Burnley Grammar School

Just this once, my sympathies are with the teacher in this ludicrous case:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14432275/Teacher-sacked-35-years-joke-whacking.html

But it constitutes a warning not to be ignored. If a teacher can be dismissed on such flimsy "evidence" (I totally disagree with the verdict or the notion that she was being serious), it just shows the very youngest children are likely to become more inclined to report them. Watch out when they are 8/10 years older.

Comment by: A Yorkshiredad on 24th February 2025 at 11:54
School PE policy for the boys is that they will still be required to work bare chested during the summer term but at other times of year it is their choice. Hardly any boy has taken up this option however which suggest that making them work that way would be a punishment and deterrent if required.



I do remember you mentioning when you first posted that you had concerns about your school's decision (head teacher?) to require a shirtless summer PE kit. How has it worked out since this happened and what's your view now compared to when you first posted about it. Was this an outside PE kit you referred to, or just inside, or both? You seem to be suggesting that when given their own choice at the other times they are all shirting up rather than any of them being shirtless.

Have you noticed many boys yourself who you think might be the future men on forums like this complaining about being told to go shirtless in PE lessons at school, just by body language, demeanour or comments. Any resistance at all, what was the introduction to it like when it happened.

Other than those who did full time shirtless PE, the Danny's of this forum for example, the feeling of being 'punished' in PE if told to have a shirtless body appears quite a strong emotion, for those where more often than not a shirt is worn in school.

Can you just remind me what the reason was for the summer term policy change in the first place?

I have just had the opportunity to read Neil Wilkinson's post from last week and thought I would say how I would completely agree with his policy towards kit. Most often when a piece of kit is forgotten it is obviously a parental oversight and it would be greatly unfair to punish the child in such a situation. We have full sets of kit to lend. If the forgetfulness were to become a habit some sanction would be required and making the boy stand out in class by making him work bare chested would be preferable to me than a lunchtime detention or other punishment. School PE policy for the boys is that they will still be required to work bare chested during the summer term but at other times of year it is their choice. Hardly any boy has taken up this option however which suggest that making them work that way would be a punishment and deterrent if required.

Hi Terry,

That looks like a culture of violent abuse to me. Where has this phrase 'culture of naivety' been extracted from? What stood out about that article is that there were no details mentioned. It was very oblique. This 'Lady Smith' extended her sympathy - but what measure of any substance do she actually suggest?

Did this Lady Smith date this 'culture of naivety' to the 1960-1990 period because that corresponded to the age ranges of the victims that came forward? Because it is my understanding there were plenty of abusive and out-of-control teachers in the 1940s and '50s as well as well before that. Probably the best testimony to this is Roald Dahl's childhood autobiography Boy, which still seems to be widely read nowadays.

In those days it was held that character was developed through the experience of hardship. That made it easy to abuse, because you only had to claim you were doing it 'for their own good'. As for lack of care and abuse, well, I understood that they were ubiquitous in the private school system for the same reason..

Presumably this Lady Smith is herself from this private-school milieu and so as such, as much as she may genuinely sympathise with the victims, she still feels a compulsion to defend these 'bastions of education'. But when you launch into a child half your size and a quarter of your age with your full strength and your temper lost there is no naivety there, only intent to harm. 'Culture of naivety' just sounds like she was seeking to let perpetrators off the hook.

Your mention of the 'shower situation' made me think of something else.

Some time back I investigated my own old secondary school. I had to take out a facebook account to do it but hey, needs must. I had always heard of how my secondary school used to have an intimidating reputation for the level of corporal punishment meted out there back in the '50s, '60s and '70s.

Teachers in that era used to bleat about how they needed corporal punishment as a 'last resort'. What I discovered was that at my old school it was used as a first resort, with kids being struck for trivial things or nothing at all. One woman recalled having her head banged on the desk for not understanding a Maths equation while another woman said she was caned in front of the whole class for not knowing the capital of Peru. The headmaster had a cane. Any teacher who wanted to was allowed to tool up with a so-called 'slipper' - in reality an adult-sized gym plimsoll. In addition there was a second tier of teachers there, an order of nuns - catholic schools are strange places - who were armed with leather straps. It goes without saying that these were used almost exclusively on the boys. Numerous women on the group stated that the boys got it so much worse than they did, although they themselves were evidently not entirely immune.

Re the showers thing, there were two men teachers named whose preferred practice was to save up punishments owing for when the boys were coming out of the showers. These were not PE teachers but they would seemingly just march into the boys' changing room after the lesson and bellow out a list of names. Those boys named would then be slippered on the spot - i.e., stark naked.

One of these two teachers named was still there in my time. He had a shocking temper that could turn on a dime, although in my day he couldn't lay a finger on us. Perhaps that was what he was so angry about.

