Burnley Grammar School

Simply, My Thanks to Yvette, Bev & Lisa (& not forgetting Frances) for their recent postings.
Thank You!

TH
(Not an AI ChatBot)

Comment by: John on 1st March 2024 at 14:38

"Continuing to post on this specific subject here is not helpful and is a well worn path now. If you read back a couple of months I thought there was finally an acceptance that this was no longer a line that you need to pursue on here.

This line really bothers me - "my schoolmates were made a misery by a homosexual PE teacher".

Do you not think straight teachers made pupils lives a misery also? I'm sure many of us were at the hands of such, including in PE as well as other subjects."

John, just a few comments: I was responding directly to Mickey's post this morning. He himself, must have gone back to see the remarks I made on my view of employing homosexual PE teachers many months ago. I haven't mentioned the subject in a long time. He seemed to have something of a "politically correct" axe to grind. He also seem somewhat put out that I made a flippant comment about the current fad of kids being allowed to get away with identifying with animals. I make no apology for treating that notion with derision.

I would not have mentioned the case of my school, (or the much more recent one) had Mickey not bought the subject of such teachers as mine up. It was of his choosing to do so. Quite why he chose to dredge it up months after the event, only he can tell you.

Yes of course other teachers, heterosexual ones, gave us trouble - I have already mentioned one, - our old discipline fetishist, may he rest in pieces, Others were a pain but in a different way. I remember, for example, old Mr Lindsay, the geography master. Everyone loathed him, but I felt sorry for him: he had given up, he was going through the motions. He would copy passages from an old book - his favourite topics were the coal fields of Kent , and the Cambridge fens, on the board (and he had beautiful handwriting), then just tell us to copy it into our notebooks. End of lesson;. It was quite therapeutic on a Tuesday afternoon, he never shouted at least . Miserable old Mr Burke (yes that was his name) was an impatient irritable old devil, he came after Mr Lindsay. and was the maths master. Crossings out led to verbal explosions, and often swear words, but we had all heard worse than his.. Other teachers were sarcastic, dismissive, condescending and all displayed complete indifference, and many, flashes of temper, involving slippers, blackboard rubbers, rulers etc flying across the rooms, but they were all old and we were among their last batch on the conveyor belt.

None of these people, though. could ogle the pupils with no clothes on, leer and make pejorative comments. That was the difference. I could say a lot about Roberts, and his dubious methods - and one particular repeated case of impropriety which didn't happen to me, but to an old mate, and as Roberts is now in all probability dead, I could do so in detail, but I chose not to.

I have never suggested all PE teachers have Robert's inclinations, but it is uncomfortably true, that there seems to be a disproportionate number of scout leaders, youth club leaders - and teachers, who have this tendency to involve themselves in male teenagers lives, in a sort of quasi-official capacity.

I would finally just make the point to yourself, and everybody else, that my email. address is available in every post I make, and if anyone wishes to take issue with me or challenge me, they are welcome to contact me privately . I don't bite and I am polite - I never ignore emails.

I don't wish to make any further comments on this post. I only did so this morning because of Mickey's comments. They say that history repeats itself, first as tragedy then as farce - there was nothing farcical about the events I have described, and not really tragic, just humiliating, despicable and in one teacher's case, sordid ..

Comment by: Lloyd on 1st March 2024 at 02:04
British schools once had the highest uptake of bare chested PE in the entire world.
The reasons for this are unclear.



Is this really so?

The recent film clips that have been shown on here do reflect my own teachers decisions on how I had to do PE back in the eighties, and I was one of those very self conscious kids that really found PE like that a pain to deal with. 4 out of 5 gym was taken without the top back then and there was no doubting that all my PE teachers throughout secondary school were very much in favour and keen to get boys like me at that age out of shirts of any kind while doing their lessons.

When we had a kit this was annoying, unlike Jonny who has said that his own PE kit was stated very clearly as 'boys go barechested'. I'm not aware that any such thing was openly stated at my school at a very similar time.

Re: Comment by: John on 1st March 2024 at 14:38
Re, re:Comment by: Alan on 1st March 2024 at 04:10

"Continuing to post on this specific subject here is not helpful and is a well worn path now. If you read back a couple of months I thought there was finally an acceptance that this was no longer a line that you need to pursue on here."

Well said, John. Like you, I thought we had got over the bad patch at the end of last year, but over the past couple of months or so, this particular thread has once again degenerated into an analytical re-run of a certain individual's experiences. And actually following the plot has become extremely difficult owing to the tendency of commentators to provide responses to multiple earlier postings in one single post, padded out with extensive quotes and re-quotes from the originals, to the extent that it is still difficult to work out who is replying to whom. I'm also baffled as to who actually has the time and energy to repeatedly write 500 to 1000-word essays on nested comments dating back days or more. An AI ChatBot perhaps!

