a farmer and former MEP who went to Gordonstoun with then Prince (now King) Charles in what must have been the start of the 60's. He speaks of a tough regime where boys were actually woken first thing in the morning before 7am to get going for cross country running. At one point he dismisses a scene from the Crown where it was suggested Charles was able to avoid cross country running, saying if he had done that for real then nobody would have forgotten it for the next few years.

I've read about this school before in the press and our now King's hatred of it. I think it was notorious for cold showers too. It sounds less like a school more like a juvenile prison camp to me. Awful sounding place.

https://youtu.be/tn44St6Ha9w?t=89

Check out Stuart Agnew here tonight on the GB News Channel, a farmer and former MEP who went to Gordonstoun with then Prince (now King) Charles in what must have been the start of the 60's. He speaks of a tough regime where boys were actually woken first thing in the morning before 7am to get going for cross country running. At one point he dismisses a scene from the Crown where it was suggested Charles was able to avoid cross country running, saying if he had done that for real then nobody would have forgotten it for the next few years.

I've read about this school before in the press and our now King's hatred of it. I think it was notorious for cold showers too. It sounds less like a school more like a juvenile prison camp to me. Awful sounding place.

Watching Birth of a Nation it shows how different criteria applied throughout schools when having P E lessons. At my all boys school which was secondary modern that I attended 1961 to 1966 indoors P E was always no top no socks no pants and we wore plimsolls.
With regards to the location we did not have a gym P E took place in the one and only school hall which was also used for morning assemblies and other big gatherings. I expect like many schools at that time the wall bars were locked to the side of the wall and swung out for use and the climbing ropes came out on a gantry.
With regards to the teacher instructions were shouted out which in turn echoed in the hall along with the noise of the activities. In addition to the shouting by the teacher he also had a whistle which was used to draw our attention to him.
As far as discipline his voice was usually sufficient to maintain control.
With regards to not wearing a top this was no problem for me because I knew it was the regime because my elder brother was already a pupil at the school and I knew that P E was shirtless and pant less. Furthermore when my father at6tended a parents evening before the term started when uniform was discussed it was sated there and then what would or would not be worn during P E . In addition parents were informed that all classes would be having swimming lessons at the local municipal swimming pool and whereas as there was no stipulation to colour, it was explained that swimming trunks (which now are now colloquially as Speedos) would be worn. This was announced because swimming shorts were just beginning to become available.
Before our first P E lesson commenced the teacher assembled us all in the hall and reiterated that we would be changing into shorts and no tops or pants. He also introduced us to "his Friend" a size 10 plimsolls which he placed on the stage in the hall which he said was his "Enforcer". Any misdemeanour and he would introduce his friend to our backside!!!!
The plimsolls was vary rarely used.
The threat was enough.

Birth Of A Nation did not make comfortable viewing. The gym teacher shown in it resembled one from the mid seventies I had called Mr Bristow who didn't need a bat to clout you with, he just used his foot. The date he did this to me is still scarred on my consciousness - it was a Friday second period on 1st February in 1974 and without warning that sod chose to kick me up the backside very hard indeed in the centre of the school gym for being too slow. He missed his target and kicked me just above the bottom and more at the lower back and it hurt like hell and left me in a lot of pain all day long and further discomfort for a week afterwards sitting down. I do recall wanting to cry so much but I think I went into a state of shock and could barely speak afterwards, and I was 15 and a half at the time as well, the same size as the teacher, almost 6ft tall. He wasn't sorry. I wasn't the kind of kid to muck about in school, that made it worse. We only wore elasticated white shorts in school gym on Fridays, no shirts, vests, trainers, plimsolls or socks was standard turn out and he was fond of sticking a finger or two inside the elastic holding our shorts up and pinging it or pulling you into place by your shorts. Once he'd decided he disliked you that was it. I had three years of this Mr Bristow sod and I never said a word about it to anyone outside of the school. When we were showering afterwards I was trying to see if there was a mark discreetly and got a follow up verbal assault when he knew what I was doing. I couldn't see anything but hours later quite the bruise came through, although it faded within three or four days although the aching remained. I'm of the view that what happened was a clear case of GBH and the fact it happened in a school is no defence. I've had lower back issues most of my life in phases in the place I was kicked and it forever makes me think they stem from that sod in gym who was a quite young teacher. I'm 65 later this summer and he'd be a 75 year old I'd happily return my now older foot to for him to feel even though I'm actually a very placid and peaceable man.