The more I think of it, the tyrannical micro-management by Ofsted, the relentless pressure and stress, the lack of respect, not just from pupils but from fellow professionals who judge you as a sort of failure for having entered into such a crap profession - all this is just the pendulum of history swinging the other way. Teachers in the past got away with far too much.

The savage irony of it all is, it was never necessary to spend the equivalent of a second mortgage to send your child away to a place where they would be irrevocably screwed up for life. There were always plenty of state schools that performed the same service for free. I know because I went to one.

Comment by: Gary B on 22nd February 2025 at 16:21


"I think people are just too sensitive nowadays. I've just seen what Janet has been talking about from the link Terry provided on You Tube and can't see a great deal wrong with it as far as it goes. That's something all us boys did at school in those days whether we wanted to or not, and alright we didn't get it kept for posterity like they did but is there really anything so wrong with a few boys quickly showering being shown even if they were fully shown naked skins doing so, it was no more than a normal everyday school day situation. If I could see myself doing that in my own school from 1976 onwards I think I'd have a good laugh at myself and my friends and see it as a rather unique snapshot not many others have....."

Of course, Gary, you are entitled to your opinion, but let's just go back to when that film was made - there were no CRB checks on school staff, let alone outsiders coming in - there would have been, in addition to those poor kids, at the very least, a director, a lighting cameraman, and at least one camera operator in that changing room and shower area - the previous evening they might have been filming a Gary Glitter concert, or got a kick out of watching pre-pubescent boys taking their clothes off and showering. I can't imagine what possessed the P.E. teacher to allow that scene to be filmed, let alone included in the final cut - and surely the head teacher of the school should have had a power of veto over what was allowed to be filmed and broadcast. The school would have had the sanction (I know teachers love that word!) to have insisted on that scene being cut from the recording - and if the producer of the programme refused the Head could have gone to the ITA and insisted ATV(? - I assume for that area at that time?), and say that if the film wasn't edited they would withdraw their permission for the programme to be broadcast at all. ATV would have had the option of editing a couple of minutes out, or losing a whole programme.

This programme proves more than one point:

1) Like today, people will do anything to appear on television
2) That boys were treated as if they were in a cattle market
3) Though you might have been relaxed at the programme being broadcast, I bet some of those lads were not, and I can't understand why at least one of the parents did'n't raise a complaint.

Just the other day a minor actor in the soap Eastenders caused a scandal by delivering a racial slur, in character, on Radio 4 at lunchtime (a four letter word starting with "P") - not only did the presenter upbraid him for it, on air (the live World At One)there were several complaints to the BBC, and the BBC have since edited out the word from the Listen Again feature - I doubt many people bother to listen again to a topical news programme - it is like yesterday's newspaper. Just imagine if a director was stupid enough to film a scene like that today. It would be a sacking offence if it ever got to transmission - and I very much doubt it would.

If people ARE more sensitive today, that is no bad thing.


Comment by: Terry on 22nd February 2025 at 18:06



I am glad you picked this up Terry. At my school, our P.E. teacher was a definite voyeur. Even if you were lucky enough not to be his "type", he still enjoyed watching you shower, and though I definitely wasn't his type, I felt humiliated knowing he was watching me. I do remember on more than one occasion telling lads that they needed to use more soap, which showed how clearly he was looking. It was very noticeable that the older you got the more he was inclined to hang around.

I left school in '83 with one GCE in English. I was ungraded at maths, E physics and E commerce. I simply couldn't make sense of what was being taught in the school environment but three years after leaving I retook maths O level after paying privately (£5/hr) and re-sat as an external candidate getting grade B. It just goes to show how with the passing of just a few years and one-to-one education it's possible to do so much better. I once had a maths teacher who admitted she hadn't even passed her own O level maths herself, way to go! I went on to get a degree and qualified as a male nurse. Since 2020 I've come to realise that the world is not as we are led to believe it is and that most of what we are taught at school is useless garbage, and teachers are just as brainwashed as the kids they're indoctrinating to become slaves in the debt-based financial system. The middle-classes think they've escaped but they just enjoy a better standard of enslavement.

PE could be hit or miss. Mostly miss. I didn't need to learn the trapeze, I wasn't planning on telling the careers lady I wanted to work in a circus, although school sometimes felt like that. I didn't need to jump up and down on a trampoline trying to backflip and I didn't need to know how to cartwheel like an acrobat or climb rope. The rules of rugby and football didn't need to be drilled into my head endlessly, or the need to learn how to dribble a ball across a pitch, as I wasn't even going to watch those sports let alone play them from the moment I left school.

