Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

Martin, are you dyslexic or something? That post by Steven was entirely in agreement with your own viewpoint and was perfectly decent and well written.

So if you can't come on here and act with a bit of decency then sod off and say nothing at all.

Steven on 8th September 2022 at 01:28

This is exactly the sort of post I referred to in my first paragraph and my only response is that there won't be one. Please take your amateur psychology elsewhere.

There is a considerable difference between being the age of 8 swimming without anything on and being the age of 11 doing so. What age did you finish doing that at Martin and was it a free choice, school rules or just down to teacher choice? The same child at the age of 8 doing so might have a completely different attitude to it only three or four years later. In Nigel's case it just seems so normal and natural at that time, so much so that they probably didn't really even think much about what they were doing one imagines. Only later, long afterwards does a re-evaluation start taking place and make something completely non controversial suddenly seem controversial, and the fact that aspect gets mentioned proves it.

Nowadays swimming at many schools is becoming rare or non existent. I know this from a youngster in my extended family, aged 15 who has never had a school swim lesson and the only time he went in the pool for a lesson was when it was paid for over a number of weeks when he was about 7. They're too scared to even be seen ever so briefly having a quick shower and the taking of tops off is seen as something to avoid.

These days there would be voices that would decry the recent experience of swimming, refuse to believe it happened of decide the teachers were guilty of some sort of abuse but of course none of that was true.

I didn't get to swim at school until I was eleven at an all boys grammar school in 1965 and there were certainly no trunks on the uniform list, no one thought anything of it, it was just what happened. No questions, we just got on with it. The benefits of learning to swim far outweighed any worries about being naked in the water.

Duncan that was a nice film you found there. I swam in a strange looking pool just like that, but bigger and outside back in my primary school in 1972 and 1973 when I was about 7 or 8 years of age.

Boys and girls would actually be in that pool alongside each other naked. Not always but a lot of the time. Try explaining that nowadays without a sceptical reaction but it was true. I even remember some of our mothers coming to see us at school in the pool with our teacher one day all around the edge marvelling at our improved swimming ability and my own mother lifting me out of the pool to dry off with nothing on at all just like taking me from the bath at home. Many times I also remember being in that pool with some of us naked and others not. How this came about I am unable to remember or how it happened like that. Monday mornings was a set lesson but we could also do random lessons when our teacher simply asked if we wanted to go to the pool situated just outside close to our classrooms enclosed by a fence giving privacy from anyone else at school. Class always seemed enthusiastic about it. We changed at poolside together, I think on the random days we used it that was the time we must have just cast everything off and got in. I have no idea if we were told to do it like that or it just happened without much thought. Once in the water I don't think it made any difference to me whether I had my swim trunks on or not. My older brother holds very similar memories to me from 1970 and 1971 and my younger sister from 1974 and 1975 using that same pool as me. They got rid of it in 1980 for some sad reason that made no sense but I think the upkeep was proving harder and by then there was a new town pool close by just opened which got used instead. I remember hearing that they were getting rid of it and being baffled by the decision. A lovely thing to have in your school to use at a moments notice like we did so many times.

This interesting film from British Pathé might prompt further discussion. It shows children at a North London school in 1962 learning to swim in a portable pool set up in a classroom: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/school-pool

I e-mailed British Pathé just to make sure they had no objection to my posting here that link to the film (the film is a lower-resolution preview, the same length as the original).

Why that question George. Of course girls share some lessons in school. Why do some men/boys get so worked up by the slightest chance about being in a PE lesson and having to take a top off and that there might be some girls who see the upper body for a bit. Am I missing something here, is it such a big deal? It's something that I did a fair few times and literally nothing was made of it. Maybe some girls were keeping a secret black book to themselves and enjoying the nipple count amongst themselves, who knows what they thought, I didn't care, I was in PE not sitting doing double maths like it.

Does this somehow relate to your own hang ups you had as a kid doing PE amongst others who saw you?

