Burnley Grammar School

Comment by: Terry on 24th June 2025 at 13:30



"l....... I think the trick with being self conscious, especially when it came to the inescapable showers at school was to try hard not to show it even if you were. I think most boys did manage it, like you say, boys can hide things quite well when they want or need to. Did you manage to or was it obvious how you felt in front of your fellow class? In my own school I remember one or two boys who could not pull this off and there were always elements in class who were keen to pray on such open insecurity, and the teachers didn't worry who was insecure that was obvious. I can't think of anything I would have considered so awful I would have truant school to avoid it........."

I always managed to disguise it myself Terry, except for the anger I felt for our teacher,m gawping at us.. I also I have to admit I frequently truanted on Wednesday afternoon's between 13 and 16 because most weeks we had to spend the whole bloody afternoon in the park, and I couldn't stand being seen by the public as they passed by. It was bad enough in school, but out in public it was worse. I was caught sometimes, and I got the cane a few times for it, but the thing I remember is that, despite this being the only lesson I truanted from, it never occurred to the headmaster or his deputy, to try to find out why, or to make a connection, but they were not that bright anyway.

Hi everyone,

I’ve been reading through a few of the threads on here about PE lessons – particularly the ones where men talk about having to do PE shirtless and I thought I’d share my perspective from the other side, so to speak.
At my comprehensive school in the late eighties/early nineties, PE was always mixed – from the youngest year groups right up to the oldest. And the rule for boys never changed: they always had to be shirtless, wearing only plain white shorts, regardless of their age. Even for outdoor lessons, they weren’t allowed any footwear – just white shorts, bare feet, and a bare chest. Meanwhile, we girls had far more flexibility: we could wear T-shirts, tracksuit bottoms or shorts, and proper trainers.
What I find interesting is that, despite this strict dress code, the boys I was in lessons with didn’t seem remotely bothered. If anything, most seemed confident and completely at ease. There was no sign that they felt uncomfortable or embarrassed – even in mixed classes. It just seemed normal back then – part of the school routine.
In fact, it appeared to me that the boys were simply used to being treated that way. None of them ever questioned it, and there was never any fuss about what they had to wear – or not wear. It was as if that was just how things were, and they accepted it without a second thought.
Sometimes, we girls would have a bit of light-hearted banter about the boys’ physiques but it was always in good humour, and the boys tool it well. There was a lot of laughing and joking, and never any sign that anyone felt targeted or upset.
So when I read comments here from men saying they hated it or felt humiliated, I have to admit I’m a bit surprised. That’s not how it came across at the time. Of course, I completely respect that people may have felt differently on the inside, or that they’ve reflected on it in a different light later on. But from a girl’s point of view back then, it really didn’t seem to be an issue for the boys.
I guees I’m just genuinely curious. I suppose that some men's feelings about shirtless PE might have evolved with hindsight even if they were OK with it when they were boys? I find it interesting how differently something can be remembered depending on how much time has passed.

Grant, I think most of us probably spent at least one birthday doing a PE lesson between the age of 11 and 16 and possibly not thinking it was the best way to spend that day. I always wanted to take the day off school when it was my birthday so I could do what I wanted. I remember some people used to try and keep their birthday quite from everyone just incase of what happened to you, or something else. My mate George in school was once fully egged and floured on his birthday by some boys in the toilets at lunchtime, I didn't think that kind of thing was very amusing and just seemed nasty. I was given the bumps at least twice in primary school, the best thing was not to try and resist it and just go along with it and hope they didn't drop you hard back on the ground.

I can imagine the annoyance with a teacher like your Grant, I agree, it seems like thumbing his nose up at you to drive the course and not do it with you, and sticking a coat on in a car while he got you lot shirtless for the run doesn't play well does it. You said you went out the front gates and watched him drive off, so you were going off like that down what sounds like mainly residential or urbanised roads?