And you're all correct, what was it about all that shirtless PE they demanded in the gymnasium at school of boys and the almost religious need to get in the showers done with such zealotry whoever took you. The gym teacher was more concerned that you had your top off in gym or took a shower than he was about half the stuff you did in the actual PE lesson. Perhaps the one useful thing we could have learnt was to swim, but school didn't teach me that, someone else down a leisure centre did. We hardly did any swimming at school worth the name. Makes sense doesn't it.

Some people say they failed at school. No they didn't. School failed at them. It hasn't got any better, it's got worse. You have to learn to teach yourself in this world what matters.

When I left school in '83 I'm convinced a quarter of the teachers were thicker than three quaters of the school pupils there, and the street wise kids of any age knew for sure that one of our PE teachers was a salivating old closet perve over everyone. He liked rubbing our shoulders from behind in the gym to release tension without asking first. Those hands, ugh! A PE teacher with strong body odour who told US to take showers when HE needed one.

I was unaware you may have put that episode up before Terry. Good points by the way and worth thinking about.

Just wondering what people's views are on the kind of casual minor physical behaviour teachers, not just in PE, used to do to us. Another good example here before a swimming lesson, and also later in the gym. I never saw anyone told off for having greasy hair before. I found that a bit uncomfortable to watch actually, the way the boy was grabbed so suddenly for nothing. Also later on another boy gets thrown to the ground and injured, and yet again all that pulling at ears going on too.

This one is from 1981, where a PE teacher gets summarily fired. I know it's acting but my did it feel and look realistic. I've started it at the shirtless boys at attention for inspection ready for swimming.

https://youtu.be/03KIom_mKYg?si=_2BPTTNJB4HTkqXj&t=190

Within the article Alan has linked about Gordonstoun this comment was something that I noticed regards the timeline which matches what many on here have said particularly about their schooling, like mine, within the 1970's and 1980's as being a time where a certain culture developed.

It says - "Lady Smith described the junior school as having a “culture of naivety” between the 1960s and 1990s, but said new leadership at the senior school in 1990 brought positive change with a focus on child protection."

Also this article similarly added - "The lack of care and the abuse they experienced, which the inquiry identifies as being mainly in the period from the 1970s to the early 1990s."

There's another interesting comment - "The inquiry found voyeurism and indecent assault on both male and female pupils was revealed."

The description of "extreme violence" was deeply disturbing. That sound less like a high end school and more like a high security problem prison. I can only guess what incidents that might entail.

The above voyeurism comment is presumably a coded reference in part to such things as shower situations, much mentioned here on this forum. Sexual assualts are also mentioned within the article, and when you read comments like those of Paul last night many might think, did a head teacher or PE teacher really grab a hold of a boy's exposed penis/testicles/genitals in such situations, and the answer is clearly yes some people really did have no boundaries no matter how high up the chain they were, and these things did happen, if even a school the Royal Family sent an heir to the throne to can be riddled with such behaviour. Speaking for myself if a teacher had done that to me I think I would have frozen in terror and been in complete shock. The awful realisation is that your story Paul is not uncommon if it can happen even at "the best" schools. I suspect the follow up harm is when those are were on the receiving end of such behaviour then found it hard to be believed and so suffered again.

Obviously live in boarding schools were highly vulnerable to this, rather than regular day schools where most of us came and went from, but even these are not immune.

Many have come here and spoken of events between the 1960's and 1990's, and lots have spoken almost of a dark age of teaching as they see it. Could that really be correct, and did we who were at school in these years accept even minor things done to us that we should not have done.

I think I previously may have placed the same PE teacher Grange Hill clip on here a long time ago that you did Mark . It was certainly an accurate portrayal of the 1970's in school as I saw it. Constantly angry and exasperated teachers portrayed. Actually the PE teacher there was the most reasonable and likeable!

I think people are just too sensitive nowadays. I've just seen what Janet has been talking about from the link Terry provided on You Tube and can't see a great deal wrong with it as far as it goes. That's something all us boys did at school in those days whether we wanted to or not, and alright we didn't get it kept for posterity like they did but is there really anything so wrong with a few boys quickly showering being shown even if they were fully shown naked skins doing so, it was no more than a normal everyday school day situation. If I could see myself doing that in my own school from 1976 onwards I think I'd have a good laugh at myself and my friends and see it as a rather unique snapshot not many others have.

School showers after PE must have been a really much bigger deal to more people than some of us ever thought. I caught up with a group of old schoolfirends at a Weatherspoons a few years ago, men and women, some of us hadn't seen each other for 30 years or more, and when we'd finished talking about our modern day lives we began dissecting many of the teachers and a couple of the women began on their female PE teacher and how badly she treated them with showers which got the men and me talking about ours and before you knew it we were all having a discussion on school showers and PE lessons.