Amanda, did your sons attend a boys' school or did female students attend too? If girls did attend, was PE gender segregated or were your boys made to be shirtless around female peers?

I suspect Ashley must have had a bad time swimming at school or something to actually write and believe what he, or was it she, wrote. A very sad, disappointing and fearful attitude to take. Please respond.

Tim,
I was subjected to wearing short trousers to age 13 or 14although they were not compulsory for the school uniform.
This was at the at the whim of my parents not by my choice.

People with your view, if you really believe it as you wrote it, are the problem not the solution Ashley.

Does anyone remember still wearing short trousers as part of the school uniform even in secondary school till age 13 or 14?
I was one of those boys who always wore school uniform shorts till age 13 or 14 and if I remember well most boys did the same with just a few starting to wear long trousers.
This was in the 60s.
I don't think that this was a school stipulation but just the taste of parents.

I don't think schools should do any swimming lessons nowadays, it should be left to parents to take them for lessons in their own time under their own supervision to keep them as safe as possible. If they have to do them at school I think an all in one body suit covering up the boys as well as girls is the way to go and should be the future. Just like the girls, boys don't need to take almost everything off to have a swimming lesson and learn properly in school. Plus if there are a few boys who hate showing their bodies it solves that too.

Tim, my apologies if I appeared insensitive. I just had in mind a few gentle words of kind encouragement to help overcome insecurities.

Parents are known for their stock cliche comments to their children but I'm sure there is a fair collection that came from the mouths of PE teachers if anyone else wishes to share a few. Two of mine could often be relied upon to refer to our all boys class as 'a bunch of girls' with tedious regularity if there was any complaining or slacking as they saw it.

"A few kind words for children self conscious about swimming lessons" you say Duncan.

It's interesting this. Everyone always assumes everyone else is fine with things like this. What fascinates me is that I read some comments on one of the other discussions here on HW where some of the now men said they used to be very bothered by doing their PE in a bare chest but when swimming it did not seem to register as anxious for them on the same level.

Body anxiety issues surrounding doing classes without shirts, whether it be PE or swimming, or showering with full nudity were never addressed or even acknowledged for a split second when I was in school from the 70s to 80s. Are we suggesting that this would have been a good idea or would it just make matters worse in some way by drawing attention to things and therefore perhaps the old ways are still best and just be expected to get on with it and as I once heard a remark from a PE teacher to a boy in my class - "stop being a big girls blouse".

Perhaps a few kind words would be a better response to children self-conscious about swimming lessons than what the school below is proposing. There is also the extra cost to parents from buying additional items of swimwear.

Amanda, pardon my enquiring - roughly what part of the country are you in? Boys at the primary schools I attended were obliged to do PE indoors bare-chested between the ages of four and nine (in Essex, in the early nineties), but I'm surprised this happened at your sons' school more recently.

I've just been reading some of these comments with my mouth open.

Astounding stuff!

But incase you think the whole world is going nuts then I can reassure it's not. Aged 60 now, I've put three sons through their secondary education in the last fifteen years and my youngest is now almost 16. All three of them have done competitive swimming with the school in the way you'd expect it to be done, no daft ideas and prudish merging of the genders nonsense. The boys have all done lots of lessons in their P.E classes without tops, indeed their inside one the school made them do it like that much of the time but I knew this and so did they when we first went to the open evening presentation for new intakes many years ago for the first time and had private chats with various staff including the ones for their P.E. I had no big issue with it and was entitled and encouraged to raise any concerns about some aspects. They've all showered properly in school too and I've no issue with that. They were told this before they started and could have raised objections I suppose. Whether any other parents ever raised issues relating to such things I wouldn't know but I wouldn't have done.

One of them has always been less body confident than the other two and quite sensitive about how he looks dressed and undressed but all are happy healthy and intelligent with no obvious chips on their shoulders or hang ups that I'm aware of. They seem to have had much the same kind of educational experience that my own husband had throughout the 70's so although we hear that much has changed we must also remember that we seem to hear loudest those who want things different whilst a quiet majority just get on with their lives and lot much closer to the ways some of us older ones remember.

