Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Neil on 3rd March 2024 at 12:47
Comment by: Alan on 3rd March 2024 at 04:02


I am planning to repeat the question with the same two classes on Thursday and Friday, using an old used training shoe box with a slit in the top and some slips of paper placed through it just to see if the result comes out exactly the same under those 'stricter' conditions. On leaving they will be asked just to grab a felt tip and probably place a number one or two for the choice, or something like that, with nobody being able to look over anyone's shoulder at what they write. The coin method was secret enough may I add.

Whether I would widen it up to others remains to be seen, although I take your point about sample sizes Neil and agree I would find the answers genuinely useful. Based on what I have discovered with the coin method it would seem unlikely that other classes would have a very dramatic difference I would suggest.

I do agree with you Alan on the memory issue. Some people have very good retaining memories. That is evident in teaching, even in PE, never mind the academic subjects with more detail about them.

Comment by: Nathan Hind on 3rd March 2024 at 00:01

An interesting result there Nathan. I think if you were to do that with all your years and classes it would be even more interesting and have the authority of a far bigger sample size. The question you asked seemed quite fair and to the point. If I'd had to guess the result out of 26 I would have made an estimate of at least 20/6 maybe, so the result you got does not surprise me. I would not have been very surprised to see 26/0 actually.

I suppose this has given you confidence to carry on.

Comment by: Lance on 2nd March 2024 at 14:46
(Comment by: TimH on 2nd March 2024 at 11:35)


"I do wonder if some of the angst that is mentioned here comes from some sort of deep memory that only lasted a second or two and which we thought nothing of at the time, but which comes back to 'haunt' (or 'taunt') us."

Personally I think the fact is some of us have better (i.e. we retain memories) sharper than others. One memory bank is larger, if you will, than anothers. Some people find it hard to remember, for example, what they were doing last Sunday, (unless it was something unusual or unforgettable) whereas others can remember details of random Sundays going back years. An animal who has been ill-treated, for instance, retains that memory for years afterwards, even though the abuse might have "only" happened for weeks or months, and if it finds itself in the same situation will cower. Ask any animal charity, about retained memory whether it is a Chihuahua or a Great Dane, they recall the events years later, unfortunately. I knew somebody who had a rescue dog, for example, and though he lived for 15 years after being rescued he still cowered each time the newspaper was taken out of the letterbox,

I can actually remember making terrible gaffes when playing, for example, even if it was a rehearsal, you have to forget it at the time but you store it in your memory bank, and even when you go back to the tune, months later, I would remember exactly where I made the goof the last time. As for school, remembering that I was in contact with one of our two weird teachers twice a week, three times in one case and four times the other, and dreaded every moment of it, that wasn't a case of "a second or two". It was for the seven hours a week, and that is forty years ago now. These are genuine memories - always concerned about the temper blow-ups throughout the lesson, the threats of objects being thrown about, and the punishments one of the two dished out. You already know about the concerns with the other individual.


Comment by: Nathan Hind on 3rd March 2024 at 00:01

It might be worth repeating that experiment with the 14-16 year olds, if you are content the method you used was foolproof, Nathan. But surely boy B would have seen which way boy A placed his coin?. Not exactly a secret ballot as we recognize the concept, was it?

It might just be that the pupils thought it was a pusillanimous exercise, since if they voted against the status quo nothing would be done. It reminds me of the vote the Irish had some years ago about the membership of the EU - a majority voted against membership, so the Irish government arranged a second vote and got the result THEY wanted.

Much to my surprise my colleague at work had no objections to a little testing out of feelings on PE so I thought I would give it a quick go. No ballot boxes were involved, no pens, no crosses on bits of paper, and I decided to try this with just two classes and that will be as far as it goes for now.

I took two separate classes, a normal class of Year 8's and another Year 9's and after PE finished for them on Thursday for the Year 8's and Friday for the Year 9's, I gave each class, both comprised of the same amount of 26 boys each and asked them to pick up a 10p piece from a banking bag I had brought with me on those two days. Both lessons were in the gym and one was in morning, the other afternoon.

The boys were asked to place a coin at a random place onto a bench along the far side of gym and return across to the group. It took a few seconds each. I'd explained I wished to know how they viewed PE, and asked for heads if they found shirtless PE okay and tails if they found it not okay.