A revolutionary thought for the site owner - maybe it's time to upload a fresh set of photographs, to stimulate some less-introspective discussion.

I have just read though recent posts and the subject of allowing the boys some say on their PE kit has come up several times so I thought I would give you my opinion.

Implementing this policy could have much greater repercussions than I think you are considering. What you are doing is to put the decision making and responsibility onto the teacher, rather than the school where it belongs. This is very important should something go wrong. If it is school policy then any complaint is directed at the school rather than the teacher and if heaven forbid there should be an accident were the PE kit is implicated then the school insurance (yes schools need personnel protection insurance too), must not have a reason to avoid paying out. As the teacher involved I would not be happy to be making the kit decisions and would choose to leave things as they are. I am therefore very glad that the summer PE kit choice is official school policy. Its a complex issue so i hope I have explained it well enough but no ballots here.

I can see some benefit to the the boys going topless in summer indoors, I do think it can lead to more active classes, with the boys more comfortable in the warm weather. The hall is not air-conditioned so the boys and girls must rely on the flow of air though the hall to keep them comfortably cool and bare skin will be helping in this regard. Having said that I have spent all my teaching career during a period when child protection has been paramount so I am uneasy with having 24 bare chested active young boys jumping around in front of me during PE. We will all have to get use to that again. But it worked ok last year.

Finally some people like to see old videos of PE so here are a few I have come across.

https://www.huntleyarchives.com/preview.asp?image=1016864

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-secondary-school-gymnastics-leyton-county-high-school-for-boys-1936-online

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5eXXV0lCUI

Comment by: Alan on 1st March 2024 at 04:10


Continuing to post on this specific subject here is not helpful and is a well worn path now. If you read back a couple of months I thought there was finally an acceptance that this was no longer a line that you need to pursue on here.

This line really bothers me - "my schoolmates were made a misery by a homosexual PE teacher".

Do you not think straight teachers made pupils lives a misery also? I'm sure many of us were at the hands of such, including in PE as well as other subjects.

Why is sexuality so important to you on this subject? I don't actually think you are homophobic as such, although you give that impression quite strongly at times, but I think you are actually a self loathing gay man yourself, possibly lifelong closeted, and I have been reading what you have said with that thought in mind and I definitely think you have given many clues to suggest I am correct.

Is your opinion that a disproportionate amount of PE teachers are, or were gay then, either male or female, and that PE in school attracts such people to the job more than the national average would expect?

I don't believe it at all.

I have no doubt about the authenticity of your own school story and do wonder if you have yourself been subjected to some of the incidents that you like to draw attention to in press articles.

You keep repeating the same name and the same school and I don't know why, as you have already mentioned them. This reminds me of my own late father who, when we would have some row over something at home, or even long after I left well into adulthood, would sometimes throw back at me something from the dim and distant past to clobber me with in arguing and would never let some things just go without feeling the need to rehash and reheat them in completely irrelevant conversation or arguments we had years later.

Anyway, I will treat you with due respect on the matter and hope that there is no more personal abuse at you and anyone who wishes to judge or disagree with you does so fairly and constructively. I condemn all personal abuse wherever it takes place, whether at school in the past or on this forum in the present day.

Comment by: Mickey Grant on 29th February 2024 at 21:16

Mikey I am sorry if my views offend you. However I will not apologise for expressing them, given the personal experience I have of my own schooldays.

I apologise to other readers for repeating this, but my schooldays, and that of my schoolmates were made a misery by a homosexual PE teacher, and in more recent times - may I suggest you Google the words "Royal Liberty School" and "Michael Quinlan" and see if you, too, are not appalled. The testimony of Quinlan at his SECOND trial condemns him out of his own mouth. The worst thing is in both cases, other teachers were well aware of the men's proclivities (in the R.Liberty case two other men from the same department shared them), but a blind eye was turned. How progressive is that!

I have no objection to homosexual English or Geography teachers or any other subject, but for the two men I have mentioned, putting them in a changing and shower room was akin to giving an alcoholic the keys to a brewery.

It is very easy, Mickey, to be "progressive" if you have never been affected by these issues.

British schools once had the highest uptake of bare chested PE in the entire world.

The reasons for this are unclear.

The comment by Mike (Lurker) regarding being the only one in the changing room still wearing a vest reflected the inverse of my experience.

When I started at secondary school, the UK was emerging from Post-WW2 austerity, and in many households, mine included, there was little spare money for non-essentials. So when the PE kit list demanded a white PE top, Mum was not alone in deciding that white underwear vests, which boys generally wore back in those days, would be perfectly adequate. And so it was, no one in authority questioned this, and everybody in my class changed for PE by simply removing our trousers and our underpants, pulling on our white cotton shorts and taking off our jumpers and shirts to reveal ouir vests. Changing after the lesson was just the reverse process, as showering was neither required nor possible, in the absence of any showers..