The only thing I will say on the subject is that many of the PE showers we took at my school after doing the gym were not essential or needed but we still had to take them and all this did was waste an lot of time going through the motions really.

My school (UK grammar - 1968/74) was more or less the same as many mentioned on here..

Indoor PE was just shorts, cross country shorts and plimsolls (no shirt, no socks); we did 2 PE lessons a week, one in the gym, one cross country - same all year around. This continued all the time I was at the school and applied to all boys and in all weathers. A few boys ran in bare feet.

If you forgot kit, you stripped to briefs inside, and ran in an old borrowed pair of shorts outside - bare feet as well. Repeat "offences" got additional punishments !

Maybe one of two boys were unhappy, the majority were fine with the minimal kit.

Good Health by ATV, now that brings back a few memories I must say. Gratitude Terry for the reminder of those. I was in primary school teaching in those days and took classes of 8 to 12 year olds from 1974 until 1987, and I must have seen that episode at least a dozen times, and it was all rather memorable. There were a couple of others involving feet and teeth I well recall also, as well as another programme showing open heart surgery, but I don't think it was in that series.

Before we began watching TV series in school teachers would receive notes about the programmes we were going to show the children so we knew what to expect from them and to ensure they were suitable for the age recommendation. There were no notes suggesting any screen nudity with those, I must say I remember that one Terry you provided all too well because I was quite open mouthed at what was shown and didn't expect that. I ended up sitting through most of those many times over the years and the reaction of many classes was always to either openly giggle or to try and stifle a desire to laugh meaning a calm down comment from teacher. That is the first time I have seen that since the mid 80s and I'm even more shocked now than I was then. I used to sit with the class and know that was coming up and wait for the reaction from them at the time. I think many of them were simply embarrassed and many young girls will never have seen boys quite like that before and some boys too I'm sure. I do agree it was totally gratuitous and pushing the limits even by the rules of the day back there and then. One simple shot of them with their swimming trunks under the shower above waist height would have made the point clearly enough for most primary age children without the need to be quite so realistic and obvious about it.

Comment by: Paul Downing on 21st February 2025 at 22:33

That's a very powerful and clearly painful story. Thanks for sharing it.

We had a Headmaster who was also our PE teacher at my Australian Primary School in the early 1970s who took great delight in caning young boys, especially 8-11 year olds until they screamed. I got it a few times, once for being left handed, he didn't like left handers and wanted to force us all to make the right our prominent hand for writing and throwing. We could get caned in the gym or his office, he liked caning left hands but sometimes our bottoms. One of my friends got 6 strokes of the cane on each hand in front of the whole class because he made a sound when the Headmaster visited to speak to our teacher. Some girls who witnessed what happened were sobbing after the incident and boys were shaking quietly. He had a leather strap in the gym and used it liberally for almost anything, a wrong move, a noise you might make doing something, failing at something, just about anything. We all got it. In PE he liked lashing the strap across the lower bare back, sometimes even without warning, making boys cry out in a kind of shock. I can hear that now. We were all shirtless in those lessons. On not one but two occasions, in the gym and in the changing room he grabbed boys between the legs in anger until they screamed, in the latter case his catch was naked from the shower, it was a sexual assault, he was clearly squeezing all his parts there and must have done so for a thrill and power trip. It was total fear, and we all loathed him and he got away with it until he died suddenly. Away from us at school he was seen as highly respectful and amiable. We knew different. Eventually, that Principal ended up at another school, this time a High School, where he was run over and killed by a young male student who was sick of the abuse he received at his hands there. Eventually, the student got off with it very lightly when the abuse was revealed and many former pupils like me testified in court from our school about his behaviour towards us too. Government sanctioned abuse of kids by sadists must never be tolerated. I came to the UK many years ago in part to escape elements of my past and start a new life away from such memories there.

Comment by: Ethan on 20th February 2025 at 17:13



"Yours Truly commented - I really did once read, though, that when he started at Gordonstoun Prince Charles suffered the particularly cruel initiation of being stripped naked and locked in a cage which was then hung out the first-floor window of his dormitory and left there overnight. If that's true then no wonder he grew into the kind of man who was more at ease talking to pot plants than people.




I don't believe a word of this........!




https://news.stv.tv/north/gordonstoun-residential-school-dreadfully-abusive-and-violent-inquiry-finds



Take a read of the above, Ethan - the behaviour being condemned in this article mainly refers to the period between 1970 -1990 bad enough, but Christ knows what it was like prior to 1970, when the current King would have been attending there.

It just proves that in schools in all places, at all times, and in all socio-economic and geographical areas, there were some real perverted swine at large - skunks in sheep's clothing. - and I have no doubt there are still some rotten apples left in the barrel.

