Clitheroe Royal Grammar School

Ross - I too remember coming back from cross country runs with muddy feet, ankles and legs - the mud often got up as far as our shorts and even our backs. However, I also remember running on the dried out mud in the warmer months - this included the first couple of times we were sent out before we fully understood the benefits of running barefoot. We probably came back relatively clean on those occasions but rather more out of breath than the lads in the photo - they don't look as though they have gone very far.
As you say it could be quite cold to start with but we usually warmed up fairly quickly.

To Declan on 22nd April 2022 about a caning for having an opinion.

I had a hot headed middle aged PE chap in 1975 who chastised me for simply not running cross country to the time he'd set me and being much slower. For that 'crime' I got a couple of unbelievably hard whacks from his enormous 'punishment plimsoll' as us in his class called it, one on the back of my bare legs and the other on my backside when he called me over in the changing room as I got ready to shower. It really hurt and reddened my skin up. A summary beating for running a couple of minutes slower and being a straggler holding things up. He was a bit handy with the plimsoll and threw it at boys as well as walloping every now and again for very minor misdemeanours. Abusing his authority I call it, but they could do that then and it was considered fine. Isn't it hard to believe that assaulting your class like that on one man's whim in the moment was tolerated as recently as the mid seventies.

Ross - we looked at the photo a while back.

If you look at the gates, they're opening inwards and there's a street & houses in the background so the chances are that they're running from a run around the local streets. I think someone checked on Google Earth (or something) - It is an urban area

I'd rather think these lads are possibly leaving the grounds on a cross country run than returning from one. Simply because I know from my own experience when I always finished a run I'd be caked in mud! My ankles would be coated in wet mud and I'd have mud that I'd kicked up all up my legs and shorts... ahh good times! I didn't mind the run sometimes a bit cold to start but we soon warmed up.

Declan on 22nd April 2022 at 09:30

The caning was for arguing with my mother. It was just how things were when I was a boy and bad behaviour was just not tolerated. Mostly I bit my tongue but at sixteen I really wanted longs and was pretty forceful in making my case. My father was a headmaster though fortunately not of the school I went to and he had a fierce reputation among the lads of the secondary modern school where he was head.

When I misbehaved he put his caning skills to good use at home! I think I got six for that on my bare bottom and it was sore for quite a few days but I did get my longs!

Paul.
A caning just for having an opinion about not wearing shorts seems a bit severe.

In the 1960s when I was growing up, clothes had to 'last'. My parents were frugal and of course both had been used to rationing of just about everything including clothing. There was never any question of clothes being bought for any other reasons than necessity and requirement.

As such, school uniforms were bought to last, usually things were bought a bit on the large size and worn until they were too short, too tight or just worn out. That there was plenty of 'wear' left in something usually overrode any other reason for replacement. In seven years at school, I had three blazers which was one more than my mother thought I should have needed but she finally had to agree as I moved into the sixth form that my current one would not last two years and was already too small.

So to come to shorts. I wore them until I was sixteen unlike most lads in my year. Shorts were compulsory until thirteen but then 'optional' for the rest of time at school. I suppose I was lucky because one lad wore them right up to leaving at eighteen. I needed new trousers at sixteen because my school shorts were worn out and had been too small for most of the previous year.

My mother was intent on buying new ones, I had argued that I needed longs now and the argument led to a discussion with my father, my mother's solution to most things. In reality, in these circumstances, a 'discussion with my father' was a discussion between his cane and my bottom and of course as I'm sure more than I remember, the cane always won.

My father must have thought about it though, the caning was for arguing, not for wanting longs and a couple of days later, he took me, bottom still pretty sore, shopping for school trousers. I guess that was one caning that was worth it.

Did you feel comfortable wearing shorts 13 and did you wear them just to please your parents.
I too wore them at that age!

There was no choice in the shorts . The school uniform was either long dark grey trousers or dark grey shorts. Black was also permitted, and my family stuck to shorts. As I have said by the time I was getting to 13 they were quite tight.

What sort of shorts did you wear?
Wear you allowed to chose the shorts?

No point. Parents minds were made up. Shorts it was until they decided otherwise.