When bare-chested PE was introduced a couple of years later, this same routine was adequate, except that we took off our vests as well. But, before long , realisation dawned that if we weren't wearing vests for PE, there wasn't much point in wearing them to school on PE days, and by extension, not much point in wearing them to school, or anywhere else, at all. Although a number of us discussed this, I think I was the first of my class to actually implement it, enjoying my fifteen minutes of fame as the only one in the changing room not wearing a vest. This did not go unnoticed, and several of my mates ostentatiously refrained from putting their vests back on after the lesson. Within a week or so, there wasn't a vest to be seen as we changed.

I've dug out my old comprehensive school handbook, dated 10th October 1980.

It's an A5 sized 20 page pamphlet. Just a couple of pages into it there are a couple of pages on PE, including the kit. What's interesting is how it describes what we had to wear in the school gym at that time as fresh faced eleven and twelve year olds, although I think the handbook applied to other years as well.

GYM.

Girls should bring a black LEOTARD.
Boys go BARECHESTED.

Showering is MANDATORY for all pupils immediately on completion of PE. A towel is required, not provided.


What I noticed was the emphasis and capital letters on the final words on kit, and also that for the boys there is no actual mention of any actual wearable kit in itself, just the striking emphasis on the bare chest that was required then. We tended to wear mainly white shorts I seem to remember but other colours were acceptable like black or navy and they were not strict on that, and we were all barefoot for gym, notice no mention of trainers or socks there. Very basic kit indeed. I also noticed they emphasised the mandated nature of showers by using capitals too on that word.

There is also a mention about football and cross country running at school, saying it takes place at the teachers own discretion. I remember we used to run cross country in our football kit.

I remember those days very well. I always became nervous when I had to take my school shirt off on gym days and leave my body bare above the waist. I was never quite sure exactly why I was nervous about it though, I just was and almost every time I did it I felt the same nervous feeling that I struggled to grow out of even after quite a long time doing it.

I don't ever remember any of us having to be told by a teacher to actually be bare chested because it was written down and we knew instinctively to do so without being instructed. It was much the same when showering, I don't remember having to be told to do it, when the water began running that was the sign to get a move on and get in. Only if you were caught trying to opt out would you be called out and told directly to do so.

It's okay to be nervous in such situations. Our teachers never even made reference to being bare chested in PE. If I had been allowed to vote my choice I'd have chosen a tee-shirt but always accepted that you couldn't have PE at school without the need to shower, especially after coming in from the outside where sometimes we came in dripping wet through all our kit including through to our underwear.

Alan, it's up to you whether you believe gay people shouldn't be teachers, or what you think about young people's self identification. But might I respectfully suggest that you avoid expressing such offensive views on a public forum given you often state you do not wish to offend?

Nicholas, Sean, Alan and Stuart, thank you for kindly commenting and sharing your reactions and recollections.

My teacher's momentary insensitivity over the boy in the PE lesson was uncharacteristic: she was bright, friendly. I listened to her enthralled when she told us about Columbus and his crew setting off in 1492 on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria, or, during another term, explaining to us the functions of the different organs of the body using a plastic detachable model. Though a sensible boy, I have reason to believe she tended to generosity at parents' evenings and school reports.

Incidentally, that same school year, another class of the same age studying the same topic also put on an Aztec sacrifice in school assembly.

Comment by: Stuart B on 29th February 2024 at 16:04

They were only 9 at the time, Stuart. Tissue paper or no, you wouldn't get away with that on TV these days. They seem to have to issue warnings for everything now I agree. But the Aztecs seems a bit strong.

I am still looking forward to how schools will cope when more kids start to self identify as an animal. If only that had been an opt-out clause back in the day. I would have gone in every day with a bowl of milk in one paw and a cat basket in the other.

I don't consider red tissue paper to be that grisly.

This just shows how the same thing can be perceived so differently by two people. Sean would loved to have played the main part, whipped his top off and got plastered in fake blood, while Alan finds it dreadful and should not have taken place, although if it's anything like how I remember such things in school we got to choose parts and I'm sure the 'sacrifice' wanted to do that part. Nobody would ever suggest boys in school would be made to do that if they were too shy to do so.

I think it's just an entertaining way to educate, no more than that. Quite strong as a thing to do I will admit though but it's a real part of world history. Much of the history I was taught was so dull and uninspiring and the eras just didn't appeal to me at all.


Nicholas J - Good to hear your own positive story surrounding your own introduction to secondary school PE requirements and that by being made to shower with no clothes with others it appears to have cured your own anxieties you thought you had about yourself.