Hi Josh Lowe,

That really was an eye-opener, wasn't it? There has already been extensive discussion on here about that segment. I would have been almost the exact same age as those kids and I am pretty sure that even for 45 years ago that scene goes beyond the bounds.

Could they have been actors? Well I used to avoid school plays because they always wanted us to strip to our underwear. I did have two full medical exams at primary school and they just felt like pure horror shows.

PE teachers of that era, certainly the male ones, were not exactly known for caring about the feelings and dignity of their charges. Quite possibly their teacher would have enjoyed their embarrassment before taking pleasure in forcing them to strip and then herding them in front of the cameras.

Alternatively, he may not have had any say in the matter.

There was a court ruling known as In Loco Parentis ('in the place of the parent'), formulated in, I think, the 1920s. It stated that during the hours when children were under the care of a teacher then that teacher stood towards them in the role of a surrogate parent and was therefore entitled to employ any reasonable measure towards them that a parent might, up to and including corporal punishment (In Loco Parentis was concocted to get a headmaster who had caned a boy with excessive force off the hook).

I have no idea if In Loco Parentis was still on the statute books or still being invoked by 1980 but under its principles the only adult whose consent the TV crew would have had to obtain to be covered would have been that of the head teacher. This seems a much more likely scenario than the producers individually consulting with two or three dozen sets of parents, and in the cases of the boys, having to raise the proviso of an explicit shower scene that would be repeated for years after at the whim of the TV company.

Almost certainly there must have been multiple takes. Not only that but there have always been plenty of women involved in television production. More than likely those boys were made to strip off in front of young women. Several times, as you suggest.

I imagine it went as follows. One day out of the blue their class teacher asked the class who would like to be on TV. You can just imagine how every hand shot up eagerly. The boys wouldn't have been made aware of the shower scene until the moment of doom. Schools were more autocratic back then, with making pupils obey rules a definite requirement of most curricula, and those boys would have felt they had no choice but to comply, no matter how badly they felt about it.

Part of that segment itself shows the showerheads springing into life followed by an upper-body shot of the boys showering. This was all that was needed to show viewers that full showering was a requirement. Those explicit shots were entirely and deliberately gratuitous.

As I have posted before, I think PE wear should be optional. It is fine if this if that boy enjoys doing PE without a top on but this is not a justification to inflict it on boys that hate it. It should be up to the individual.

In response to the question below from Ash, we dropped the leotards from the uniform and it was just the usual shorts and t shirt worn for other sports after that. It was soon after classes became mixed, one or two years if I recall correctly.

But no we didn’t allow individual exceptions to the uniform, so the boys all had to keep to the same rules.

Comment by: Neal Wilkinson on 18th February 2025 at 18:46
I'm a teacher on half term holiday and have seen this today with great interest.


Your comment seems to have got rather lost in the maestrom of activity here this week. I also read your own comment with great interest too. I did think the 'bare chest sanction' for not having the right PE kit played into the accusation some make about shirtlessness in schools sometimes being perceived as a punishment, although speaking for myself as someone who liked the freedom of not wearing a top in the school gym I would have welcomed the chance such a sanction gave me to keep a top off, so depending on any given boy's viewpoint on it this could be anything from punishment to pleasure!


Comment by: Terry on 16th February 2025 at 21:33
ITV Schools - Good Health - Fit & Healthy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRRw-k7cGJs&list=PLv1UpvxmZIp0ZOOyeGcqnj7ELr3U-tkT8&index=1


Well that was a real eye opener and of its time. How could the PE teacher at that middle school ever have let television record details so graphic of his class right in the school showers like that just for a point on cleanliness. Someone was a bit too keen there, maybe they even took 5 takes to get it right for broadcast. Could they be young actors rather than real schoolkids I thought, although it made little difference to the visuals did it. It still was what it was either way. So uncalled for for those poor lads. The mixed shirtless gym was much how I remember my own middle school back in the day however. Boys should embrace the chances they get to go shirtless in school, I did and I think it gained me some extra confidence along the way. Stuff getting recorded for eternity in the school showers when I was eleven though for national telly even if it was just for the kids educational purposes, my self body confidence wasn't bad but it wasn't so high I'd want any part of that type of thing.

(using real name, not a fake alias - happy to stand by my comments openly)

Did anyone have a PE teacher like this one, Mr Foster, shown throughout the second ever episode of BBC's Grange Hill in 1978. I did. Notice the casual physical smacking, pulling and slapping at the boys all the while. Funny how when most people didn't have the right PE kit they had to do without, like Neal said with his sanction meaning boys had to be shirtless, yet this PE teacher here in the late 70s forbids going shirtless for not having the right kit and even forbids no footwear as well. That kit bit perhaps the least realistic. It shows a group of reluctant boys not wanting to shower too.

https://youtu.be/oXt0Kfsc6wU?si=xLpix3O9PLjSUZeg

Yours Truly commented - I really did once read, though, that when he started at Gordonstoun Prince Charles suffered the particularly cruel initiation of being stripped naked and locked in a cage which was then hung out the first-floor window of his dormitory and left there overnight. If that's true then no wonder he grew into the kind of man who was more at ease talking to pot plants than people.