Yours Truly, I think the trick with being self conscious, especially when it came to the inescapable showers at school was to try hard not to show it even if you were. I think most boys did manage it, like you say, boys can hide things quite well when they want or need to. Did you manage to or was it obvious how you felt in front of your fellow class? In my own school I remember one or two boys who could not pull this off and there were always elements in class who were keen to pray on such open insecurity, and the teachers didn't worry who was insecure that was obvious. I can't think of anything I would have considered so awful I would have truanted school to avoid it.

Hi Louise,

I'm very sorry to hear that happened to you. This is why today's generation of teachers are micromanaged up the bahokey by Ofsted, because in the past when they had leeway they abused it.

Yes I really did truant. This from a previously timid, squeaky-clean boy who had always been anxious to stay out of trouble. After several weeks my dad found me out and dragged me up the school and demanded a meeting with the headmaster. To be fair the headmaster was laid back and humane about it all but I got the message: I couldn't get away with it anymore. After that I started coping. Not just with the games and the showers but with the bullying as well. It was possibly the single worst decision I have ever made in my life, but that is outside the bounds of this discussion.

I remember teachers like the one you describe, screeching and shouting at the children in their charge. It was par for the course in the 1970s and '80s and no parent seemed to challenge it. I stated in a post a good while back of the teacher who locked a boy in a cupboard in his first day at school because he wouldn't stop crying for his mum. I don't know how she got away with that. If it had been my son I would have broken her arm.

I remember struggling to fit in at a young age and somehow all too often still getting on the wrong side of these screeching harridans that constituted the teaching staff.

The joke of it all was they were christians. catholics, no less. Well. That's what they said they were. At that young age I interpreted christianity as kindness but they were so unkind.

Would it surprise you to read I have been a lifelong atheist?

One of the worst moments I ever remember at school was a PE lesson in October 1977, the month after I had started at secondary school in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and which also happened to coincide with my 13th birthday. Our teacher gave us our first taste of a school cross country and made every single one of the boys from a number of combined classes get outside stripped to bare chests like we did the gym, and it was not a warm day at all. In our case I remember many boys suggesting tops and being told it wasn't that cold outside, but it was, it was the week before half term and the clocks going back.

I was so angry when the PE teacher assembled us all in the school carpark without our tops on, black shorts, socks and trainers, bare chests, something like 40 or 50 lads, and stick a massive coat on and get in his car in front of us all and saying he was driving ahead of where we were going to run to and he would be waiting the other end with his stopwatch for us all, some couple of miles away. We all started running out the school gates and he drove past us smiling and off into the distance along the road and this swine had got us all shirtless and exposed to the elements. It was like a gigantic piss take. The teacher with us on the run was just telling us to stop complaining, alright for him, he was in a t-shirt.

When we ran the couple of miles and saw the PE teacher standing by his car with the stopwatch he called out our times. Then it all went into reverse and after we'd all got there, he drove off back to school again and we had to run back the same way to be timed again on arrival in the school car park before he shouted the usual end of PE catchphrase - 'right you lot, off and in the showers' where I was given birthday suit birthday bumps like kids used to do to each other in school in those days if they found out it was your birthday.

If anyone ever asked what my least favourite birthday was I've a quick answer, the first day of my teenage years on my 13th birthday. It was no fun at all, and there were many more PE lessons just like that over the next couple of years.

Comment by: Mark on 23rd June 2025 at 02:31


Hi Mark, no it wasn't me either. I did find it incredible that having said she didn't see any problems boys might have had, she didn't realise that boys would keep any kind of discomfiture to themselves and would hardly tell other pupils about them. I only post under my own name and with my contact details intact.

Hi Mark,

Nope, that wasn't me. I have posted my own response to Hilary, which you can read. Alan can speak for himself of course but I see no reason why he would choose to post under a different name in this one instance.

That poster's name suggests that they were triggered by what Hilary said and in the moment they opted for the first name to mind because the message was more important than the name. Kind of like while I opted to call myself Yours Truly.

Hi Hilary,

Your school years were 1974 till 1984? Do you mean you didn't have to start school till you were six?

It was a big deal for those boys you remember because it was humiliating for them. They were made to be nearly naked then forced in that state to share a gym with girls. What about this is difficult for you to understand?