Yvette - That is so typically French. I found an item about that right here;

https://www.indy100.com/viral/class-celebrates-end-of-year-with-naked-photo-including-their-teacher-7490026

Comment by: Bernard on 28th February 2024 at 22:37


Bernard. When I was kid they played an old film on TV one Sunday afternoon called The Guinea Pig. It was so old that Richard Attenborough was wearing short trousers (he was in his late twenties at the time, though!) and Kathleen Harrison played his mum. The story was how a common little Londoner, like me, got a scholarship to a grammar school. So we started out with the typical "Gawd blimey, love-a-duck guvnor" average schoolboy, the sort that Pinewood turned out, and he became this plum-in-the-mouth, "Ooh, how simply top hole, sir" lad, making sycophantic attempts to ingratiate himself with his form master, Robert Flemying. It sickened me then, and it still does. I don't envy you your "minimal kit" and regimented regime, and the "head boy" inflicting summary justice with his belt any more today than I would have then. I think I would have been more unhappy at one of those monuments to snobbery and authority than I was at my old dump, which at least had no pretensions. Like "Emmerdale" it was bad and it knew it.

I don't like uniforms on children, whether it is school, the scouts, or anything else. We should be individuals and treated like it from day one. As regards those PE lads in London wearing slightly different clothing - though most wear the same blue top, they are comfortable and that is all that matters to me. I am sure, had they felt unduly hot, they would have removed their top, but the fact they didn't speaks for itself that this is a school, that doesn't inflict petty rules just for the sake of them. They had to be good to progress to GCSE standard. Believe me, it costs more to dress down these days than it does to dress up (go in any branch of SuperDry and check it out for yourself). I know I had two suits when I was on public view in my music days, and a couple of the other lads spent a fortune on looking as though they had just come back from a construction site, but that didn't matter, because we were all expressing ourselves sartorially as well as musically, and we were comfortable in so doing. Uniforms always seems to me to suggest that people prefer the box to the chocolates.


Comment by: Matthew S on 28th February 2024 at 23:02



I wonder if your teacher was as nice as she made herself out to be, Matthew?. After all, I dare say George Joseph Smith, the Brides In The Bath killer must have made a good impression on at least four poor women who ended up being drowned on their honeymoons, or the late Dr. Shipman and his bedside manner with old ladies.

Again here - as we see so often on the site - we see a (woman, in this case - usually men), on an ego trip. They crave power, just like politicians. They like to tell you what to do, however unpleasant it might be (just like the other Matthew and his shirt). Due to their overweening sense of entitlement they would be horrified if they had to do the things they tell others to do.

I am astonished the headmaster or mistress allowed the grisly entertainment to go ahead. I suppose it shows who wore the trousers at your school. So often at schools in the past (perhaps today as well? I don't know) it seems to have been a case of the tail wagging the dog. Had I been the head, I wouldn't have allowed it.


Comment by: Orson on 28th February 2024 at 23:30
Matthew K on 25th Feb.

"I have no time for anyone who sets out to deliberately humiliate a child on purpose. I said as much when I posted back on 26th Jan for the first time. I had my shorts and pants pulled down climbing a school gym rope and was exposed briefly and the teacher laughed."

Believe me Orson that happened at our school all the time - with the same reaction from the teacher (he probably enjoyed it more than the boys who did it). It certainly happened to me once, but we didn't have the underpants. It is supposed not to happen now because teachers are supposed to "respect" the pupils. I wonder?

Comment by: Yvette on 28th February 2024 at 18:53


"I come from Avignon. Some years ago our school, Lycée Frederic Mistral here in France were at the end of the school academic year, all the boys and girls in one of the science classes posed naked or almost naked for a photograph with their teacher. They were all over age sixteen may I add. There were fifty participants on this. There was no reason, just originality and something a little different that would make others think"

Yvette, what can I say, except that it only makes me think I am glad we left the EU!.

Comment by: Matthew S on 28th February 2024 at 23:02
Matthew K had a hard time of it.


Indeed he did. I was a pretty fearless character at school and took on anything that came my way without thinking too much about it but that was just plain rotten wasn't it and I would not have liked to be treated like that. I would have thrown some drink back at the other kid and made sure he had to take his clothing off too if that was the teachers insistence.

A really great post Matthew S and I liked reading your Aztec story. I would have jumped at the chance to be the one in the lead role having myself sacrificed with tissue paper and a bare chest. I'd have been disappointed they were only using tissue paper for blood and not something that actually looked like the real thing and would trickle over me properly.

In my earlier schools I used to love getting myself covered in paint or any other messy things. The more mess created the better.

My old dad used to tell me that worrying was for idiots. You're right about too much thinking and anticipating, or ruminating. There was a boy I was at school with who was always going on about his fear of dying, at just 13 years old! He actually did die when he was 29 of alcohol abuse sadly. A sweet guy too. But at least it stopped him thinking about dying for another 60 or 70 years.

Don't worry, be happy!

Responding to - Matthew S on 28th February 2024.

"I would feel a small twinge of discomfort as I pulled my white cotton T-shirt up and over my head, leaving me bare-chested, but I would be fine in the lesson after that. Odd, isn't it, how sometimes the anticipation of something like that can be worse than the actuality?"