I don't believe a word of this. It reminds me more of the vile nazi experiments they did in the concentration camps during the war when they wanted to find out the effects of cold and freezing on the body and placed naked prisoners outside in cages all night long in temperatures of -10c or lower and also threw cold water on them for good measure. Wicked. Gordonstoun may have been many things, noted for it's cold showers I believe, but that's a far cry from the kind of sadistic behaviour described here and I'm quite certain that school wasn't taking influence from the worst excesses of the nazi regime against its pupils, and certainly not against the heir to the throne. A quick two minute prank maybe, but not as written here, no way. That would actually be torture.

Hi Danny C,

I just meant to add, in my opinion anyway it wouldn't have been unreasonable of you to have requested the poster to take that photo down, although of course there would have been no obligation on her part to do so, and I expect I'll get ridicule for even suggesting such a thing.

Hi Terry,

I am neither Ash nor Samuel. And I'm still not Alan either so don't even go there. A level of anonymity just seems like basic caution after the way Nathan Hind, who had made several salient and insightful points drawn from his own teaching experience, ended up being hounded off this board by that creepy Dando character. Although I agree with you that multiple aliases seems a bit dubious.

There is no guarantee that anybody else on here is using their real name just because they are using a normal name. Your real name could be Aloysius, Denzil or Lt Colonel Kojack Slaphead III and none of the rest of us would be any the wiser.


Hi Russell B,

I have no idea, I just made it up to be honest, but it is just the kind of thing that would likely happen at any bog-standard state school, let alone one of England's most prestigious public schools. I really did once read, though, that when he started at Gordonstoun Prince Charles suffered the particularly cruel initiation of being stripped naked and locked in a cage which was then hung out the first-floor window of his dormitory and left there overnight. If that's true then no wonder he grew into the kind of man who was more at ease talking to pot plants than people.


Hi Greg2,

I have always thought red hair was pretty cool. In fact I used to have fine ginger strands in my very dark hair which you could only see close up. I used to say, only half-jokingly, to a very good female friend of mine, that I was very proud of my ginger ancestors. Used to, because nowadays I'm going grey and the first bits to go seem to have been the ginger bits.

Was that photo you were referring to the black-and-white one of the school cross-country team with both boys and girls? I examined it for any signs of unease in the boys and they all looked fine and relaxed about being bare-chested which I would not have been. The girls, in their t-shirts, skirts and knee socks, were as covered up as if they were still wearing their uniforms, which was totally unfair and insensitive to the boys. The girls at my school certainly didn't get to do PE dressed like that.

I think Deborah was a very new teacher at the stage she mentioned. As in any career, when you are new you dare not rock the boat. That childish mischief from her male colleague sounds like the kind of typical prank that would be perpetrated on the 'new girl' (or 'new boy') in any career back then.

Why didn't your PE teacher make that woman teacher leave and go through the proper door? He should have made it plain to her that the boys' changing room was a no-go area for her. What was wrong with all these people? As I have said before, the more I read on here the more I realise how comparatively lucky we were at my school. Even our own male teachers didn't stand watching us shower and no woman teacher ever entered our changing room, which is exactly how it should be.

If you are going to draw emphasis to how unhappy many boys were being made to do PE topless on this thread you will have to be prepared for the odd condescending barb from certain other male respondents who will tell you you're just being silly and unreasonable, and that just because they didn't mind it therefore nobody else can have done either.


Hi Danny C,

Re your post on 15 February, I don't think you were unreasonable at all to feel unhappy that that photo of you had been posted without your consent. You had every right to feel uneasy at being made to do PE half-naked. You say that most of the Facebook comments were from women. Well they would be, wouldn't they? People speak more easily and readily about the things that were not traumatic for them and the girls at your school were not the victims of this practice.

Greg2, I too have often thought red to be an attractive hair colour. Several members of my extended family are or were red-haired.

Your comment about you and your classmates' heights being measured when you were twelve reminded me of an intriguing titbit. Please excuse a digression.

William Cecil, later Lord Burghley and Elizabeth I's Secretary of State and Lord Treasurer, out of office in Mary Tudor's reign (1553-8), had a "scribbling book" called "Notes of divers kinds", according to his biographer Stephen Alford. An intelligent man, then with little to do, one day, he weighed himself and wrote it down in his little book. He was 9 st 10 lbs. Cecil then proceeded to weigh various members of his family and his household servants, recording their weights in his book.