I would actually encourage the open defiance of some of these completely unreasonable rules, simple as that. What you don't do is mutter under your breath, complain to yourself and then accept them.

Are we really entering a new Puritanical era?

There is no doubt that this is being engineered by the extreme left in a holy alliance with the strong Muslim influence in Britain to destroy our society and its traditional values.

Tanya - amen to that. How about this for n extreme example:

https://japantoday.com/category/national/3-Japanese-schools-to-introduce-genderless-swimsuits-with-unisex-two-piece-design

This is all about the extreme end of gender neutrality dogma now beginning to be pushed hard in schools. It's the beginnings of a totalitarian ideology and a minority choosing to impose on the majority of society. So it leads to boys having to wear tops in a swimming pool or girls having to wear trousers, both have now been in recent media stories.

Before long there will be attempts to remove the term sons and daughters from the language in schools. Schools like Tiverton High in Devon need to be confronted not encouraged.

Mark Dolan on GB News right now (Sunday at 10pm) talking something very similar to the making everyone in the pool wear a top, he's talking about a school telling girls they can no longer wear skirts and must wear trousers like the boys because the school is fed up trying to enforce skirt lengths!

Robby - an identical story, perhaps it was the same one Norman mentioned here, turned up on a brief comment section of GB News with Colin Brazier a couple of weeks back.

I didn't much care for being asked to remove my own top in the school gymnasium sometimes but even those of us with that kind of natural bashfulness about our bodies would have found going swimming with a t-shirt on to be a step too far and let's face it, it's not the natural way to do it is it, just in terms of comfort alone. Given a choice I'd never have elected to swim with a t-shirt although given a choice I'd never have elected to do main gym PE without one.

Boys/men swimming is our top half bared, always has been. These maddening ideas must not be allowed to take hold and become considered normal, they are not.

Oops, made a mistake. Dando copied:

https://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/puericil/www/2019/Reports_Forced_Nudity_06to08.html

Boys being made to wear t-shirts to swim to cover their chests while girls are wearing thongs and string bikinis?
I can't believe this, have we gone to such extremes?
Boys in the past were made to swim naked at school while girls wore decent one-piece swimsuits.

Why is the concept of being shirtless/barechested in school seen as so alien to so many now? You'd be lucky to get through any week in the school calendar without having to do so back in the 70's or 80's. It was what boys had to do and were expected to do, simple as that. Citing a fear of doing so back then would have invited very little empathy. I spent more time during timetabled P.E periods in school not wearing a top than wearing one and that includes going outside to run at almost any point in the year. Our choices were always made for us whether we liked it or not and our own insecurities about how we looked didn't amount to much in the great scheme of things. Is it really so bad in the end?

LOL WTF!

I could not believe it when I heard about that school point blank refusing to let BOYS go swimming properly with upper body uncovered, their chests bared. What is even worse is there is no half decent GENUINE explanation for that policy.

We've gone from a situation decades ago where some men say they swam in schools with nothing on at all, stark naked on demand to a situation now when swimming in places is expected almost fully clothed on demand.

It's a kind of social engineering.

I heard Brazier mention something along thre lines of what you outlined Norman.

William, after reading what you said I spoke to my daughter-in-law who said she watches GB News with Michelle Dewberry, Mark Steyn and Dan Wootton in the evenings a lot. She tells me she will email all three. I'll leave it with her and see what happens.

Although I completely agree with the comments about children wearing T shirts in the pool I suspect it may be part of the H&S theme that has children wearing 'rash suits' on the beach and in pools.

Whether or not this is needed or just a fashion I leave other people to decide. Have look at

https://www.splashabout.com/blog/product-guides/rash-tops-what-are-they-5-reasons-you-should-consider-a-rash-top-for-swimming/ -