Burnley Grammar School

A girls view here... A boys kit should either be a vest or bare chest. There's nothing wrong with boys taking tops off in PE/Games and a vest is easy and quick to remove/add to make up two teams. Boys really should be encouraged to remove their tops...why? Well it's far more manly and I think gives boys a sense of worth and a way of identifying with who they are. Personally I wish we'd had the option to wear sports bras instead of the uncomfortable Aertex tops we had to put up with, life would have been easier. As it was it wasn't until I left school that I was introduced to running in a sports bra and I can truthfully say I've never once thought about going back either. Go on break the mould - it doesn't hurt to be different.

Comment by: John on 30th April 2023 at 00:50
Replying to Craig and his post of 29th April,
Please could you let me know how to join the Bareskin Running Club WhatsApp group. I would like to join the group for a few runs this summer.



Whatsapp groups are easy to set up like this if you're on the app. You could set your own one up couldn't you John, and see how many takers you get in your neck of the woods. Unless you live very close to the one already mentioned here, nice coincidence if so. I'd definitely give something like that a go.

As a schooldays shirtless phobic when at school doing PE in my teenage years and as someone who has never done anything like it again since as an adult now in my forties I find myself strangely drawn to the comments by Craig about the bareskin running. I'd like to know what the actual motivations are for doing this rather than just running 'normally' with a shirt on. Are self worth/esteem issues involved in this or are you all just hugely self assured confident people anyway. I wonder if it is something that bare chest phobics such as myself could do to 'cure' ourselves. I agree it feels completely counter intuitive for a bare chest phobic former schoolkid from 30 years ago to actually want to consider a bareskin running challenge.

Why did our PE teachers never ever even try to make an effort to talk about and confront the whole body image issue in our PE classes when they all expected us to do their lessons in many cases in only shorts, bodies mostly bared well outside of a considerable amount of pupils comfort zones and and then at the end demand full scale changing room collective nudity on top with the mandatory shower requirements.

Did anybody's teachers ever give even the slightest nod to the issues here that I remember quietly talking to one or two others about. Even just a few minutes acknowledgement or something. A friendly sit down to try and put everyone at ease, a bit like going on one of those plane short plane flights filled with people who have a fear of flying which I went on years ago to cure me of that and enable me to take foreign holidays with the family, which worked.

If there is anyone here much younger I'd like to know if they acknowledge such things nowadays at school. Although perhaps the fact that a lot of schools no longer shower and dress like many of us used to do in PE classes is an admission in itself that going shirtless and showering in PE is a big deal for a lot of young school age pupils, both boys and girls alike. Senior school comprehensive years were 1970 to 1974 and I left not a moment too soon and it felt like freedom. None of my PE teachers were dreadful by the standards of the day but none of them gave much care to what we thought, they just wanted us to keep doing what we were told and any push back or lip soon got a knock back I know that.

To answer Alex - if you elected to join the RAF or the Royal Navy it was a minimum of three years. You might have got away with the Army for 18 months but that was the default option - RAF and RN demanded 3 years - I know because it happened in my family.

To answer Craig - Good luck but you and your mates are doing it because you want to, not because you are being forced to. I am OK with that - also you are adults.

I think schools should require boys to take PE class shirtless, even if it is co-ed. This is an important development point for boys to become comfortable with who they are during this awkward stage. While I was growing up, I was afraid to take my shirt off in public for no other reason than my own extreme shyness and fear. Even though I could swim, I avoided things like going to the swimming pool with friends out of fear of having to go without a shirt.

Then came my first high school co-ed PE class where boys were divided into teams of skins and shirts which rotated every 5 weeks. Even though the boys and girls separated into their own groups, the skins team was required to go shirtless for the entire class, including role call. One can only imagine the paralyzing fear that I encountered upon learning this. However, I came to find out that I was not alone in my fear and as a group we were able to bond together in our efforts to confront our shirtless fears. After a couple of weeks of being shirtless for PE class two-three times per week, our anxiety eased to being almost normal. This turned out to be a very rewarding experience which helped teach me to become comfortable with my own body.

If I was give a choice, I would have remained shirted the entire time, thereby missing out on this learning experience. School is a place that should challenge its students to learn and grow by breaking through self-imposed boundaries. It is sometimes necessary to push students outside their comfort zone by imposing a requirement such as this. After I learned how to push my fear aside, I was able to participate in the summer fun activities while being shirtless, plus I learned that girls love guys who are confident in themselves.