It's often the way Matthew isn't it. All of us back in the day used to have a bit of anxiety about "going up" as it was called, to our secondary schools or perhaps in some cases grammars. I went up to mine in autumn of '78.

When we got the pre-secondary school visit pep talk with someone from the school there was a threesome of teachers, one was a PE teacher, the other two were I think the deputy head and a maths teacher or something like that. We got heaps of information to fill our heads with and when one of the teachers began talking PE he mentioned showering was expected of us. I remember someone shouting "do we have to be naked" and "of course" coming back the answer. Oh my God I thought, so it's true what they say, certain rumours about such things had been doing the rounds for ages I seem to remember that spring and summer.

I spent the next couple of months and a lot of time during the summer holidays thinking about this quietly to myself and worrying myself senseless over it. Like others have already said of themselves, I too was not the kind of youngster to remove my shirt voluntarily, or take it off when needed with ease and confidence. So the prospect of everything having to come off and show my most intimate body parts, showing and getting my willy out for all to see was a bit stomach churning at the time and I really didn't want to be doing that at all. I kept imagining in my head the scene at school doing such a thing and hoping desperately that I'd get a teacher that didn't ask us to.

When the day finally came I had long resigned myself to doing so and had many weeks to deal with my thoughts about it, such as, will I be made fun of, or what will it be like, or will I cope. Well I did cope, and one school shower washed away many of my fears as well as any sweat I had on me. It was a bit awkward, it would be as a new thing first time like anything, but it was OK and nobody laughed at me or anyone else. It was a shower, and I was in and out in under 5 minutes. When I'd got dressed and was walking back across the school I had this feeling of achievement. I know that sounds quite weird but it's true. I'd done it and I was OK, all was fine and I had got through it smoothly. My anxieties evaporated almost instantly and I suddenly came to realise that I wasn't quite as body shy as I must have thought I was for so long and was simply nothing more than a bit of a worrier. The doing was nothing, the thinking was everything.

I realise that not everybody will have felt the same way and other people will have held the same worries and not had the same outcome as me.

Comment by: Bev on 25th February 2024 at 22:32
Big muscly bodies aren't everything. I used to like looking at the skinny boys the most. In first and second year at my Kent upper school we sometimes shared PE and boys had no shirts on. This will be right back to 1972. My advice, don't worry about it, you looked lovely, and the boys in Steven's clip remind me of the boys I used to share PE with at that age and none should be bashful about it.




That's all very well for you to say Bev!

I was actually 15 years old in 1972 and although my body was average to okay looking, neither too thin or too chunky I loathed PE because we shared it with girls like you in half the gym lessons and the boys were simply not allowed to get away with wearing anything on top and were always instructed to into go to gym classes sporting a bare chest, even in mixed company from the age of 11 until I was 15.

Like others say here, I think I would have always been more comfortable and enjoyed the lessons more wearing a top of some kind, even just a basic vest.

In an all boys school I'd have felt less concerned I think.

Matthew K on 25th Feb.

I have no time for anyone who sets out to deliberately humiliate a child on purpose. I said as much when I posted back on 26th Jan for the first time. I had my shorts and pants pulled down climbing a school gym rope and was exposed briefly and the teacher laughed.

In your case I don't know quite what to think. The teacher sounded ignorant. I've been to the place you mentioned, it was in Kensington I think. Perhaps she had sons of her own who liked being shirtless in the warm and thought everyone else did. I can't fathom someone thinking that was the correct decision to make in that place.

Give the shirtless ballot a go I say to Nathan, any information is useful. I think it would end up a 50/50 split actually.

Matthew K had a hard time of it.

Don't mind my sharing a few disparate recollections prompted by this thread.

When I was nine years old in the early nineties, our class was studying the
Aztecs, learning about the Spanish conquest under Cortes. Our teacher, an experienced middle-aged lady, told us we would re-enact an Aztec human sacrifice in our class assembly in front of the school (using a lot of red tissue paper). Sorry if this is a little grotesque; the relevance will become clear.

In the actual performance and in the dress rehearsal beforehand, the boy playing the 'victim' was in his PE shorts (nothing else: boys' usual dress for indoor PE). I and the other boy escorting him wore a dining-room curtain each tied round our bare shoulders, provided by my parents, in addition to PE shorts.

We led him up to the front, where he lay down on two stage blocks and the child playing the Emperor Montezuma would pretend to pull out a cardboard 'heart'. (We were surprisingly sanguine about all this; I read somewhere that young children are more likely to be upset by reading a story about something close to their experience - being separated from a parent at a railway station, say - but I digress).

I had previously been rather self-conscious at infant school about doing PE in just shorts, but now had managed to shove any trace of discomfort to the back of my mind most of the time. I remember thinking, though, that I really did not envy the boy playing the 'victim', not because of the horrible subject matter, but because 450 children and more than a dozen teachers would see him up on stage wearing next to nothing. He gave no sign of minding, but I don't know what he thought.

