Burnley Grammar School

Just a comment on Ricks last posting.

As people know we had National Service in the UK from the late 40s through to 1960. There is a suggestion that many of these young men were not particulary fit and that school PE teachers put these lads through it in the gym to try and develop a degree of fitness which would help them though the first weeks of basic training. Many of the PE teachers would themselves have 'done their time' and seen their unfit peers suffering and were trying to ease this 'rite of passage'.

Without checking I think I am right in thinking that the first Outward Bound School (Aberdovey) was established during WWII to teach seamanship & survival skills who might be joining the Merchant Navy and facing long voyages in open boats after their ships were sunk.

Christian on 17th. July.
What a silly thing to do by your Gym teachers. Especially as you appeared to be still recovering, and doing well to be back in school. It’s hard to understand how they could totally disregard the medical advice forwarded to your school. No wonder your dad was angry, good for him. I hope they were both told and made to understand the error of their ways. Then subsequently to mark you down is just childish. I’ve detected in the past as an adult, when sometimes having dealings with teachers how some seem to take on behavioural standards of the age group kids they associate with all day. Sad really. At least, despite my perpetually grumpy Gym teacher, he was sensible enough to leave me out of things until informed I could join the class proper. I can’t remember him making any allowances for me from that day onwards though, which I managed to cope with.

Robbie on 18th July.
I enjoyed that film, which I hadn’t seen before. These old films are always particularly interesting, as they really capture a snapshot of how the world was back then when growing up, so thanks for the link. It was made at a time when children’s films were frequently moralistic, and I would have been in early junior school at that time. A few years later I also did a similar cycling proficiency test. I remember that on passing, we received a pennant to attach to handlebars, and also an orange and green metal badge to wear. I noticed during the closing titles of the film, they showed the same triangular symbol, which was the very design of the triangular badge we all received.

How come all us boys who were in school in the 70s and 80s weren't also going through all these alleged intensely militaristic PE routines to knock top level fitness and total subservient discipline into us when we were constantly being told WW3 with the USSR was about to break out at any moment and we lived in fear of that at any moment and the Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Granted that no amount of fitness was going to save us from the dreaded 4 minute warning.

Very good post TimH. It would be interesting to know what the daily food and drink intake was of those boys back then compared to now. They looked good on far less one must surely assume. No hi-energy drinks and bottles of water constantly at their side. Just a drinking fountain somewhere, like I used at school. Remember those.

My brief: Ex-PE teacher of 15 years standing. Now a 69 year old part-time sports psychologist.

I have a bit of a problem with two of your comments Alan.

1. Gung-ho physical fitness.

What is wrong with physical fitness, even a bit gung-ho as you put it, or done with a bit of collective purpose. I wonder just how many of the boys of the film in '36 if they had all been around 40 or 50 years later would have rubbished their school PE class like that. Not many I'm sure.

2. Discipline fetishists.

Again, what is wrong with discipline and using it constructively such as we saw in the PE class of '36. It was discipline for a purpose and in no way is that any kind of negative as you attempt to paint it. The film was a good example of well practiced discipline in a hugely beneficial manner. Many of those boys probably felt the cane too at some point in school, now I've never been a fan of that at all but the PE discipline should be highly regarded, and that includes what they did, how they did it and how they dressed.

So both the points you raised as negatives, physical fitness and discipline are infact massive positives for a good, healthy and well lived life and physical fitness and discipline for me both go hand in hand with each other and are excellent for the brain and that modern word nowadays, mindfulness.


On the war point. What's wrong with being physically prepared just incase? What's the alternative, be unprepared, unfit and lose a possible war? Of course nobody in our country was looking for such an eventuality or wanted it but we didn't have the luxury of ignoring it unfortunately.

For Will (& Alan)
Pre-1914 the state of the 'National Health' was pretty poor - many young men joined the Army & Navy to get three square meals a day. When Britain went to war many in the Army were unfit reservists or recruits.
Moving on to the 1920s there was still this general ill-health - think of tuberculosis and rickets, and I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. With increased medical care these were overcome and there was the feeling that a good physical life could help everyone. People (who could) started good healthy exercise - think of the YHA, the Ramblers (founded 1935), the mass trespasses on Kinder Scout, etc. as well as local football & athletic clubs, etc. Some 170 'lidos' were built in the 1930s, as well as improvements to open-air swimming pools. I think you can go on about this - the film of Leyton High School (and, I think, earlier, a school in B'ham is from this period). 'Outdoor Education' also started at that time - I'm thinking specifically of Whitehough Camp School in Lancashire and Ingleborough Hall near Settle - all of this is on the lines of a 'Healthy Mind & a Healthy Body' and I don't think it was necessarily militaristic.