Of course those boys you shared the gym with never said a word about it! They didn't have a choice. Communal showers at age eleven was the worst experience of my life till that point. I never raised a word in protest because our gym teacher seemed physically menacing. It emphatically did not mean I was okay with it. Why is this so hard for people on here, and especially, seemingly, women, to grasp?

If you ask me, stripping teenage boys to nothing more than a pair of shorts and then forcing them into a gym shared with girls who will inevitably be wearing more clothing is as insensitive as it gets. Personally, I was always allowed to wear a top in both primary and secondary school and It wasn't till I started reading this forum that I found out how rare that was for boys in the 1980s.

Also, numerous other previous commentators on here have testified to the ready use of the slipper on boys in PE lessons back then, a thing that you girls were privileged to be spared. Of course the boys you knew weren't going to object when the only likely outcome was a sore bum.

The fact that so many men on here have cited bad memories of bare chested PE, with or without girls present is surely evidence enough that boys did not feel comfortable with this. How much more evidence do you need?

As to those boys you remember whipping their tops off at the end of the day, I remember them too. I also remember the girls predominantly doing indoor PE barefoot and we can all witness girls today in the shortest uniform skirts possible. The key word here is, choice. It's their decision to be that way, not forced on them. Which is how it should be.

Boys in particular do not easily own up to feelings of insecurity. It's the things they don't talk about that you have to try to observe.

Did you really think boys had no issues with showers? Boys conceal everything from a macho instinct, which is the side of them you saw. There was a previous poster here who made the pithy observation that the only groups in our society forced to undergo communal showering are prisoners, people in the armed services . . . and children from the age of eleven. Just as we are becoming self-conscious about our bodies.

I have to emphasise that girls almost always got it easier regarding showers. At my school girls had shower partitions while for us boys it was bare balls all together, which, I gather, was the general trend in the 1980s. Plenty of other male respondents here have stated how only the boys were made to shower at their school. Again, we did it because we had to. Not because it was okay.

You're so right about your mum not standing over you in the bath at fifteen but your teacher still doing so!



As you say it was a very unforgiving time. A young, vulnerable age at which we were all just striving to survive at all costs. Youth shouldn't be like that but, you know, whatever.

Boys don't talk to each other about the things that make us unhappy, we bury them. Okay? We didn't talk to each other about the showers afterwards, we buried it! I think women are generally dismissive of mens' emotional issues. That women can be capable of prejudice is that last standing cultural taboo in the western world. But you do have them and I make no apology for telling you that. Every time I have brought this up here I have been answered with silence, and I don't expect any more from you.


I don't think adolescent girls should be ,made to shower. I also don't think adolescent boys should be made to shower.

"I never knew that many boys ever found school PE with no shirts a problem" - really Hilary, are you sure? I find that naive in the extreme. You must have been surrounded by some very confident boys your age at school if you think this, as you've said you shared many such classes.

I can't really work out why you would think that. Many boys at school are awkward and shy around girls at those ages when they are fully clothed in the full school uniform, or anywhere else for that matter where they might meet and come into contact with girls. So it sure as the sun rises goes that a lot of boys thrust bare chested into gym lessons in the company of girls at school suffered embarrassment or simple awkward and self conscious sensations when the choice to do so was not theirs, and the same would be the case today too.

"Responding to Hilary" that sounded like a comment from you Alan, am I correct and you put some of your comment in the wrong box? Or maybe it was Yours Truly who did that? It seems familiar as both of you have cited previous posters on here before in evidence. They were good quote picks actually.

Mitch, please don't mind my asking, but would you be willing to share one or two general recollections of your career, or of your own schooldays?

I only ask having read, with interest, other people's experiences recounted on this site (including comments from Christine Sanderson, a retired schools inspector, drawing on her professional knowledge) and occasionally having noted some of my own childhood memories. Please don't think I am prying. Did you work in primary or secondary schools?

Hilary, this site has already received first hand accounts from guys who were subjected to these situations. These excerpts from their comments might answer your question about why it was such a big deal to boys.