I then walked up to the bench and in full view of everyone checked out the heads and tails that had been left along the bench. Nobody could tell who had placed which coin might I add.

Question as I asked - Is being told to do PE in a bare chest acceptable to you? Heads for yes, tails for no.

I also gave an abstain option, which was taken up by nobody at all. So there was a positive answer one way or the other from everyone, two classes of 26 each.

Year 8's (age 12 & 13) - Heads 23 Tails 3

Year 9's (age 13 & 14) - Heads 24 Tails 2


I would just like to let that result above sink in and speak for itself.

I am not only muslim but gay but I have had a western upbringing. I am 47 years old and have never been able to reveal this to those in my life, nobody, incase my family discovered this.

I had no special opting out on account of my religion in school. I remember when I was 14 or 15 slowly realising I liked the same sex boys around me more than just as friends, and that I liked looking at them as other boys looked at girls. This made me very unhappy and I tried to fight it for a long time and finally gave up trying in my mid 20's. My awakening actually placed an extra burden on me in PE in situations like showering with others and not wearing shirts. There was still a lot of homophobia about even in 1990 and I felt scared at times on account of my religion, my skin colour and sexuality which I knew would never be accepted by my family.

I think a thought might be considered for the many who were at school and went through the showering and shirtless system who were like me.

It was good to get an answer to my question about Dave's 'freedom fighter' email. Thanks.

Bill, you had a very generous reaction to being checked out on your story by Ross there on the shirtless school runners. I thought you might take umbrage.

Regards Bev and other recent female posts, I can understand why boys would be shy or nervy in front of girls if made to go shirtless with them in gym but can't really understand why many feel that way among the other boys. Someone mentioned boys from different backgrounds and affluence, and I think shirtless does act as a great leveller, just like actual uniform is meant to do.

Alan, you made a good point about some of those chavvy clothes with SuperDry emblazoned all over them costing a small fortune nowadays. A kid with one of those would feel superior to one in a plain unbranded top or something like Tu from Sainsbury's. Bare chests get rid of that entirely and seem the easiest option to me.

Lance - Not unreasonable for a PE teacher to show willing and go shirtless once in a while. I was always told that if I ate my greens I'd grow hairs on my chest. I love my greens and always ate the lot willingly, very few hairs on my chest worth noticing really. So I can bust that myth right here and now. Chest hair is out of fashion nowadays isn't it with male grooming taking hold.

Comment by: TimH on 2nd March 2024 at 11:35
I do wonder if some of the angst that is mentioned here comes from some sort of deep memory that only lasted a second or two and which we thought nothing of at the time, but which comes back to 'haunt' (or 'taunt') us.

I haven't looked fully at the latest posts but I think someone said something on the lines that the 'problem' with 'skins' wasn't so much being shirtless but the actual act of being told to go shirtless and taking your shirt off - an interesting comment.




Haven't most of us got fleeting brief memories of some things that happened to us at school that we didn't like that we might think about from time to time?

On the second point here, it wasn't me that made such a comment but it sounds similarish to my own thinking. School had a perfectly well set out PE kit but I used to really dislike it when ordered to remove tops and prance about shirtless, especially being on the wrong side of team splits as the skin in particular. I always thought showers at school should have been a personal choice. My opinion was that only my parents or the doctor/nurse for medical reasons should have the right to tell me to remove clothing like that, not a schoolteacher. But I kept those thoughts well hidden to myself and just got on with it and nobody would ever have really guessed.

Somebody has told Nathan that if he wants to do any further shirtless PE then he should do so with his class. That's a good idea. I did have one PE teacher myself who often took his top off in some PE randomly. I remember he had a very hairy chest!

@Neil - 01/03/2024 - 22.51

Neil - a combination of both - basically 'Thanks' for writing on here and expressing their opinions, in what has become a male orientated group.

A few weeks back I expressed the opinion that this group was 'broken' and I feel it has a long way to go before it returns to a chatty 'All are welcome' format. In recent months I have made myself unpopular in a group (not on the www) that has just become the same sterile group of ABC1s of a certain age, all repeating themselves and not welcoming new (or younger) people - unfortunately I see elements of the same here.