As Alan says, by the mid-1930s, many people were aware of the threat from Nazi Germany and preparations were begun to fight a war that many saw as inevitable. (There are pictures of a car with the placard: 'half-a-mo-hitler-lets-have-our-holidays-first'). Many young men sensing the inevitable, threw themselves into an 'outdoor life' to be fit for war. One guy I knew, a leading rock climber, went to Mallaig and then walked across the Highlands to the Depot of his fathers old regiment, where he enlisted.
Having rambled on, although these films are from this inter-war period and knowing something of the history of the period, I still find it very difficult to find anything purely 'militaristic' in all this.
End of rant.

Comment by: Will on 16th July 2023 at 22:59


You haven't seen the old Pathe' newsreels then, Will - apart from the 1936 PE one?. You will find stock footage of old Mrs Smith taking her kettle to the salvage yard to get them to turn it into a Spitfire, or elderly Mr Jones joining the Home Guard or fire watching at the age of 70. I am sure that most people on here will have seen examples of the "Britain can take it" trope they employed. Examples of gung ho physical fitness was another.

Why as adults should we concern ourselves with what schoolboys do today for exercise?. Times change, and even schools have to change with it. The days of sub-Army drilling in school is long past. Many of those lads had to join the army whether they wanted to or not, and there is definitely no money for the discipline fetishists to get their way with conscription again now. I am glad they don't have to go through the miseries some of us had to go through.

One here for Mike and Greg.

A short film about cycling proficiency from the sixties somehow ends up showing boys doing barechested PE in the gym, and if you look to the background there are all those boys hanging from the bars along the edge of the gym like you described. Not easy I agree. Then off to the shower - who would think they could get a shower shot into a cycling proficiency short film. I did that bars thing too by the way in gym, and took the proficiency test.

https://youtu.be/JlEm4tEodhU?t=197

Is it even legal to defy a genuine doctors sick note like that or are they just advisory?

Greg2.



In the spring of 1976 I had glandular fever and was off school for a month at the age of fourteen. Two PE teachers at the time actually defied a doctors note given to my school when I returned very weak and lethargic and with low energy levels, making PE a big struggle.

Because of that GP note I came into school without PE kit with full expectation of sitting it out or doing some other desk work. But I was called a malingerer who looked perfectly able to do at least something and was given a spare pair of shorts first timetabled PE back, and only shorts, and sent to gym as normal. Protest dismissed. I could barely stand for more than five minutes at a time. I was standing about doing an indoor ball game of some sort, barely touched the ball. Made to shower and could barely manage to get back dressed at the end. Even my friends were all hacked off for me.

Next day, after a very mad dad had taken charge of things with the head it took the family doctor to actually phone my school directly right to the top as well, following up his actual note, to bring PE two teachers into line and tell them I was not to do excess activity for a further month, meaning no PE.

I spent my time in the school library instead, quietly working and reading. They didn't want me even sitting out within their lessons. Neither did I much if I wasn't taking part.

Boy did I discover that PE teachers don't like being told what to do in the aftermath. I'd generally been a B grader in the subject through school but suddenly became a D or even E grader and the PE teacher/pupil relationship failed to recover even when I had done so and was back to my old self.

I don't know what the "Britain can take it" attitude is exactly, perhaps you know your history details better than me Alan, but I'm not sure schools in Britain were actively militarising their PE lessons in the mid 30s just incase of future hostilities. Perhaps the bigger question should relate to now and why schools are diminishing PE so much, far fewer hours each week than years ago, and what they do barely raises the pulse at times. We should think about getting back to the Leyton style of doing PE for intense working out and agility, not casual half hearted team games with half the class dragging their heels. By getting back to the Leyton style like the film showed I don't mean having to do it shirtless, just the actual content, although surely everyone doing PE shirtless like that does give added incentive to the lesson and foster a certain kind of collective spirit in some way. When I was in classes like that, every single boy without his shirt on, told to, it felt like we were all at one in some way and generally more disciplined. I associate being shirtless with being highly disciplined and I think it works well.