From Danny C "For me it was not the PE lessons we did that proved tricky, it was the drama classes we did, because they always involved girls from our immediate form and the class lasted a double period. ALmost half of drama was shirtless boys.
"I remember getting a sexual question once, not knowing the answer and getting my left nipple suddenly tugged at. Imagine boys doing that to a girl. Big trouble I bet. We had been sent off into small groups and I was among just girls in mine so chat was not being overheard easily."

From Adam Donovan "I'd get comments directed at me about how hot my shirtless body looked from a couple of girls and naively believed they meant it. But they didn't really. There was some deeply personal stuff said by some of them about boys bodies. Boys never threw back comments about girls in the same way. I was told that stick and stones breaking bones but words never hurting and all that, but are you kidding me! Hanging around gym a girl called Rachel once collared me with the observance, 'your nipples look weird' quite out of the blue. As soon as I look down at my chest it became comedy value.

"I wasn't alone in that, this was the practical goings on shirtless boys sharing PE lessons at school with girls in a secondary class at twelve or thirteen had to put up with. There's another thing I want to say as well on this. In such classes where boys share with girls but the boys are not wearing much more than shorts some girls play up for you to get reactions out of you and even think you are fair game for being touched."

From Ryan "I was forced into those kind of situations at school a lot at that age in the early 90s where girls shared the school gym alongside boys such as myself who had to present ourselves for our teacher in gym shorts and shirtless. It may be nothing to some people but it can be a big deal to others. I wasn't at all keen or confident like that and overly weedy, even though it probably wasn't. I'm familiar with the arm fold thing that got a mention, yes, it's like a shield defending yourself in an uncomfortable position. There was a girl who had to hold onto me in PE and touched my bare nipple and made a bit of a thing about that in the playground after PE, so embarrassing and there were one or two other girls who liked passing teasing or cutting comments about how boys looked."

My primary and secondary school years basically cover the years 1974 - 1984, and in all that time my own recollection of PE in both types of school was that we were around boys who did not have a top on in PE a lot of times, perhaps even most of the time inside. We shared the gym with the boys all the time in primary school and we shared the gym with the boys a lot in secondary school also, and my memory is of being surrounded by boys over the years with bare chests and never hearing any of them say a word about it and as a young girl I got used to seeing and being around such boys and finding it so normal I didn't think about it.

But I've got a question, because some on here have made an issue about sharing the PE lesson with girls, but all I want to ask is why is it a big deal to be bare chested with girls at all, what exactly did some of you think was going to happen in such circumstances with the fairer sex?

At the end of the school day in my secondary school I still remember lots of boys in summer who couldn't wait to pull the uniform necktie off from around their shirt collars and some who would unbutton their white shirts so they walked home with it open, or even taking the shirt right off and stuffing it in the school bag. Older boys in the upper years did that, I remember a couple of hot summers in my last couple of years before leaving.

I never knew that many boys ever found school PE with no shirts a problem. The thing that we used to mention was the showers, like others here have already discussed. Now everyone at school had a conversation with someone at some point about the showers, but girls do that kind of thing, was that something boys talked about to each other? I agree with the other female contributors on here who said that no girls liked having to take showers in school with each other because it was very hard not to feel incredibly awkward for so many reasons, and the knowledge that the teacher had this authority to send you to shower and then stand and watch you strip off and then watch you was half the problem with it. Your mum didn't watch you shower when you were fifteen and wouldn't want to, but the PE teacher not only wanted you to do this she wanted to watch you too. They wonder why so many young girls got hang ups about themselves, well the school showers only made matters worse, and obviously the same applied to boys too in their changing rooms.

It was a very unforgiving time with no give and take to personal issues.

I've worked at various schools across Nottinghamshire for thirty years and I can tell you now that requiring male pupils to take part in P.E lessons stripped off to the waist has remained quite commonplace, and has been standard issue in one school I've worked at.