The other incident was the same school year, with the same teacher. She was equable and kind, friendly, so this is somewhat surprising.

It was summer; for PE lessons indoors, the whole class would change into white shorts, white T-shirts, socks and plimsolls in our mobile classroom, then cross the playground, file around the front of the school building, through the main doors and go to the hall.

Then our teacher would give the instruction: "Girls, take off your plimsolls and socks; boys, take off your plimsolls, socks, and shirts".

I would feel a small twinge of discomfort as I pulled my white cotton T-shirt up and over my head, leaving me bare-chested, but I would be fine in the lesson after that. Odd, isn't it, how sometimes the anticipation of something like that can be worse than the actuality?

On the occasion I recall, once the class had put shirts and plimsolls to one side and boys and girls were all sitting cross-legged on the parquet, our teacher said portentously: "A boy -" it was her half-merciful habit when very displeased to outline a child's fault to the whole class without naming them - "a boy has asked if he can keep his shirt on during PE. It says in the school rules that all boys in the lower school, Year 3 and Year 4, must do PE bare-chested".

I never knew who it was. Nor do I understand why on earth our normally kindly teacher should have been so offended by the boy simply asking the question.

Alan - that clip certainly did look relaxed and informal but I am not convinced that is a good thing. Some of the boys don't really look as though they are exerting themselves - certainly not in the way we were expected to. We were expected to put a lot of effort in and ended up very sweaty in our minimal kit and unheated gym. We would have been very uncomfortable if we had been wearing as much as those boys!
Part of the problem here revolves around one's attitude to school uniforms. My school was a grammar school and we had a set everyday uniform and a set p.e. uniform. The nearby secondary modern school also had an everyday uniform but were a bit more relaxed about boys p.e. kit until it was tightened up to match ours after I had been at grammar school for a year. Uniforms were designed to reduce possible differences in clothing, making the boys from more affluent families look the same as those from poorer families and were fairly successful in this. I think this is a good idea and have got used to the idea of school uniforms which is one reason I think the boys in the clip look untidy as a group.

Regards the Mickey Grant and Graeme comments on discovering people and their attitudes to personal modesty, or not.

During the first lockdown in April 2020 I'd been working from home for about two or three weeks and was taking regular video conferencing to colleagues in our ceramics business all through the day. I'd set up my work station in our outhouse conservatory as a temporary measure but when talking to others at work noticed they seemed to be using spare rooms upstairs to conduct business.

While taking a video call on my largescreen desktop with one of my male colleagues from his bedroom we'd been going through our moans and groans about our new style working arrangements and concerns how to continue successfully running the business like that when in through the door behind him came his teenage son with a towel over his head, unable to initially see what was going on, rubbing his hair dry and completely naked behind his father who was unaware, and the son was unaware for a couple of seconds too but when he realised you have never seen anyone run out a room so rapidly. He apologised profusely and we laughed it off as one of the new occupational hazards to guard against.

When I got off the conference video call and spoke to my wife I remember saying I couldn't imagine any of ours at that age so openly walking around the home with us in it like that. Some of us, whatever age are naturally easy when it comes to such things except when they get caught unexpectedly on dad's webcam while he's at work. My colleague had thought his son did it deliberately to show him up but it didn't look like it to me and I said so, although he said the son had an online You Tube channel involving practical jokes on friends.

I come from Avignon. Some years ago our school, Lycée Frederic Mistral here in France were at the end of the school academic year, all the boys and girls in one of the science classes posed naked or almost naked for a photograph with their teacher. They were all over age sixteen may I add. There were fifty participants on this. There was no reason, just originality and something a little different that would make others think. I am unaware how the suggestion first came about. The class were all in what we call their 'terminale' year and soon to leave.

Comment from Mickey Grant (February 24 2024 at 21:41):
"Is it too much of a side-step to muse what guys wore as sleepwear in mid/late teens? I was always T/boxers and hadn't had PJs for years. At our sixth form induction residential I was surprised the variation - from proper PJs through to just PJ bottoms or boxers.

I guess I didn't voluntarily go shirtless often at all!"

Thinking back a bit further to my early teens I wore PJs. Slowly discarded clothing through my mid-teens until by 17 I was sleeping in just boxers. Might be too much information but 20 years later that's still the case most nights.

Reading Chris G's comment about vests (February 28 2024 at 11:15) - thinking back to mid 90s I remember being one of the last boys in class who still wore them. We'd certainly all ditched them by about age nine when swimming lessons started. I've never worn one since. Trying to get back on topic of PE I think getting changed was a contributing factor - if nobody else is still wearing them why am I? sort of thing.

Hated swimming lessons at school and left not really able to swim. A few years later in my early 20s I confronted my fears/bad memories and had some private lessons which were a lot more successful though I'm still not confident in open water. Not sure why I hated it so much in school but don't think the shirtless element had anything to do with it - as I said in my comment a few weeks back once you're in you really don't notice you're just wearing shorts.