Mike, Yes, the school had been informed that I wouldn’t be able to take part in any form of P.E. until cleared by the hospital, and I think I can remember taking a hospital letter about this to the headmaster. I think I gave something to the Gym teacher as well, telling him when I would be able to take part. I expect this gave instruction on what I would and wouldn’t be able to do, and until when. I don’t remember doing rugby for instance for a long time. I’d actually been captain and top goal scorer in my junior school football team (!) but although I did again get into school teams, I was never as confident again somehow. Thankfully, my leg grew straight and strong, and was never a problem in later life.

Your description of the wall bars exercise was exactly what we did. We had such fixed wall bars all along one side of the Gym. I also remember it being very difficult on our arms at younger ages, until we’d built up some upper body strength during later teens.

I'm fully aware of the date and its significance Alan, so not sure you draw my attention to it. It's why I made the comment. My father was born in 1923, so 13 at the time of the film so 22 when the War ended, having joined up for training at the age of 18.

I'm making a big assumption here because I don't know, but has anybody ever addressed why there was never a no underwear rule for girls all those years ago in school PE like there was for the boys in some places? If not, why not? Why was it so vital in some schools for boys to do that and not girls? It's a presumption I'm making that this practice never involved girls, maybe due to monthly issues developing I don't know, but boys still had that little bit extra to keep tucked up didn't they. The whole thing is a head scratcher to me.

Greg2 did your parents not write or contact the school in some way to actually tell them about your fractured femur so that at least your PE teachers would be aware of any potential difficulties you might have in class rather than expecting the same from you as the others? I would imagine if you missed three months during your transition they must have known something. What a nightmare to be off school for so long at such an important moment in time that must have been.

I also remember being hung up on the side of the school gym on the frame bars we had while they were pinned to the wall rather than pulled out properly. We would hang in a line and have to lift our legs right up together to a certain height parallel to the floor, so our body was bent at an angle of 90 degress. When I first did this I was surprised just how much hanging my relatively light body with both my arms fully outstretched above me pulled on those arms and really strained them. Others found it harder than me and simply fell off too soon.

There was no obvious choreography in the style of Lewis's film that I recall myself doing but it looks like it might have been quite fun learning to sync up a routine with everyone else once in a while, I would have been alright with that.

I hope they all survived the war, especially the older boys at the end who may have served. A couple maybe still with us today, testament to those fine PE lessons they were given then, and good family genes.

Greg2: Look at the date, Greg - 1936 - the world had already seen the rise of Hitler and many people were already contemplating another war. This film is clearly part of the "Britain can take it" attitude that would continue up to and beyond the Munich crisis. It is similar to John Kennedy's promotion of La Sierra in 1962 - which just happens to be the year of the Cuban missile crisis.

I should assume that the lads taking part had been specially selected, especially as they are of different ages - perhaps there was a schools athletic club?, - I don't know.

I suppose, given the times you can understand it, but all the vaulting horses and headstands in the world will be no answer to the sort of war that will be unleashed, should we ever be pushed down that road again. Perhaps that is just as well - I read only this week that the Royal Navy are having problems recruiting submarine operatives, as they can't use social media on them -the horror! :-)

Lewis on 13th July at 01:31. What a great archival film to watch. I bet those boys would remember those exercises all their lives, if indeed this was a routine Gym lesson, and not just set up for the camera. But they all do appear very well practised with the routines, and all was certainly well choreographed with all boys looking trim and healthy. Though I don’t think many were overweight back then, and it was much that way still years later in the late 60s-70s when I was at secondary school. My father would have been the age of those younger boys at that time, and later to become a young soldier of WWII in for the last two years of the war. All those boys looking so young and healthy at the time of this film, it makes you wonder what fate had in store for them in those years to come. I do hope they all came through it safely, as my father did.