There is a distinct difference in being forced to be shirtless and choosing to do it.
Last night I was driving home around 7.45pm and passed the town sports centre which has outdoor football cages. The cages were in use and the majority of the footballers were shirtless. A short distance further on I passed a shirtless male who looked to be mid-twenties running shirtless. A little further on I teenager passed me wearing a beanie hat and baggy jeans. He was however shirtless. I appreciate it was very warm last night but it shows that they were comfortable bring shirtless in public because it was by choice rather than being instructed to.
During my senior school career we were made to do gym sessions bare chested. I don’t recall doing cross country bare chested. We also had compulsory showers. I don’t recall anyone objecting and our teachers never joined us in the showers.
Our PE teachers seemed to have been very good compared to others mentioned here. One was young and one was much older with children of a similar age to us. I do remember this teacher doing shirtless gym sessions on occasions. Given the time-frame 1977-1984 and his age I suspect that he would have had to undertake National Service before becoming a teacher. It was also rumoured that he had been on the books of Chelsea Football Club in earlier times. Our school was in northern England so a long way from the big smoke.

Comment by: Darren on 21st June 2025 at 01:55
'It's amazing that teachers used to be able to just jump in the showers with the boys as they saw fit, stark naked like we were, yet he'd never get his top off in the gym and go shirtless like the rest of us, ever, which was surely more appropriate wasn't it, but thought not to be obviously,'



You're right, good point, I've never thought of that angle before. It doesn't make a lot of common sense does it, some schools with PE teachers who joined the shower like the pupils and took everything off, but would not dream of conducting the substantive gym lesson in a shirtless state in the same way they wanted boys to be. The photo above on the site is a good example, and looking at it you do come to the conclusion that the PE teacher feels he must set himself as different for the power dynamic and authority he needs to quietly portray.

Comment by: John E on 20th June 2025 at 22:25


"......Going to school in 1973 children were much more polite, well mannered, better spoken, and in awe of authority in its many forms, teachers, policemen, and our parents.

Back then you thought your parents had the answers to everything, could solve all the problems, and that all adults could be trusted in your own world, like teachers. I remember seeing a PE teacher early in my secondary school time beating someone with a plimsoll quite badly but instead of thinking how awful that was I just thought he deserved it and it was alright to do that........"


You sound just the sort of nice, unquestioning boy that dictatorial teachers liked, John. However polite you were, there were teachers who treated you like shit. You seem almost nostalgic in your post. I hope I am wrong?

Comprhensive school educated - Late 70's / Early 80's.

The bottom line seems to be that some people minded, some people didn't. Vive la difference and all that. I didn't mind actually having the opportunity get sent in the communal showers after PE because I hated getting mucky, especially after a cross country run or something, or rolling round in the mud, we did plenty of that and dirt was as much a factor of PE lessons as pure sweat. However, the handling of it could have been a little more tactful. It wasn't so much my fellow pupils from the class I minded the forced nudity in front of, I didn't mind many of them seeing me like that, it was one particular young teacher. He showered with us a lot. He just enjoyed his bit of power (he wasn't gay, well he married while at school). When others supervised (we did have 'helper' teachers and upper sixth boys who did games lessons and sometimes supervised the showers), it wasn't so much of an issue as they were more sensitive and discreet as a rule. It was the handling of the situation by the responsible adults that was relevant. Some teachers are predisposed to bullying and our PE teacher just happened to be one of those. His behaviour was perpetuated in lessons, not just the showers where he deliberately took an open interest in what we looked like when next to us. He was choosing to go in the showers with us, we were forced into being in them by him, and with him. I stood naked in the showers when I was fourteen with that PE teacher not 3 feet away from me and he looked me over and said 'you're coming along nicely', I never worked out if he meant my work in PE or literally my physical body he was looking at as he said it. It's amazing that teachers used to be able to just jump in the showers with the boys as they saw fit, stark naked like we were, yet he'd never get his top off in the gym and go shirtless like the rest of us, ever, which was surely more appropriate wasn't it, but thought not to be obviously, because no teachers at school ever went shirtless alongside their bare chested gym class boys who had to do so.

Going to school in 1973 children were much more polite, well mannered, better spoken, and in awe of authority in its many forms, teachers, policemen, and our parents.

