Burnley Grammar School

My boarding school placed a big emphasis on physical fitness. Though the school PE/Games kit stated a pale blue vest and a rugby/football jersey supposedly for winter it was made crystal clear from the start vests would only be worn if the teachers deemed it cold enough and half the PE group was expected to play football/rugby as skins, a word we'd be very familiar with very soon. For our first lesson we were taken outside in vests and one by one were called out to run to the end of one of the courts and strip off and run back. The school policy of stripping to the waist to exercise meant every early morning runs (each day excluding Sundays) laps of the field, detentions and cross country too. Harsh, especially in the snow and ice of a typical British winter.
It was absolutely normal to leave the gym glistening under the lights and normal to see other lads emerge in a similar state if we passed by the gym after fitness work or basketball. I was sporty and was pushed harder and like others on the school teams found myself having extra training sessions obviously in skins. My school and it's teachers pushed barechested exercise to the max but it in a good way. There's still a place for skins just not in an extreme way. Lads would benefit by it and learn a bit of masculinity too.

TimH, Alan

Totally agree. When i was a kid, SPF 20 was really pushing the boat out. When our kids were in the sun, we thought SPF 30 was only needed in the Med/Canaries etc. Now, SPF 50 seems baseline. How times have changed!

To follow up Alan's posting - I regularly drive past a fairly large junior school, with south facing grounds and, on summers days, I've often thought it sensible that the boys are wearing T-shirts.

Chris G: The possibility of skin cancer is doubtless the reason why boys are not encouraged to work outdoors without a top these days - the same applies in the building trade where it is strongly discouraged. I don't think there would be time in the average lesson period for them to cover themselves in Factor 50.

Robert, an interesting piece of reminiscence., and some interesting contrasts, if I u understand you correctly. You had to wear a T-shirt for PE but your grandson doesn't need to if he so wishes. You were encouraged to be bare-chested for outside activities in warm weather, but your grandson doesn't have that luxury. Were you and he at school in the same area, or even at the same school? and what PE kit did your grandson's father have?

I am new here and would like to add my experience of school PE in the later 70's contrasted with the experience of my 10 year old grandson currently in Junior School. In Junior school in a small Northumberland town we wore a blue t-shirt and white cotton gym shorts. We always worked barefoot indoors but wore running shoes with white socks outside, when it was cold we could wear a vest under the t-shirt but we never wore underwear under the shorts. I can be certain of this as I still pocess a photo of me in the school gymnastics team aged about 10 created one year to perform for parents one evening.
In PE we played all the common chase and ball games, indoors we had a well equipped hall with a very shiney wooden floor i remember well with wall bars and vaulting horse and I got to be quite good at gymnastics. We also played 5 a side football and did fitness training. Outdoors we played football and did cross country and athletics. In summer we played softball. When the weather was warm we were encouraged to do runs bare chested and that became the norm. There were never any showers and we just got changed with the girls in the classroom. We had a lady teacher and sometimes High School boys doing PE O levels would come to our school to help. I always got on well with them. I enjoyed PE alot, it was probably my favourite lesson of the week and it took up a whole afternoon each week.
My grandson Peter goes to a local Junior School in a council estate. For indoor PE he has black gym shorts but has the choice to work either barefoot or in socks and pumps and to either wear a white cotton t-shirt or work bare chested. Peter always chooses to work barefoot and without the top. He goes to a gymnastics club on Saturday morning where he is normally dressed the same.
His indoor PE seems to be mostly games although they do a little light conditioning each lesson. Not enough to ever actually work up a sweat or truly improve flexibility. There is no oppotunity to do actual gymnastics or any sport for that matter. Boys and girls do exactly the same things which makes no sense to me. It probably acts to make the boys less active. They have a lady teacher. Outdoors he plays football and does abit of athletics and softball in summer. Cross country seems to be a thing of the past. For outdoor PE he wears a rugby top and there is no option to be bare chested even on hot days. He has one hour of PE indoors and one hour outdoors on separate days.
To contrast our experiences, Peter is worked far less hard in class and the school offers no oppotunity to actually be good in any sport, it seems to be just assumed that actual skill in something will be learned at an out of school club. Peter's classes seem much less formal and disciplined and more designed to be fun so no kid is put off.