'Nuff said ...

Comment by: Bernard on 2nd March 2024 at 00:09
Mickey Grant - I think part of the problem with the remarks you, and probably others including myself, find offensive is a confusion over terminology. When reference is made to a homosexual or gay teacher I think (hope) this should mean a paedophile teacher. A homosexual male teacher should be no more threat to young boys that a straight male teacher is to young girls. It is the paedophile tendencies which are abhorrent and a danger to children of whichever sex is involved.



THIS ABOVE^^

Exactly Bernard. Said perfectly. This is the continuing mistake that Alan has been making in his posts, to tar a very large minority with a very unpleasant insinuation, even if that is not his intention. To also suggest that certain professions should be off limits to gay people is quite strange in this day and age.

I'm straight by the way but I found John's assessment quite persuasive in the middle of his comment yesterday.

Comment by: Bernard on 2nd March 2024 at 00:09


Clearly both men I have referred to were paedophiles - and there was nothing "gay" about either. I always find that word a misnomer.

Hi Bev - thanks for your comments.

No - I wasn't a skinny youth from the early 70s! By that time, I'd had three (unhappy) years in an office and had moved on to College where I was learning a profession which stood me in good stead until nearly thirty years back when illness forced me into a premature 'retirement' although I still 'practice'. (In my college days I was involved in chasing the girls and getting involved in railway preservation: the two are not mutually exclusive - I still have friends made at time, even though its fifty years on).

I do wonder if some of the angst that is mentioned here comes from some sort of deep memory that only lasted a second or two and which we thought nothing of at the time, but which comes back to 'haunt' (or 'taunt') us.

I haven't looked fully at the latest posts but I think someone said something on the lines that the 'problem' with 'skins' wasn't so much being shirtless but the actual act of being told to go shirtless and taking your shirt off - an interesting comment.

Very nice to have some female perspectives I agree with you Tim and nice to see another comment from Bev here.

Taking being a very young child out of it, pre school, swimming lessons were the first time I ever got really stuck in with girls and went bare chested and I would have been around about 9 maybe, but those lessons were not at school and taken privately with a family friend who I went to at weekends for tuition with a selection of boys and girls. I do not remember feeling any issue about it.

When it comes to school PE, there was definitely some mixing but not much after primary ended, I shared a handful of PE lessons in my early teens with girls and became a bit more conscious of my own body when I was among them rather than with just the boys but not for long. I wasn't shy, just aware they might be paying more attention and especially when your upper body was on show.

Sensible schools still adopt PE in the traditional manner in my view.

Bev, you have said - 'Both women and men took me for PE in those days. I actually preferred some of the male led lessons and the one I hated the most was netball.'

A little known fact that might prove quite a surprise for some readers here. Roughly speaking between the ages of 12 and 14 girls in general are not just equal to, but are a bit stronger than boys the same age as them in class.

There is a lot of value to be had from sharing PE among the genders once in a while. Although men mostly take boys and women take girls there was always some crossover where boys classes could be taken by women on staff, somewhat less with men taking girls though, but mixed boy/girl lessons had their place. At the time I would not have considered that a young man in PE should have to cover up his body (bare chest) simply because girls were to be alongside during PE on any given day. In my case this sometimes applied not just inside the school gym but through spring/summer term outdoors for general athletics which was sometimes shared.

With girls not at any major disadvantage at the ages I mentioned it is quite possible for both genders to share PE on an almost equal footing with each other.

You said you disliked Netball Bev. One of the things I would change going back would be the over reliance on the boy/girl stereotype that sent boys into doing one set of things and girls into another purely on being either boy or girl.

I am sure that as many boys actually liked the chance to show off their growing physique to a girl as much as any that wished not to do so or hide it.

I know you're fond of a good quote Alan so I have one from Socrates for you.

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable"

Mickey Grant - I think part of the problem with the remarks you, and probably others including myself, find offensive is a confusion over terminology. When reference is made to a homosexual or gay teacher I think (hope) this should mean a paedophile teacher. A homosexual male teacher should be no more threat to young boys that a straight male teacher is to young girls. It is the paedophile tendencies which are abhorrent and a danger to children of whichever sex is involved.