Now as an adult I am glad my school had a shirtless PE requirement for boys. I must admit I am still a bit self-conscious about going shirtless at times, but my lessons learned from PE class allow me to run without a shirt knowing there is nothing to fear.

When I was at secondary school (single sex, boys) in the mid 1950s, regulation PE kit was white shorts and vest; back in those days, kids in the UK were expected to wear vests as underwear, except possibly during the height of summer, and most of us got into the habit of wearing our underwear vests for PE. After I had been at this school for a couple of years, the PE teacher decided that it would be healthier for us to do PE topless and, in a surprisingly democratic approach, took a vote on the matter. Neeedless to say, toplessness got a 100% vote. Although we were expected to wear vests between the changing room and the gym, this rule was honoured more in the breach than the observance and we soon got into the habit of "forgetting" to put our vests back on under our shirts after PE. With daily PE, generally in the mornings, we contrived to be vest-less for most of the school week and by the end of the first term of the new regime, most of us had stopped wearing vests to school or anywhere else, altogether.

To the best of my knowledge, I don't remember anyone experiencing "body exposure" or "self-esteem" issues as a result of this PE experience. Basically, we were spending time topless, and after childhoods spent encased in vests, shirts and jumpers, that could only be a good thing.

I have never been a runner, but have a lifelong enjoyment of walking, preferably topless, and have never encountered much prejudice while doing so.

Regards the American angle on PE that has been raised here by a couple of people - looking at the size of so many American's nowadays it looks as if they need every one of those daily PE classes but how many do the majority of them really get. When I went over there a few years ago the portion sizes were absurd and I can usually clear my plate. The food waste must be enormous and those that do eat it all get obese. I wonder what these obese children over there do in PE to try and get the weight down. I don't remember any porky looking boys at school at all. If there were comments in PE it was about being on the skinny side if anything.

For all the talk and fretting over our old school PE classes so many took in our bare chests and all that, many of our classes looked absolutely perfect physically in relation to what we now refer to as BMI (Body Mass Index). Very few British schoolboys in PE had any genuine need to worry about their shape and how they looked. You only have to look at the Burnley Grammar Boys above and my class looked much like that very many years later too.

Replying to Craig and his post of 29th April,
Please could you let me know how to join the Bareskin Running Club WhatsApp group. I would like to join the group for a few runs this summer.

Oh no Stuart that brother thing is something I avoided and I'm a twin too. But there was one thing that used to happen at my school when the school photographer came for the new school year photo - twins were always sent along to the photographer together and had the photo taken as a pair and not individuals and every school photo I have through from the age of 5 until I'm 12 is the same, no further photo's got taken after the age of 12 in the first year at secondary school for some reason. It would be nice to have had one or two separate ones as well.

Comment by: Robbie on 27th April 2023 at 04:21
Someone said to me at work talking about this site that communal showers are very common still in American schools, I have no idea if that is correct but they had worked and lived there for a while with a family, but went on to say that showers at school here in the UK and in continental Europe are no longer common which I think is quite untrue. They may not be as common as in the 60's to 80's heyday of the things I agree, but then it was close to 100% in those days. Nathan you've said your place has them and they are used but does that mean your school insists they must be used or what? I agree though that there should be more PE not less and certainly can't agree you could choose to never do any at school. I think we just sometimes have to face up to our insecurities at times, such as PE brings on, not run away from them.



Robbie, my father took the family to Portland Oregon in the States for 4 years due to his work as a construction engineer on a project there between 1978 and 1982 and I had to resettle into school over there in their equivalent year grades. In the last year grade when I was 14 before coming back home we did a PE class every single day of the week for something like 60 minutes and showered afterwards each time no get outs on those, and unlike the similar item I've found to illustrate my point none of us wore underwear, let me make that quite clear and the class sizes were larger than here in the UK. Unlike here there was very little football and far too much basketball and circuit training stuff. We also did a lot of swimming, including water polo during that five days a week PE year. Campuses over there are huge places and the facilities awesome compared to here at home. The shower rooms were absolutely huge too. I came back at 15 and had another major readjustment to what I felt were lower expectations in British schools.



This from the LA Times back in 1989.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-10-19-vw-85-story.html

Sixth-Graders Worry About More Than the Three Rs : Fears: Kids say that washing up after junior high P.E. class can be as horrifying as the ‘Psycho’ shower scene.
BY MICHAEL ARKUSH
OCT. 19, 1989

Junior high school can be pretty scary stuff for incoming sixth-graders.