Having been in high school in the 60’s I don’t find credible the claims that women swam nude in high school PE, with or without men present. With one exception: my wife’s experience.

Years ago my wife and I were comparing high school experiences and stumbled on the topic of nude swimming in PE class. I had gone to a private boys’ school, where suits were not worn in the pool, and no one seemed to give it much thought. Anne went to an upscale suburban high school in the Midwest. Boys and girls had separate PE and swimming classes; for swimming classes everyone wore suits provided by the school.

On one of the days that she was scheduled for swim class she hurried to get undressed and take the required nude soap shower (big sign in the locker room.) When she finished and left the shower she saw that the bins that held the suits were empty! The PE instructor standing at the door told them that the laundry hadn’t made their delivery that morning and there were not enough clean suits to go around. ‘So, if everyone can’t have a suit, then no one gets a suit.’
Anne said at first she was stunned. She wasn’t very comfortable walking through the locker room naked and showering in an open shower room with 20 other girls, and she’d never been swimming nude in her life, so to line up by the pool and have everyone looking at her...
She looked around and saw that some of others looked shocked, some looked horrified, one or two were nearly in tears, but a few seemed excited about the idea. A couple girls tried arguing with the instructor, saying they if they didn’t have enough suits they should just cancel the class. This was met with a one word answer, ‘No.’

The instructor herded them down a long dank corridor and through a door into the pool. Anne, bowing to the inevitable, followed along, trying to shield herself with her hands and keep her eyes focused on backside of the girl ahead of her. The instructor lined them up against the wall and had them stand there while she took role. Anne said she felt self-conscious and a little silly standing there naked, but realized that no one was staring at her, and most of the girls looked just as self-conscious as she felt.

She said it was much better once they got in the water. She found it somehow liberating to feel the water on her bare skin, and she got increasingly comfortable. By the end of the class she realized it had been fun in a naughty sort of way.

Even now at our age Anne still enjoys a good skinny dip. As do I.

Claire,we also had to PE in shorts with no top,bare foot,and no underwear.
We had to adhere to wearing minimal kit whether we liked it or not.

School in the 90s for me and PE was done in white shorts, white tee and barefoot. The uniform suggested no underwear but this was never checked so we just wore underwear as normal. There was no shirts and skins we wore coloured sashes.

Chris - boys doing PE, and other exercise, topless has always seemed to be a good idea to me, Back when i was at school, I was always envious of my brother being allowed to take his top off for PE , while I had to endure a clingy polo-shirt - not even the luxury of a sleeveless vest, and still less the freedom of a sports bra, for us girls. i should add that topless was optional for the boys, generally with 100% uptake!

Seems an emotive subject for some. The school was mixed and all PE/Games lessons were performed
single sex so for us it meant being barechested in the gym while half stripped off for outdoor sessions leaving half in vests.. Indoors we were pushed hard in the gym. With the big reinforced windows running the length of the gym it was very easy for the girls to see us all excercise. Outside was hard during winter and most of spring too. I was very ordinary looking but was one of four lads in our class picked to strip off for the vast majority of outdoor sessions something the girls always picked up on too. I never felt there was an agenda it was funny how it happened. I don't know what Clair thinks but I feel stripping to the waist (at least in the gym) is a good thing and should be encouraged.

I've been reading this thread for a long time and am disappointed thatit's been hijacked by so many fantasists so in the hope of getting it back on track I've decided to make a contribution.

I attended a state Grammar School in the late 1960's/ early 70's. PE Kit was white T shirt and shorts with underwear allowed. Showers were in theory compulsory but dodged by many as there wasn't much supervision. I only remember one boy wearing a jockstrap but he went on to represent England at cricket so perhaps not surprising.

I never felt that there was any favouritism when it came to shirts or skins and was probably both for about 50% of the time. Higher up the school we often played 5 a side football for one of the PE periods with four or five teams and first goal wins. The other teams had to sit on top of the wall bars and know when it was their turn to replace the losing side. It meant you woulod play a number of games during the lesson as both shirts and skins.