Back then you thought your parents had the answers to everything, could solve all the problems, and that all adults could be trusted in your own world, like teachers. I remember seeing a PE teacher early in my secondary school time beating someone with a plimsoll quite badly but instead of thinking how awful that was I just thought he deserved it and it was alright to do that. I certainly remember a feeling in school that I was only ever one moment or mishap from a physical altercation from a teacher myself, and I witnessed a few of those in PE lessons.

The only way you got out of PE or a shower at school was if you had a verifiable medical note of some kind with a phone number on it so the back office could phone and check. You could not therefore fake written notes. This could take a couple of minutes, most boys mothers were home in the mid seventies and would likely answer. We'd go off to PE begin something, the person sitting it out would then get their note checked out while the teacher cleared off for a moment to make sure it was genuine. It seemed to work, I never heard of any fake notes.

There were plenty of attempted skivers off PE without a note, the forgotten kit boys. This worked best going outside, and not at all inside. Boys crying off PE with forgotten kit were wasting their time. Our gym was a bare chest and bare feet PE kit anyway, so those boys just went and got spare shorts or had to do it in their pants, even if they were 15.

Boys who tried to wimp out of PE outside because of cross country, football, rugby or just bad weather, and didn't bring any kit still had to come outside all the same. If there was any equipment or balls, cones or anything to put away they were left to do the whole clear up. On return to the changing room these boys who stood by while the rest of us did PE outside were often made to strip off and shower with the rest of us as punishment for not bringing their PE kit or a note of explanation. Despite this I remember boys never seeming to learn their lesson, I don't know why some people were like that. This would be as close as it came to defying a teacher back then. I've seen the recent Yours Truly comments about avoiding PE lessons because he didn't wish to go in the showers, but you would still have been made to at our school even if you took no direct part in the PE lesson proper, as long as you actually turned up in school anyway.

You don't need to study child psychology to know how to treat children properly and never did. So like in my case when a teacher grabbed my ear without warning and pulled me to him as I exited the shower and made me face him for a dressing down with nothing on, that person knew exactly what he was doing and did it deliberately because it was something you could still largely get away with forty years ago if you were the kind of person with that personality type. I don't need a child psychology course to tell me not to do that.

What was it with school teachers and ear grabbing anyway? If you want attention what's wrong with just taking someone by the arm or hand? Why the ear? Is it because you can inflict a bit of easy sharp pain by doing it, especially if you twist it a bit in the process, plus it does seem to feel more unpleasant and humiliating to be taken by the ear rather than by the hand or arm.

There's a lot to agree with on Insignificant Extra's comment about team choices. I only remember this happening for football teams once in a while. If it keeps going on for all types of teams and the same boys keep getting left until last then that seems unkind to me that teachers would keep allowing that, they're not blind, they can see what goes. I think this goes to show the power of a quick momentary comment in school to last a lifetime and how some in classes are always keen to pick up on comments. It's especially bad when a teacher gives such ammunition to be used.

I was fairly normal height and build and ability but that doesn't stop the self doubt. I can fully understand how someone who was both very thin and rather short might have faced problems in school, and especially a PE class. But I think it's about more than just physical size and shape, or even ability. Personality helps a lot. If you had a good personality at school, often a sunny one, none of the other stuff would matter as much. I remember we had a thin boy in my class, although he wasn't short, but his personality attracted attention from bullies, he was always threatening to tell his dad on people. That just attracted more trouble his way rather than less and I thought he was pathetic and self defeating.

Comment by: Insignificant Extra on 19th June 2025 at 16:39

I can feel and understand your anger in that post, and I think you are well justified to feel that way. One of the problems I had early on was I was very thin and quite short, and my P.E. teacher chose an insulting knickname which of course gave the other lads the excuse to use it as well. ("Tin Ribs" was the name chosen for a very insecure 11 year old)

God knows what "training" they gave the bullies and buffoons who went to P.E. teachers training college. If ours was anything to go by, they must have dredged the unemployment pool to find the pond life that they selected.

It was bad enough they were selected, what is unforgivable is that LEAs and headteachers actually employed them.

It would be interesting to see what criteria they use today, and if any of them have ever studied child psychology.

I feel and understand your antipathy.