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


Oh, thankyou back Tim! I didn't expect a complement for that. You must have been one of those skinny boys I mentioned then from the school gyms of the early 70's possibly?

We used to share our thoughts in breaks about one or two boys we liked but I don't really recall anything bad being said about anyone. Like one of the other women on here said, she and girls were the shy ones confronted with a boy in school in PE wearing very little for gym. That sounds accurate to me. But I do also remember bashful boys myself from school PE and I found them to be rather nice. I would never have dared say anything about their actual bodies to them though at that age but they were just like the recent clips on here and were a good healthy looking lot, with some quite long hairstyles at the time. Blond and slim was just my type then and I went out with a boy from one of those PE classes later on when I was older.

It's a long while ago now, but the thinking that any one of the boys in the school gym with us might not want to be dressed down like that would never have crossed my mind then, or the fact that they should have to put a sports top on just because they shared PE with us sometimes to cover their modesty.

I think we had a fairly healthy lifestyle back then. Both women and men took me for PE in those days. I actually preferred some of the male led lessons and the one I hated the most was netball. Every girl was supposed to love netball. Many of us hated it.

I will admit that no girl was very fond of showers in school though. It was always done through gritted teeth and as quickly as possible.

Comment by: TimH on 1st March 2024 at 19:20
Simply, My Thanks to Yvette, Bev & Lisa (& not forgetting Frances) for their recent postings.
Thank You!


Just for being women, or for what they actually said, or both?

I have to say I could not quite believe it when I saw the same thing put up here again from overnight. I think some people feel safe dwelling on their bad memories rather than trying to free themselves from them.

The points from Yorkshire Dad were welcome addition. As far as I know child protection does not prohibit the mandatory use of showering in this day and age, or shirtless PE being asked of sometimes. A school is considered to be a safe environment after all, although I know that might sound like a sick joke for anyone who was bullied badly either by other pupils or a teachers obviously.

Chris 69:

What was the reaction of your classmates and you having to be shirtless for PE back then? Was it ever a topic of conversation among you? How did you play team sports being shirtless all the time? Did you have any mixed PE lessons with girls present?

Reading Chris G's comment (February 29 2024 at 22:43), I'm guessing you don't know why they introduced bare-chested PE after a couple of years? How long did you discuss ditching the vest completely before actually doing it?

By that age vests were ancient history for me. Come to think of thinking back to those primary school days I don't remember whether those of us who were still in vests took them off when changing or whether we just put PE t-shirts on over them? Which would seem silly but then if we'd had to take them off I think I (and probably the others) wouldn't have bothered putting them back on afterwards. I'm overthinking now.

I have vague memories of a couple of lessons in infant school where we took our tops (including vests) off - couldn't tell you what we actually did. This would be early 1990s. It would never have occurred to me at that age not to put it back on afterwards even though quite a few already didn't wear them.

Comment by: Chris G on 1st March 2024 at 16:59

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 don't think AI chatbots are that clever yet, or even if they were, that they are bothered about PE lessons. What does a shirtless chatbot even look like anyway?

I quite like the picture. It's a good illustration of a regular, bog standard PE class of the time, no need to move it. I very much doubt that alone is responsible for the nature of the chat on here.

I do agree with both John and yourself on the quote that was picked out. But the reason Alan gets responses is he seems quite unusual to me. If you look back a few days even the serving PE teacher of the moment, Nathan, called him interesting, although that isn't necessarily as complimentary as it might sound at first, in the same way that if I saw a nasty accident I might stop and take an interested look.

I was always confident, maybe overconfident at school. PE was a doddle, whatever I might have taken off or kept on to do it was neither here nor there to me really, shirts off, shirts on, so what in my own mind. Was often keen to shower and first to get everything right off and didn't care who saw me and what they were looking at. But then I'm the other end of the spectrum to the really unconfident ones who write on here.

I was reading back through older pages and saw one or two of Craig's comments on his bareskin runs and he told the forum how many of the men are not what he thought of as confident but gave that a go. Maybe it's time for our unconfident forum member to join something like that.

John, what you said at the end was important. Everyone has their story to tell and should be respected for that even if others don't like it or relate to it, and I am a complete opposite to you Alan but if everyone on here held the same viewpoint and attitude to everything it would be an extremely dull read.

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.