I wasn't particularly good at PE or games but tried to make up for it through effort. This often included vocally with me frequently disagreeing with decisions. On one occasion I accidentally caught somebody with my elbow whilst playing basketball and when penalised asked what was that for? At the end of the lesson, the teacher who was taking the lesson and who played rugby at quite a high level sent me to put something in the store as everybody else left the gym. As I was walking out he walked alongside me and elbowed me quite hard in the stomach before walking out, leaving me on the floor, and telling me that was what I'd done. We just accepted such summary punishment without argument although I think it did becoming bullying towards some of the weaker boys.

And this, from three years ago looks strangely familiar, except that the poster's name is different.

Comments by Eric on 11th August 2018

Just to talk about pe shirtless experience
One time we were doing PE and we were playing football at sea. It was winter and we were with a vest because there were around 35/38 F. degrees. One of my friend made my a strong faul and I reacted so that teacher order me to take off my shirt and to play without it as a punishment. It was very cold but I was used to it because sometimes I run in snow bare chested. The problem was that I threw her my shirt so that she got very angry and said: “ok if you don’t want to go to the headmaster for this, just go into the sea” I was frozen, without a shirt and it also started raining, in fact my classmates went to repare under a palm, but I had to do this thing to avoid the headmaster so I entered in the sea and remained there for some minutes. When I came out she didn’t give me back my shirt so that I was shirtless with pouring rain on my chest and I couldn’t warm in any way... unluckily I reacted another time to the teacher so after we went back to school on foot, obviously I was still shirtless under rain, she said ok we must continue. She said ok I put your shirt in your class but you’ll go back school after other 2 hours of excericises. She let me run for other 10 kilometer in a park near school. It was very muddy and my chest got dirty. Then she let me made a lot of push ups near puddles so that I can got more dirty. At the end of the punishment, which lasted 3 hours, she said “ok you’re tough, you can go back school on foot, I’ll go back by car because there are 5 kilometres”... the last 5 kilometers I was too tired, it stopped raining but it started hailing and my chest was covered in mud, grass, water and other dirty things.. at the end I discovered that it wasn’t only a punishment because she also gave me 10 which is the maximum vote so that all this effort was paid.. moreover it was very exciting too and I think that in the future I could do this thing another time, maybe even more tough.

Of course 'Josh' is telling very big, tall tales. Lying, fantasising or however you want to judge it. Behaving like that with a child in the care of school would be an immediate suspension and almost certain dismissal offence and possibly more, whenever it happened. Name the school and name the teacher and name the date to provide verifiable details otherwise, but that wilI not be forthcoming so not too much time needs to be wasted on such claims. I wrote on the Clitheroe discussion bringing to task somebody styling themselves as 'Sandra' who wrote her/his own fairy tales and it was followed up by this other character who has actually placed the very same tale on here as he did on the Clitheroe chat, twenty four hours apart. I have no idea what motivates such people.

Most Phys.Ed teachers were and still are decent people who really cared although I will freely admit there are always the bad apples and I saw that a couple of times myself over a number of decades, but it would have been the same in any job probably. One of my own colleagues left very suddenly and I was never able to find out the details despite working with him for seven years. But we also used to get letters from former pupils full of praise and good memories of their time in school even in Phys.Ed lessons with all that entailed.

I feel really rather sad when I hear about those with bad Phys.Ed memories and poor self image about themselves long into adulthood. Some youngsters end up appreciating being taken away from their own personal comfort zones and yet others are left resentful, sometimes forever, if the evidence I have browsed on here is anything to go by.

Thanks to Claire for the detective work - I thought I remembered 'something'.

I think Josh ... is telling fibs. (Santa won't come if you tell fibs, you know)

IF!!!

Does this previous posting here look familiar? Same basic elements, aggravation of female teacher, cold, shirt removed and inaccessible, only one in class bare-chested,

"Comments by Josh on 6th December 2018
Hi, I came from a small village near Bristol, and yes, our teacher used to punish us by caning ourselves. One time I forgot PE kit, and she ordered me to join the group taking off my shirt, then she take my shirt so that I cannot take on if I was cold. It was winter and extremely cold, moreover I was the only one bare chested but I was very angry so I offended her.. it was the end, she ordered me to run other 5 laps (400 meter each one) while the other boys were seeing me from the window because of cold. At the end she caned me and it was terrible because I still was shirtless until she let me go inside and gave me my shirt back, even though I prefer to remain shirtless because my chest was full of sweat and I didn’t want to dirty a new shirt."