Needless to say I'm another one who was hardly ever voluntary shirtless away from my bed. I think I was always too concerned about what others might think and not meeting unrealistic ideals. Looking back maybe I should've done it a bit more and just learned to ignore negativity.

(Apologies if all this is a bit rambling and/or too far off-topic)

Tim H:

I have nothing against anybody's lifestyle - just as long as I don't have to take an active role in it, but, a bit like the Northern Line , there are two branches of Steampunk (I have seen Steamphunk as an alternative spelling). There is the "dressing up" element. like with Goths or Skinheads, and the engineering one. Here for example are details of one of several books on the topic:

https://www.awesomebooks.com/book/9781907621031/steampunk-victorian-futurism-bizarre-engineering/used

There is quite an element of this back to the past sort of thing on the West Coast in the States, I don't think it has taken hold quite so much in the UK.

Though not quite the same thing I know a writer and experimenter in America called Pete Friedrichs who wrote a book called "The Voice of the Crystal" where he made one of these basic radio sets, but made each separate part by hand with found materials. I used to have a concession with some small esoteric publishing company in the US which ended when the company did (the sole proprietor retired seven or eight years ago.)


Tony:

Yes, you raise an interesting question. The only childhood I lived through was my own, and it wasn't especially a happy one, made far worse by that school I attended, so you could be right, but, given what happened to one of my friends there, I would be very cautious/suspicious of certain teachers and their methods. I would be ultra alert though if I had an unhappy son or daughter, and generally you find this is through bullying - these days more often by fellow pupils, but in my school by some of the teachers as well.

My comment this morning by the way was not directed at any current poster - it was, I suppose, inspired by reading last week the early pages and seeing some of the questionable conversations, and not that long ago we had somebody who had claimed to see, in an unspecified location, at an unspecified school, dozens of shirtless schoolboys in a playing field two weeks running in December at a time when throughout the country it was very wet and very cold. That was the sort of thing I was getting at..

Comment by: Alan on 28th February 2024 at 04:13
I genuinely am not targeting anybody in this group, and I have no wish to offend, but I just do not understand why so many middle aged men want to see lads without their tops on, and what good does it do them if they are forced into it?. I just throw that in to the discussion for what it is worth, which is probably not a lot as I have no teenage offspring of my own. Discuss, as they say.



But do they Alan? That's not quite how I read the discussion. It's just a PE chat and I think it's teased out some interesting points along the way actually. I'll always treat you with the utmost respect and have previously been sympathetic to some of the points you make.

The other point about offspring, have you not noticed how interesting it is that those who come here and had their children at school throughout the time frames discussed on here are rarely expressing too much concern themselves, such as the man who came on here just recently with four sons. So you raise a point worth noting on that. Maybe if you'd had children of your own it might have given more perspective.

But first and foremost everyone on here is speaking about themselves or for themselves and it's been interesting seeing everyone comparing notes.

For all the chat about men on here in teaching, one of the worst examples of a teacher has been a woman just a few days ago. I'm still amazed a female teacher made a 12 year old boy do such a thing like Matthew did on his school visit. What also interested me about Matthew K's story was that the teacher there was confident enough in her own decision making to then write a note home straight to the parents to tell them what she had done with their son!

Comment by: Mickey Grant on 24th February 2024 at 21:41 (Relayed by Graeme)

"Is it too much of a side-step to muse what guys wore as sleepwear in mid/late teens? I was always T/boxers and hadn't had PJs for years. At our sixth form induction residential I was surprised the variation - from proper PJs through to just PJ bottoms or boxers."

As a pre-teen in the mid 20th century, my normal sleep attire was traditional pyjamas worn with a vest underneath - Mum was very keen on vests - but no underpants, which both Dad and Mum regarded as unhygienic.

On hot days during my primary school years, Mum reluctantly accepted that I didn't need a vest, but it was not until the summer following my tenth birthday that I went without one from the start of the summer term until school went back in September.

Of course, as I wasn't wearing a vest during the daytime, it didn't make sense to wear one under my PJ top at night, so I didn't, but didn't broadcast the fact. So, when July produced a persistent heatwave, and Mum, to her credit but blissfully unaware that I wasn't wearing a vest under my PJs, suggested that I leave off my PJ top for the duration, as Dad was already doing, she inadvertently introduced me to sleeping topless. She saw the funny side of this, and nothing more was said until I went back to school, when she insisted that I should be wearing vests again. There was no arguing on this point, and t was only when topless PE was introduced at secondary school two or three years later that I succeeded in getting rid of vests altogether.

The funny thing is that she didn't bat an eyelid when I didn't go back to wearing either vests or PJ tops to bed, and it wasn't long before I discarded clingy PJ trousers for the freedom of shorts.