Comment by: Insignificant Extra on 19th June 2025 at 16:39

Powerfully made comment this one, it will probably resonate with quite a few people I'd imagine.

I can't remember facing a cold shower at school but when we went swimming at the nearby public lido pool there were always people who complained about the water being too cold for them, which as far as I felt it, it never was when I went in. As well as with school I also went to the pool with my father at the same age and he used to be a funny one worrying about the temperature of the water and if I was in first he would often ask if the water was cold, well not to me it wasn't. Some people feel water very differently.
Ryan I think your story would very much be the exception to the rule. Lads like you would have been deemed as cocky at my school and brought right back down to size in no time at all.

Very impressive figures on your bareskin runners group Craig.

Why the strange name above my post you might ask?

Well when I was at school in the early eighties that was a phrase a PE teacher called me when I was picked last on team picks to do skins v shirts basketball. It stuck to me like the plague for months, a really horrible comment to make that the other kids in class kept throwing back in my face in PE lessons after he'd said it, I always dreaded the team picks which were always left to the two sportiest boys who left the same predictable lads to the last. Not enough is said about this method of choosing teams in PE lessons which seemed designed to be absolutely soul destroying to certain types of kid while making the best ones always seem superior. It was something that they never stopped doing and persisted with throughout school. So you had that pick and got left to last and then the decision on skins or shirts after that, last pick and then a skin, some of these effing PE teachers were such complete cretins and lacking significant brain power they couldn't see the effect all this had on us. Why set lads up to be deliberately rejected time after time. Pally kind of nicknames are fine but that was not, we were all known by surname to the PE teacher and to most of each other. If you suddenly called a lad in class by his forename they'd look at you as if you had a crush or something, it was an odd thing that. Of course many boys are not into keeping their tops off, the mighty communal showers forced on us with the twice weekly willy parade (a friend called inescapable obligatory showers that!) were the pits, how hygienic is it to have thirty pairs of feet all walking in the same small watery area anyway. I definitely remember some quite cool water showers and where was the soap, that's not a wash that was like getting caught in the rain without your clothes. It's great if you're sporty but what about those who were not, the PE lesson and those teachers succeeded in making many of us feel absolutely bleeding sh*t about ourselves for a number of years in our latter childhood and they knew damned well what they were doing to us.

Re; Gary comment.

Boys that like football seem to be the same boys that like hanging out shirtless, six youngsters have been doing that around my way this afternoon, they looked like they should have been in school but perhaps they were just relaxing having finished their exams. It's something seen often with boys and balls.

You can no longer afford to be outside in this weather in the UK nowadays for more than a few minutes with a bare body without skin protection, and not just between 11am and 3pm, I'd say from 9am to 7pm.

Comment by: Ryan on 19th June 2025 at 02:12


Every now and again I read a comment which makes me happy to know that school, students had the guts to stand up for themselves. - and win.

You are one of those, Ryan, and I am glad you had a headmaster who listened and wasn't a berk - like those two teachers were.

I hope if these archaic teachers are still around they have students who stand up to them now. I often wonder, if Starmer is serious about giving the vote to 16 year olds, and it is not just more cheap talk going nowhere, if school students will be given more say in their education and how teachers conduct themselves and behave towards pupils.. I would not stop students removing shirts if that is their own choice, but nobody should be forced against their will.

Craig, that's a very impressive rate your group is growing at.
My own PE kit was a pair of shorts. And we had a few punishment cold showers. today I still go shirtless when I can. And end my showers with a good long cold blast. My sons had shirtless PE and used their shirts for goalposts outside school. My grandsons have nets. But their expensive T-Shirts still come off, weather permitting.

Re - cold showers.

My school used cold showers very infrequently (after PE/games) as a punishment - I guess because it was very unusual it made more of an impact on the rest of us seeing a classmate made to take a freezing cold shower.

One of my friend went to a different senior school in the town, and they had gym based detentions. This was a hard workout, a run then a cold shower - every boy in the detention had to take a long cold shower.