Older kids might pick on you. You can get lost in the new building, moving from class to class. And the tough, no-nonsense teachers might just make you wish you were lost or being beaten up by a burly eighth-grader.

But these fears are nothing compared to the greatest threat of all.

The showers.

“They’re scared,” said Dan Witt, director of physical education at Northridge Junior High School. “You can see it in their eyes.”

State law requires students to take P.E. every day through the 10th grade. In elementary school, teachers escort students to the playground for a recreation period; in junior high and high school, P.E. means strenuous exercises and games--and showers. And fear. Physical education administrators and instructors in the San Fernando Valley say 1989 is no different than any other year; incoming students once again fear dressing and undressing before their peers.

Some won’t shower after P.E., and most schools won’t press the issue. “If the kid is going to be emotionally upset for the whole day because of being forced to take a shower, I don’t think that’s fair to the kids,” Witt said.

Some will shower only if they’re allowed to wear their underwear, and most schools accept that compromise. “A very small percentage will go in completely naked,” Witt said.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to understand why so many sixth-graders are reluctant to take public showers. This is a new experience for them, showing off their bodies to people they hardly know. Plus, as puberty creeps in, their bodies may be changing so quickly they have no time to adjust.

“One 12-year-old girl can look like she’s 7,” said Stephanie Bowen, head of physical education at Mulholland Junior High in Van Nuys, “and another like she is 30. The girls are very conscious of that. They are worried that their bodies are not as developed as they should be.

“We even have girls who will go into a bathroom stall rather than change in front of everyone. We try to tell them that other kids don’t have the time to look at them, that they are too busy getting ready for the next class. But they still are afraid.”

At Northridge Junior High, students wear towels as they walk about 20 feet from their lockers to the showers. Witt said as many as 50 out of about 900 boys refuse to take showers. Parents have written letters to the school, he said, excusing their children from showers.

Bob Coburn, chief guidance counselor at Northridge Junior High, regularly visits elementary schools to brief them about what they can expect at junior high. Invariably, the shower question comes up.

“Believe it or not,” Coburn said, “some kids believe that we all dress together, boys and girls. Their concept of junior high is so warped. And just talking to them does alleviate some of their concerns. I tell them it’s more like a public pool situation.”

At Northridge this year, Coburn said, physical education classes were divided by grade level. In previous years, P.E. classes were a mix of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Sixth-graders, Coburn said, have been a part of junior high in most Valley schools since 1980.

“This way, they’re not mixed with the seventh- and eighth-graders who have already gotten over the fear of showers,” Coburn said.

John--not his real name--is one Northridge sixth-grader who hasn’t overcome the fear. Standing by his locker after physical education class, he watched as dozens of students ran into the showers.

“I’m just afraid,” he said, staring at the ground. “I don’t like them. And I don’t have to go in.”

Witt said each week, a few more sixth-graders conquer their fears and take showers.

“But I really don’t expect things to change,” Witt said. “It’s been that way for years, and it will always be that way.”

Tanya, you'd like to try bareskin running? The trouble is you'd have to cheat and not really be bareskin at all, so it wouldn't be bareskin running would it. But let's suppose you or any other woman wanted and was able to do bareskin running in the manner it says, topless, would this not be uncomfortable for any long distances without any actual support unless you were almost completely flat chested?

I'm an identical twin, and when I was younger, I'm now 42, I never had a problem at school in PE doing things that involved taking my shirt off, which was quite often under certain PE teachers, one in particular simply wouldn't allow them on in the gym or in the summer term field sports we did. I was fine with that. I also would do things, and still do, like painting the fence and outside household chores without bothering with a shirt. Some days in summer on days off I've been known to just get up and not even bother from the get go with a shirt. I have a tattoo on my back so someone needs to see it! I'm happy with how my body looks, and it looks exactly the same as my identical twin brother but he has a completely different outlook to me, not quite so confident of himself, he'd never remove his top at any time and never liked doing so in school much either where we shared the same teachers. Doing one of those bareskin runs that Craig talked about would be right up my street but not his. I never actually ran a cross country at school with my shirt off either, same as Ben said. That was probably because it wasn't done in school itself. I look on going shirtless as a confidence thing but whether that played any part in why PE teachers made boys do it is more questionable.