Peter, I saw that being discussed on the news tonight. Someone said you used to need a raincoat to be a flasher, now you get a TV show. Couldn't quite believe what I was seeing. Is the commissioning editor on that channel yet to leave school themselves and about 14 or something.

Bill I don't know how old you are but am sympathetic to how you have felt on a personal level in school but anyone with half a brain cell knows what Channel 4 are all about with that kind of garbage they peddle under some high minded guise. That show was just more purile and childish titilation nothing more. As yourself why school age youngsters aged 14 to 16 even need to be shown adult naked bodies in the first place. They don't, there's nothing they don't already know about and have seen. Pathetic actually, the show that is, not yourself.

Tanya 2nd April 2023 at 15.48.

There was a show on Channel 4 tonight, 4th April, before the watershed which involved adults showing their naked bodies to school age children and trying to normalise how we see each other. I wish Naked Education, the name of the show, had been around when I was younger. I grew up hating my body, and I still do, and I don't know how not to. This began at school where I could never stop judging myself alongside others because I was forced to do so in physical education and always felt others judging me too throughout my young teenage years.
Especially in the gay community where body type is the most important thing (apparently) and if you're not skinny or muscled then you're invisible.

Quoting something you said Ryan - "It suddenly occurred to me that making us boys strip to the waist was about control and discipline and that in other schools PE masters where more easy-going. In any case, I left school in 1988 without ever having had the privilege to wear a PE top."


I left school ten years before you did. Our PE kits included tops with a small embossed school name and logo on them on the front right hand side, not identical but quite similar to the one on the school blazer itself.

Your description of "privilege" hit home with me. A couple of PE teachers threw this line at us about it being a privilege to wear the school top with the logo on it, not a right, and that it was a privilege they could withdraw at any time if they wished. And they did.

For any doubters out there who think it's a figment of the imagination it wasn't. Our privileges were always getting withdrawn on false pretexts time after time. They do use removing shirts in PE as a form of telling off. I strongly associate being shirtless as a form of PE punishment from being at school. But if so many boys aren't bothered by it why did they do it.

Comment by: Neil on 4th April 2023 at 17:20
Yes, back then you would hear stories of 5000 people chasing one job. Just last week I heard of an employer with a job who couldn't get anyone to even apply for it. Both probably a media exaggeration.



I know this isn't a politics forum but the Chancellor installed in 1983 was the newly late Nigel Lawson who died yesterday and by the time he quit at the end of the decade unemployment had halved.

Just to clear up, I wasn't trying to scoff at you Alan but just making what I think was a fair point in response to your previous comment beforehand.

Yes, back then you would hear stories of 5000 people chasing one job. Just last week I heard of an employer with a job who couldn't get anyone to even apply for it. Both probably a media exaggeration.

I don't wish to spoil the ending for anyone who hasn't yet watched Birth Of A Nation and intends to do so - thanks Ryan for sharing it by the way. But I found the ending spoilt it and was extreme, although obviously ramming home a point of sorts, I guess about pupil frustrations at schools like that boiling over. Have there ever been any examples of that in the real world I thought to myself.

I didn't quite get the point that was being made by the PE teacher looking at a soft porn magazine picture hung up inside his locker as he changed with nothing on below the waist. The point being what there, anyone any idea on that?

The no hope attitude so much youth and school leavers had at the start of the 1980s now looks to have been far too pessimistic and things were not that bleak in the end for nearly all of us. Does anyone remember ITV's News At Ten on Friday night ending the week with a totting up of all the job losses across the country every week for what seemed like forever.