I can understand the fixation that some boys (and latterly men) have with being bare chested. This used to play on my mind a great deal when I was at school. I first came across a PE teacher telling me to do bare chested PE back in 1995 when we had this teacher for gym who I strongly disliked, Mr Hefferon. He was one of those older style teachers who seemed to prefer PE done by boys that way and for two years (1995-97) when I did the gym under his teaching our shirts were made completely redundant, aged 13 to 15 years old. If you had "The Heff" as he was called for gym you knew you'd be doing it bare chested.

Our school PE expectations and kit required was placed on various noticeboards to read around the school, including right outsde the gym door itself and there was never a mention of bare chested PE on them though. I do remember in black bold block capitals letters it saying YOU MUST SHOWER! Doing that in the mid 90's was mandatory at school and although many of us used to try and slip away without doing so we hardly ever succeeded and "The Heff" was one of those "watchers" who wouldn't let you out of his sight. It's not great feeling eyes on you when you're naked like that. Everyone says much the same don't they.

"The Heff" made boys go bare chested for summer athletics too, but for some reason I found that much easier than in the gym and quite liked the feel of the breeze on my body. There were sometimes 2 classes outside with two teachers doing different things and if you were in "The Heff's" class you were bare chested and if you were in the other class it was most likely you had your shirts on still and it looked like a massive skins and shirts set up.

Danny C, thank you for your interesting 15th February comments in response to what was I suppose, my slightly ruminative post. You certainly understood and were able to relate to my intended meaning. Thanks also for the Carrot Top and Mark mentions that followed on…and just to say Carrot Top and the other red hair posters, I’ve always thought red hair to be an attractive hair colour. There was a boy in my form with very red curly hair. I don't remember any teasing aimed at him in the showers, but do remember him as a lad full of fun. We all know school kids can be tactless and cruel, with anything even slightly different to be ridiculed out of all proportion. But I think with red being the least likely natural hair colour, it should be something you're proud of. My hair was very blond when I was little, then becoming progressively darker as I got older…now it seems to be becoming lighter again!!

Danny C, it’s not easy to scroll back to check older posts on this site, which might be just as well, but if the photo you mention was the one I remember, what struck me about it was how uncomfortable the dark haired lad standing on the left at the end of the line seemed to look, while having to have his photo taken without a shirt. I’ve learnt from this site how so many boys really hated having to be shirtless, especially in front of girls; as previously mentioned it’s something I don't remember ever having to do, apart from school swimming, so perhaps I was lucky.

I can certainly imagine how long submerged and forgotten feelings could become vividly reactivated again when being notified out of the blue that this old photo had been made available for public scrutiny. What did you learn and think about the people’s comments? You went on to say that you felt you might have ‘bared your soul’ with how you described some of your feelings; mentioning how Alan had done so recently. Well, I also felt somewhat like this following my mentioning of some of my younger memories shared for the first time on here some time ago. I wondered several times whether I should have pressed the submit button.

I do think you’re lucky to have written diaries while growing up. Was keeping a diary from childhood suggested to you by your parents? I've always retained vivid memories of my own childhood, which was a mostly very happy time. But I’m sure having personally written accounts from those young ages must be very special to read through again, especially if you’d not read them for several years. I did keep some school class books which I’ve only recently brought down from the loft. Some even go back to junior school, including a childish description of a class visit to a local ‘arable farm’ as I’d written. One other book from my first year at secondary school has all my form pupils' heights written down in a column. It seems we’d all had our heights measured for some reason, so I do know that I was exactly 5 feet tall when I was 12!

Comment by: Deborah on 12th February.
Deborah, I just wondered, why didn't you ask if one of the remaining male teachers could take the boys’ gym lesson, especially when you were asked to make sure they all took showers at the end? How were you expected to do this comfortably anyway? I do remember one female poster (teacher?) on here a few weeks ago stating that female teachers were actually permitted to enter boys ‘very private areas' as she put it. Straight away this struck me as just another annoying double standard that's just wrong, and as usual, it totally disregards any boys’ preference of being granted a little privacy. Why do no female posters on here ever mention what their opinions are/were on things like this? Was it never thought about, or were you all happy for it to stay as it was? Deborah, it does seem that you felt more comfortable staying outside their area, and just listening, before then asking a male colleague to check whether it was okay to enter. Well, what a disregarding idiot he was to throw the door wide open and to then trick you into going in while the boys were still in there. This just proves the routine disregarding culture we've always had which all boys soon learnt they had to put up with at times, as even some male staff had no regard whatsoever for them, probably just thinking it was funny, or even quietly getting a kick out of the possibility of female staff seeing them. How pathetic is this?!