When you're a twin they try their best in school to keep you both apart in classes but our paths collided with PE in upper school on a lot of occasions with combined PE classes merging together and despite our identical appearance I was always the more sporty of the two of us and it was this that marked us easily apart. We were also on first name terms with our PE teachers, not many of the others seemed to be. We were very close twins but in the changing rooms for PE we would never sit next to each other and were always opposite ends. I didn't mind but my twin tried hard not to be close to me when we had to go into the showers after PE and wished we had not been in the same PE class. You get used to constant twin comparisons as a child but even some close knit 14 and 15 year old twins don't really want to share that kind of thing and put up with the twin comparison banter we would get.

One thing in PE that me and my twin did seem remarkably similar at was short track sprinting, often sprinting directly against each other and nobody else and posting identical times, crossing the line together. At one point both of us were asked to go on the school team but neither fancied it because it meant what amounted to regular after school PE on top of what we already did and I thought we did enough already at the time. I rather regret that decision now.

Good thread this.

Reading about Craig's bareskin running suggests that quite a large part of the populace has a secret (and not so secret in those that do it) desire to show a lot off. A couple of summers ago a quite normal looking and well heeled boss of mine went and did the naked London bike ride. So maybe there's an opening for a bareskin biking club too along the lines of the running.

I left school in the mid 90s and the only time I ever took my top off in PE lessons was when we did basketball. That's it, no other time, so when we got the order to remove our tops in a lesson it did feel like a quite big deal if you were the chosen ones, although we showered in PE most days so it's not as if we were kept under wraps unseen.

Alan et al.
National Service ...
was reintroduced in 1948 for a limited period of 18 months but later extended to two years and all 17-21 year olds were 'liable', but with exceptions. As I recall, the great majority served in the Army, a smaller number in the RAF and a comparatively small number in the Royal Navy - the reason for this being the extra amount of training time required.

There were exemptions - often on medical grounds (someone said once that I might not have been called up because I have very flat feet(!)). 'Deferment' could happen if a man was in 'essential work' (on the railways, for example) but that didn't prevent 'call up' later (a friend - on the railways - had 'deferment' and thought he'd escaped but was called up very close to his 21st. I recall him saying that a good proportion of his intake had their 21st birthdays during their training).

Other men could be 'directed' into service elsewhere. A late friend, a doctor well known in later life, was very fit but also very short sighted. On qualification he was not put into the forces but was 'directed' into 'General Practice'. Another friend qualified as a 'Petroleum Engineer' - instead of the forces he was sent to Iran to work for the 'Anglo-Persian Oil Company' (correctly 'Anglo-Iranian').

How those of us who missed 'National Service' by six years or so would have got on I don't know and I'm not going to think about it here.

As others have said - a lot of the PE in the 1950s would reflect the fact that boys would be entering the Armed Services and it would be better for them if they were fit. Younger PE teachers would have done their 'time' and seen unfit recruits suffering - however harsh it might seem now there was a reason for it.

The Wikipedia article looks 'fair', and there was a book published in 2012 by Shire Publications, simply entitled 'National Service...'

T

I must admit if I saw a handful of people 'bareskin' running like you Craig, especially at night time like you said you sometimes do, I'd automatically think you were all a bit nutty in the nicest sense of English eccentricity. But you sound quite grounded, so good luck with it and I'll try not to be so judgemental if I do see anyone about in my place doing anything similar to you. You must all be quite proud of the way your bodies look to be able to do this. Were you this confident in school and did you do much PE like this yourself then?

Tanya - Are women allowed Craig? ;-)


Not had any yet in our group Tanya but why not, subject to the obvious difference it would make.

Thanks Ben and Neil. We average 5 or 6 of us when we go out, sometimes more than 10 at a time. The more that join our local Bareskins Whatsapp group the better. I recommend if it is a genuine interest and you enjoy running then set something up. Ours took off quite fast. Will be doing our next on Saturday evening for a 6 mile circuit of our locality, so far with 4 others and hoping for a couple more yet.

Ken's post;

Knowing what I was like at 11 or 12 if I'd been presented with a compulsory naked swimming lesson I think I'd have rather drowned the moment I jumped in.