This proved to be good training for the future, because when I later went to a boarding school for my 6th form years, the boarders clothing list specified both vests and pyjamas, which didn't please me at al. However, I needn't have worried, as I found on my first night that everyone in my dormitory slept topless as a matter of course, some in PJ bottoms but most in boxers, while some brave spirits stripped off completely.

Alan - your 04.13 on 28/2/2024.

I think you are referring to 'Steampunk', not 'Steamphunk' which is something different.

There's nowt wrong with 'Steampunk', just people enjoying a 'different' lifestyle in a 'second life' (and spending a lot of money on it). At one time I looked askance at it - now my views have changed ... after all, what is wrong with 'tea duelling'?

https://www.ministryofsteampunk.com/

(I had similar views about 'Goths' once - my views possibly changed after I first saw the memorial to Sophie Lancaster, murdered because of her lifestyle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Sophie_Lancaster )

Fortunately over my life my views have changed on things.

I genuinely am not targeting anybody in this group, and I have no wish to offend, but I just do not understand why so many middle aged men want to see lads without their tops on, and what good does it do them if they are forced into it?. I just throw that in to the discussion for what it is worth, which is probably not a lot as I have no teenage offspring of my own. Discuss, as they say.

Comment by: Robert Coulson - Teacher 1967-2009 on 27th February 2024 at 23:27


Robert, there is a tiny branch of engineering (a bit like the Mill Hill extension of the Northern LIne on London Underground) called "Steamphunk". This is a rather rarified practice where Victorian engineering principles are attached to modern day devices. They are cumbersome and not really practical, but there you are, you have a group of men, who are devoted to the engineering solutions of the 1880s, more than a century later. I don't doubt the devotion of it's adherents, but it is an anachronism in 2024.

I give this example, because I see the old STTW regimented school gym in 2024 as analogous to the Steamphunk adherents. There is no practical need for it. I have said beyond repletion now, if lads wish of their own free will, to remove their tops, that is fine, let them do it. I totally believe what Bill said and I don';t doubt for a moment, and I agree with you, being sixth formers they were doing so of their own volition. Equally some of the lads he saw were wearing tops, and that, too should be a free choice. It is what makes you feel comfortable, and if you feel comfortable you will perform better.

There are two gyms in my area - one is one of those run-by-a-private-company-for-the-local-council outfits the other is a commercial concern, and for some reason all the fixed cycling machines and weight training ironmongery is besides the all glass frontage and can be seen by the public as they pass. I can honestly say that the number of men you see without a top is miniscule and the vast majority of the men choose toi wear tee shirts and sometimes even track suit tops (even I think that is overdressing a bit - I would be sweating like a pig). That, I think, tells you something. Most of those men are in I would say the 18-40 age bracket.


Bernard:

I think those lads looked smart, looked confident and looked competent, they were working hard and taking their work seriously. They were, after all GCSE students, so presumably the top of the tree in their class. It seems more relaxed and informal than a 1980s gym class, which itself looked like that stiff and starchy 1959 one which heads this page. Time marches on and we should march with it. With our tops on, if that makes us feel comfortable.

Comment by: Mickey Grant on 24th February 2024 at 21:41
Is it too much of a side-step to muse what guys wore as sleepwear in mid/late teens? I was always T/boxers and hadn't had PJs for years. At our sixth form induction residential I was surprised the variation - from proper PJs through to just PJ bottoms or boxers.

I guess I didn't voluntarily go shirtless often at all!




In my mid to late teens I slept in pyjama bottoms and a vest, nothing else. Later on in my early twenties I started sleeping in boxer shorts. I went through a naked sleep phase but then went back to boxers.


I know what you mean about the variation. You learn a lot about your friends and the truth about how modest or immodest they are if you go away with them and have to sleep over for a few nights in some dormitory like I did when school took us for a week away to Cumbria to study as part of our coursework in fifth form up to O levels.

I was in a dorm with something like 15 others and wore full pyjamas to bed on the trip each night, with my pants on underneath too. But the variety was amazing. You had a few like me, others wearing just pants or boxers and no tops, some wearing pants and t-shirts, one I remember wore full pyjamas and socks, and another pair I saw got out of bed in the morning stark naked. One of them was somebody I would never have expected to do that. The trip was quite telling about how comfortable people are in close proximity with each other about such things when they have total free choice to decide. I certainly don't remember hearing any comments about anyone's chosen night attire though.

Come the morning we all had the freedom to choose to shower or not before breakfast and remarkably everyone chose to do so without fuss automatically, we had been so conditioned from doing so in school PE I suppose that it came as second nature at the time.

Another light sleeper I'm afraid, reading in bed late into the night, and currently I am wearing navy blue night shorts almost to the knee and a white t-shirt, which will come off when the nights get warmer.

I don't remember that many times when I went shirtless voluntarily though either, other than under the bed covers at night.