It does seem this female teachers’ ‘right’ was always a known fact for any who might want to take advantage of it. I’ve mentioned before that the girls’ gym teacher at my secondary school would frequently walk right through the boys’ changing room and shower area whenever she wanted, no matter what state of undress we might all be in. She obviously made a conscious decision to do this, and felt comfortable in never being challenged while doing so, even though the girls door was only a few meters away. She was also quite a young teacher, and I got the feeling that she couldn't have been there long, thought I'd only arrived at the Secondary School towards the end of the second term of the first year. Eventually some of the boys would say to those nearest the door to make sure it was locked to keep her out. I can remember seeing her through the frosted glass door window trying the door handle on many occasion, before having to resort to the inconvenience of the few extra steps towards the girls' door. She was thought by us all to be a nuisance.

Here's another current comment posted just 2 days ago on the shirtlessblogspot forum that was linked to a few weeks ago on here.

This site appears to criss cross between American and British comments on the whole subject but someone did ask for more comment from over here.

https://shirtlessbarefoot.blogspot.com/2018/05/how-to-start-shirtless-sports-and.html

"Matt" says the following,

"My boy is ten years old and goes to a UK primary school at the moment. We are only required to provide him with some plain shorts of any colour without a pattern or outward very obvious branding for his PE lesson at school when he is inside. His school appears to have taken boys PE without tops on for as long as anyone can remember who previously went there and school website mentions compulsion on no tops, saying that 'we require boys go bare chests with bare feet and shorts for PE inside'. I found it interesting when I first discovered this because I never did any shirtless PE at that age, although did so later on when I was 12 to 15 for a bit here and there. I'm alright with it as long as everyone is treated the same. When I was at a parent afternoon last year I brought the subject up briefly with a teacher who said most boys have no problems and they think it gives added confidence to them to do PE this way over time and fosters acceptance of themselves and others around them."


Last week, 11th February, there was a comment from "Ben". I wonder if it's the same person Richard said hello to on here? He said,

"For some shy boys, getting used to bare chested PE can actually boost their confidence in the long run. I know this because I was one of them!
As a 13 year-old (early 1990s in the UK) I was quite self conscious about my body so I felt extremely nervous when my PE teacher announced we'd be doing basketball and the teams would be shirts and skins. I remember my heart racing, thinking 'surely he doesn't really mean we've got to do it with no top on?!' Oh yes he did and quite soon I found myself having to take my PE shirt off, leave it by the side of the gym and line up with the other bare chested boys, feeling terribly exposed. At first it felt so weird to be running around the gym in just my shorts, but after a few weeks or so I thought about it less. Growing older, and as my body developed, I felt far more confident, to the point where I actually preferred being a skin."

It's welcome to see another broadly sensible PE teacher comment come along.

I didn't think the questions were relevant to anything Yours Truly if I am honest and aliases are fine if someone wishes to remain more anonymous, like you do for example, but at least stick to one name if you choose to do so.

I'm pleased I had dark brown hair now after reading the ginger comments.

I was a ginger haired school boy and almost everything Russell has just said on here is correct, even down to those most private comments in those PE shower situations when you get seen in all your glory by others. It creates self esteem issues.

It was interesting to read your own approach there Neal Wilkinson. While all teachers struggle to motivate pupils who lack interest in any given subject, PE teachers do face a number of unique challenges others do not, some of which you outlined rather well, and it's informative for those not in the profession, and wider education, to gain a little understanding. Nowadays schools have all kinds of policies to do with behaviour and expectation that did not once exist other than in the most cursory terms. Another misconception is that showering at school was abolished a number of years ago, yet in 2014 when I stopped working for Ofsted our working assumption was that more than half of schools at secondary 11+ level still held such requirements. None have to enforce this by law, but they never had to fifty years ago either to the best of my own knowledge, but working facilities to enable showering are a lawful requirement set out by the Department for Education in all settings for those aged 11 and over and this remains the case right now because anywhere offering physical education like schools have to maintain a basic level of hygiene provision. You will already know that Neal I'm sure but just saying that for others here to understand. I'm pleased your school takes this seriously although I tend to prefer the carrot to the stick approach where possible.

William J, My experience was similar to yours. I wasn't as bold as you but I do remember making the transition from shy and nervous to confident, thanks to the old school gym regime. Like you, I noticed the boys who were bashful, usually using the shirt as cover, and thought it looked silly. I didn't want to be like that.
The more confident boys also followed the tradition of keeping shorts for as long as possible and turning over the waistband to keep them up when the elastic slackened. Since we never wore tops in gym, by the time we were 14 coverage was minimal. No-one ever commented on this, boys or master; it was just something we did.

Hi Andy,

I thought the questions Ash or/and Samuel asked were very relevant ones.