Declan,why didn't you refuse to wear your shorts like I did?

James
As far as I recall the main reasons that I was kept in shorts was twofold.
a) I was short
b) Long trousers were too expensive.

Declan,what was the reason that you were given for wearing shorts up to thirteen?

As far as I remember I went from shorts to longs when I was about thirteen.

Declan,I think that you were lucky that shorts were unobtainable for your size.Usually,the main criteria for boys wearing shorts was the boys age or his height.I wasn't particularly tall,so at thirteen my parents considered that it was quite suitable to keep me in shorts for as long as they desired.

James
My family relented and I wore "longs" when they had to concede that they could not longer purchase grey shorts in my size.

Declan,I didn't wear shorts on a voluntary basis,they were imposed on me by my parents and as you say we didn't"look grown up".
I did feel ridiculous wear tight fitting shorts like yourself especially when most of my friends were wearing long trousers.

James. I did not like wearing grey short trousers at secondary school was because most of my friends were in longs and I felt that I was not as "grown up " as them . Furthermore grey shorts that fitted comfortably were not really available as I got older and show the ones I did wear were tight and restrictive.

John,

Back then I never used to feel cold, the school was mostly unheated, there were radiators and open fires but they didn't do much to raise the temperature. At best a radiator might have the chill off it but they were never warm and there weren't many of them either. In our common room there was an open fire but it was small in a big room.

Water was at best luke warm and I don't remember ever having anything but a cold shower but you get used to it, I still shower in cold water today, it's so much more refreshing and it doesn't steam up the bathroom! When I used to go to the gym or play rugby, I always laughed in the showers at guys next to me because at times of course you get splashed and I always had freezing cold water while they had hot, oh, the complaints about being splashed with cold water!

Declan,what did you dislike most about wearing short trousers?04itq

We had swimming lessons once a week all year round indoors at the municipal swimming pool. Reserved for our school. We did not swim nude but often in the winter the water was cold. Any complaints about that got the reply swim faster!!!

Ritchie,
That regime was probably good for the immune system. I didn’t do nude cold water swimming at school but shorts and pumps were all that we ever ran in during winter for X country and it never bothered me.

I remember my mum being worried about me being ill in winter when I went to boarding school in 1960. The windows in the dormitory were always open. Six mornings a week we had to run at 06.30 in shorts and plimsolls followed by two lengths of the outdoor pool - naked. Shorts back on and inside for a cold shower and then the day could begin.

I only ever seemed to catch colds and the like when I was home for the holidays.

James I think the main reason for the delay in me wearing long trousers was because of my stature. although I was not particularly short compared with the other boys , I also think that to some degree it was cost. Shorts being cheaper to buy and if I fell over, I would not rip my trousers.

Chris G
It was a liberating feeling not being made to go to school wearing a vest under my school shirt and so much more comfortable doing PE shirtless. My dad was pleased when topless PE was introduced at my school but my mum worried that I’d get a bad chest in winter. Mum found that I became healthier from then onwards and was glad that she had less washing to do for my brother and I.

Declan - Like you, I was expectd to wear a vest/singlet for far longer than I felt necessary or appropriate. By the age of 10 or so, going without a vest in the summer months was aceptable to Mum, but the minute the weather turned colder, I awas expected to wesr one again. Full liberation came when I was about 13, when topless PE was introduced at school, the unintended consequence of this being that within a short space of time I, along with most of my classmates, had stopped wearing vests altogther. Although Dad thought the topless PE bit was a good idea, Mum wasn't quite so sure, although she did see the benefit of not having to buy me vests any more.

"Why was it a long time coming" for you to be promoted to wearing long trousers?Did you receive many adverse comments from your contemporaries for wearing shorts? I had to them at 13 so I know what you went through.

I have read the pro and cons of young ladies being prepared to wear bras, especially as a sign of growing up. As I have written previously, my idea of growing up was to be bale to wear long trousers(Along time coming) In addition I wanted to be like a lot of the lads and be able to stop wearing a singlet under my shirt. (Fat chance!!!)

Had to laugh, Jane

The delights of a younger brother!