The mandatory bare chest for internal sports hall gym was the PE kit rule for the boys in my old school when I arrived from age twelve until sixteen. Most boys I knew did this without much argument. It probably wouldn't have been a good look to express a dislike for disrobing your shirt for PE and this is perhaps why it often seems like everyone was fine with it. I think the same thing goes with the school showers of the time. Who would have dared express an unwillingness to disrobe for those?

The only time I felt excruciatingly self conscious in PE was when I threw a ball in anger and it accidentally hit someone else on the head and I was sent outside the sports hall door and had to stand there with my hands on my head for half an hour in the corridor in only my shorts and plimsolls, no top, all kinds of male and female staff and pupils going by giving me disapproving/sympathetic/amused looks. A favourite tool of one of my teachers to do that with wayward types in his class of '79.

Craig, That's good to hear. If I'd been in the area or even close I'd have joined you. Good luck!

Te bareskin running thing is yet another one of these back to nature activities that seems to have become all the rage over the past five years or so. Not that many days ago on here we also had people talking about doing barefoot running too, and you can add swimming into the mix as well with something known as wild swimming that is increasingly popular too, which is simply swimming in rivers and lakes. The latter I feel is far more risky with none of the safety features a regular pool has like lifeguards. I'd definitely consider going on a bareskin shirtless run in the company of others, but as Craig himself says, and I agree, I'd not be brave enough to do it on my own for fear of some of the looks I'd receive, even on a spring afternoon, never mind around midnight on a winters one.

Are women allowed Craig? ;-)

Picking out your national service points Alan, and I'm not sure if the way Ken swam in boarding school has any real relevance in truth to that, but an of uncle of mine was born in 1940 and never did national service despite being 20/21 by 1960/61. I also don't think national service ever lasted 3 years in the 50's by the way, that seems a very long stretch. Surely just two years max.

Ken at least your school was thoughtful enough to allow some actual coverage in swimming once you had become a teenager. I do find it unnecessary that a school would force such a policy on everyone like that at such an age, even if it was with boys you lived with as a boarder and did your daily ablutions etc.

Thanks Craig for your post about bareskin running! Sounds a great idea and something I'd like to give a try some time when I'm in your neck of the woods. How often do you usually meet? Barechested PE in the gym wasn't uncommon when I was at school late 80s/early 90s, but I never experienced it in cross country. Maybe now's the time!

Comment by: Ken on 27th April 2023 at 21:40


Can I just say Ke, n I don't doubt for a moment the voracity of what you have written, but I would like to point out (and I in no way condone it), that if my reading of social history is right, you were forced to join one of the Armed Services for three years at 18, and this state of affairs lasted until 1960, so perhaps there was some justification in treating boys so harshly at that time, to prepare them, but since 1961 no boy has been conscripted, so there has been no excuse for OVER 60 YEARS to be that harsh. Indeed, if older people think the 1960s/70s boys were soft, they need to take a look at some of the more effete teenagers of today. If they join up, their kit bag would have to include make-up and beauty creams to soften their skin, and would insist on their pronouns being respected (them/they) - not all, of course, but some. I still maintain that many teachers are inadequate and they feel big by making kids (especially boys) feel small. It justifies their pathetic and unremarkable lives to themselves. A good example of how they did that was given by Nicky a few days ago, and that was in the 1990s.

Shirtless school cross country lovers of old, listen up.

I am a member of what is known as bareskin running, in a Bareskin Running Club Whatsapp group in Woodbridge in Suffolk which was started up during the last couple of years during the pandemic when we had too much time on our hands. So what is it, well it's simple really, we just run in our bare skin, without any tops. There are currently 15 in our group, ages range from mid 20's to early 60's. We agree a time and meet as a group minimum of three people and go running barechested, or bareskins as it's called, and we continued to do it over the past winter, it's not just a summer pastime. We have even done some midnight runs. I personally love doing it colder. It's not something I'd do on my own, it's good to do in a small group just for companionship and extra confidence, it's a bonding experience and stimulating of both mind and body. You may have done it at school, give it a try as a grown up.

I can't match Ken for his swim class but when I went swimming in PE with the school we'd be sent off in pairs into cubicles to change. I always used to change with the same boy each week and despite it being just him and me he always asked me to turn away and told me not to look while he changed into his swimming trunks so I didn't see him. Now that's what I call extreme shyness.

Thankyou for the reminisces Ken. Nicely said.

My definition of showering properly is using soap and water.

My school showers were plenty of water and not much sight of soap.

Therefore my school clearly failed to teach me how to shower properly, didn't they.