IF Josh's story is true, it only shows that women teachers can be as sadistic and repulsive as male teachers. There certainly seems to be some very dubious people teaching PE - and 10/15 years takes us to as recently as 2006.

Stuart, my apologies for mis-attribution!

Have you ever been punished either at school or outside? I remember 10/15 years ago when I answered back my teacher, she didn’t let me run or other things, she only told me: take off your shirt and let me tie your wrists to the basket. Obviously it was outside and weather was really cold, if I run I could warm myself but in this way I had to stay an hour taking cold. More over, She told the other guys to untie me at the end of the lesson and to go home without re entering school. When teacher left, after an hour in freezing cold bare chested, I received the true punishment, because the guys decided not to untie me.. I received a lot of punch, some spit, some whip and I remember a guy who put his cigarette out on my chest. The only thing I could do was to watch and take it. At the end they untie me, but I can say it was strangely funny, even though I was destroyed ahah

Finoa , it was me who went to Caterham not William. Yes it was compulsory naked swim in the prep school up to what is now year 8 (13 years old).
There is photographic evidence on the school's alumni website from the 1930s that nude swimming was throughout the whole school back then, but I dont know when it changed to just the prep school only.

I was never a boarder so can't comment on the bedtime dress code.

William - was swimming nude compulsory for you at Caterham. Pr was it officially optional and widely practiced.

And going a bit off-topic, the Boarders clothing/equipment list at Caterham used to say "nightwear, if worn". Can you remember how that was implemented in practice?

William
I went to Caterham Prep School in Surrey between 1973-77 and we sawm nude inthe senior schools indoor pool. It was pretty common back then , certainly in all boys private schools.

Trevor - thanks, just been back and read your post.

ChrisG

If you can't access the Telegraph article l gave a short precis of it in this thread on 29 June 2020.

William - but only if you have a subscription to the Daily Telegraph.

70s surely would have allowed it, it was the time of sex liberation, and on the photograph there are only very small children, I can't imagine it being offensive. Here you may read about naked swimming at Manchester Grammar School, which lasted into 70s since 1920s.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3622082/When-naked-school-swims-were-normal.html

Blimey! I think that a lot of posters here would have, sorry "would of"(!), been better not going to their P.E./Games lessons (which seemed to cause much grief anyway), but have extra English lessons instead. Then they wouldn't have had to teach themselves. There you are you see - two problems solved at once! ;) Don't know how they get me for the money....

I sympathise with "Nige" having read so much fiction in some of these replies here, but I cannot imagine why he thinks I would pretend to be a Frenchman - and reply to MYSELF! - isn't my English very good?.

I have very different views to him, and I would not have taken with amusement the idea of a teacher with wandering hand trouble touching my backside.

I can assure "Nige" and anyone else under the misapprehension that I post here under my own name which is a real one.

I think he’s Mr Dando, or Alan or half a dozen others…

I think Jean the frenchie is probably Maltamon from Pennsylvania.

https://www.meldrethhistory.org.uk/topics/education/a-history-of-meldreth-school-1960-1969/the-school-swimming-pool

In July 1964, Mr Harding sent a letter to parents requesting their help in raising £250 towards the cost of the school swimming pool. The swimming pool was delivered on 19th March 1965 and work started on its erection. The building of the pool was a collaborative effort. The senior children worked energetically after school preparing the site and painting the sides of the pool. With the help of parents the erection of the pool was completed in May and it was enclosed by a high wooden fence.

The children were able to use the pool during the Whitsun holiday from 6th to 14th June. A small pool belonging to the Mr Harding was also erected for the use of the smaller children. On 21st July 1965 Miss Bowen officially opened the pool and all the children became members of The Duckling Club and received their membership cards and had their swimming progress monitored. According to the school log book, “all children have the opportunity of one immersion per day at least “.

I was only at the school for a couple of years and really loved swimming, although Steve is right it was usually very cold! I am sure that as an 8 or 9 year old I remember boys and girls having to swim naked, but can’t remember if it was just the younger kids or the whole school! Anyone else remember ‘skinny dipping’?

https://www.meldrethhistory.org.uk/topics/education/a-history-of-meldreth-school-1970-1979/photographs-from-the-1970s

The school swimming pool, July 1972. Surely that wasn’t allowed!