When I was at secondary school in the late 90's nobody ever took their tops off in PE until we got two new PE teachers join the team when I was 14 years old and both of them were immediately disliked by all of us because they really began throwing their weight around with us in a lot of ways, one of them began telling boys not to leave the changing room with tops on and to just remain stripped to the waist, fully shirtless, bare torso/chest.

I was not one to roll over easily and spoke my piece, and asked why we had to suddenly take tops off for PE when we had never done it before and it made no difference. I think the reply I got back which everyone else heard was new teacher, new rules and all that self justifying stuff. Anyway I was made to take my stuff off and get out to PE with my shirtless body out. The only time I ever did a shirtless PE lesson against my wishes. After the lesson I complained about it again and mentioned speaking to our head teacher about it. My PE teacher was not best pleased at that and told me I was wasting my time and his.

Our head teacher was quite approachable and he would agree to talk to anyone about anything, and I was on the student body which made it even easier. I was an assertive kid when it suited me. The PE lesson when we first went shirtless was on a Friday and I spoke to my head teacher about it the next Tuesday after arranging to see him the day before. To cut to the chase, our head was hugely sympathetic and understanding and agreed with me and not the teacher, which came as a surprise. The head teacher told me he would ask our new PE teachers what their reason for insisting PE was done shirtless in their class was and that he would let me know the outcome. He had no idea the new teacher was doing PE lessons with pupils forced into no tops. The answer came very fast, and I was told my PE teacher would no longer be able to insist me, or anyone else in PE took our shirts off if we didn't want to do that, that we would be expected to only wear the designated PE kit and top but anyone who wished to could still take it off. My PE teacher was rather annoyed with me and let me know about it, I had weeks of trouble with him niggling me for snitching on him to our head teacher like that. Despite this there were about three or four in class who would do PE without shirts on, fine, their choice. We never did the shirts against skins thing because we wore lime green or bright yellow bibs over our tops when we did teams.

The teacher came and went inside the year. I didn't miss him one bit.

Unless I was swimming I was not having anyone tell me I had to keep my top off for no good reason.



Maybe I got lucky with a liberal head teacher, a man by the way. We had to shower though, which seemed normal.

Not many people have ever come on and mentioned cold showers, now that's something I would have expected to read a few more comments about with guys from the fifties to eighties especially. Cold showers must be a bit of a myth then.

Hello Yours Truly, I am happy for you to have proved my assertion wrong about boys.

Did you really play truant only because of the showers? I remember when I first had to and was just unable to hold back my fear and upset about it, which did make me feel awful as well. It's a long time ago since 1971 but I remember the teacher's voice and actions. Much as I disliked it, like many who felt the same, we would not have had the fortitude to skip PE. What happened in your case, because you can truant for a while but you can't keep doing it, so how did things come to a head on that for you?

Ursula, things I remember from our school were that girls and boys would run a school cross country together with the boys and girls teacher, and I very much remember boys I jogged alongside having both vests on and no tops as well. Girls wore similar style vests to boys but we did gym with boys many times and played mixed team games sometimes. The school gym often had lots of shirtless boys in it when we did gymnastics together, I think they had to be. If anything it tended to demystify boys a little bit especially for girls like me without brothers back at home. I knew a lot of girls who picked up casual teenage boyfriends through sharing classes together in our early to mid teens. I don't remember boys being bothered about their exposed bare bodies in PE with us, they always seemed alright about it didn't seem to want to hide away from us, but like you say Yours Truly, maybe many were just good actors.

When you next go out into a social setting with a group of friends and they start talking about schooldays take this test - bring up school showers. I did this last weekend and it set the conversation between our group of male and female friends alight with opinion that went on and on. Nobody didn't have something to say about it, and many of us went to different schools. It's a very triggering subject it seems even if you are the other side of forty now. Coming from a Jewish family I was aware how different I looked compared to the others. Thinking of this thread I mentioned my own time doing bare chested PE lessons and all the guys had done this to some extent with various thoughts on it, but it was the forcing of the showers on us that was the trigger for some vibrant opinions from everyone. I think what got most wound up was the being forced to do it bit where school had the right to enforce full nudity on us. It was quite a good discussion but one or two people really got quite heated about it all, a bit like on here.