I don’t remember such a choreographed routine in our Gym lesson. We did do a few set pieces and stretches, which would follow our routine run around the Gym to warm up. I remember some routines hanging from wall bars while keeping outstretched legs. Very difficult for undeveloped 12 year old arms as well as legs. Similarly, there was a ground exercise which I also found surprisingly difficult on joining the class, this would involve lying on the floor, and then with outstretched legs, having to keep your feet about 6 inches from the ground. We would be expected to maintain this position for about 1 minute, which was very tough on young stomach muscles. It seemed to me at that time that most of the other boys were able to do this, almost effortlessly. But I suppose with only joining this class towards the end of the second term, having spent three months on a children’s ward with a fractured femur, I certainly wasn’t up to speed. My accident happened during the summer between junior and secondary schools, so I missed this big transition together with all the others boys.

So, before I was able to join all the others for my first Gym lesson, I would still attend, but just sit along the side of the gym and observe, or usually just do homework etc. I was still receiving weekly out-patient physiotherapy for the next several weeks and had to be careful. At the end of the Gym lesson, I also witnessed the obligatory showers routine. So, I knew what was in store for me with this too when the time came. When that day did come, I still vividly remember being so eager to get dressed, the Gym teacher barked out, ‘Dry yourself properly boy before putting your shirt on.’ So then having to take it off again and do that. What a strange, slightly vulnerable feeling it is, when you have your first communal shower at that age. Everything seemed out of your control and new. One of the things I most enjoyed after school was not having to do things I wouldn't chose to do any more.

Our Gym kit was strictly all white, and I don’t think we ever did Gym without t-shirt and footwear. I do remember being particularly proud of my new white Puma trainers, and we always had different coloured bibs for different team games. I’m not sure being shirtless would have bothered me too much anyway, as our class was usually all boys, and I was a slim, sporty kid, and I do now realise I was lucky in that regard. But, I’m sure I would have been much more self-conscious if we’d routinely shared the lesson with judgemental girls. What I do remember as feeling odd, was the seemingly almost nationwide routine of no underwear being allowed under our, short, shorts. And, I do remember this being checked a few times by teachers. There were rare occasions when we were joined by the girls for a Gym lesson, probably when their teacher was unavailable for whatever reason. The girls certainly knew about this ’no underwear’ policy for the boys, and took full advantage of our discomfort, often giggling together as they shared this lesson with their usually fully school uniformed classmates. We all thought this was very unfair, but as I think has been mentioned previously, there seemed to be no regard for boys’ dignity or indeed privacy in the past. In fact, this reminds of occasions when the girls’ Gym teacher would sometimes walk right through the boys’ changing room whenever she decided to, as though she thought she was entitled to do this. I remember she always had a slightly embarrassed smile on her face as she did so. There was never any need for her to do this, as the girls’ room was just on the other side, leading to the same Gym and staff changing room area.

The film clip certainly looks like a formal display put on by the best in the class. When we did pe there was no stipulation on the colour shorts we should wear and most wore black or dark blue. Furthermore they were shorter than those seen in the film. My secondary school years were 1961 to 1966.
What brings back memories for me was the vaulting horse which i had difficulty in clearing and in the same way I did not like the box because I was always banging my shins on it.

Toby males who pull their shorts too high and cover their belly buttons while shirtless look stupid. It reminds me of old men who pull things too high up. Definitely not a good look. Just be out and proud!

We should be very grateful to those who had the foresight so long ago to film everyday things like a PE class in a time when pointing anything at anybody and photographing or filming was a quite big deal. I wonder what the reason for it was at the time. I would suggest that the PE boys of Leyton were making an extra special effort to impress because they were being given the great chance to be filmed in 1936, the year BBC TV started. They would not have realised their school day in the gym would prove to be an enduring interest for posterity in the historical record. Whatever anyone's thoughts on the whole PE kit issue surrounding shirts or skins I think most can surely agree they all looked mighty impressive and great to watch.

Lewis, I'd still prefer a covered torso. But at least the students in white didn’t have to reveal their belly buttons. Our shorts were somewhat lower I remember.

Nice film of your old school Lewis.

Imagine the shock if school served that level of PE up now. But look how athletic and trim they all were. You'd be proud to do PE shirtless in that school being in that kind of shape.

I'm sure someone else put a BFI film like that on here a long time ago. A nice archive.

I was at Leyton High School September 1957 to June 1964.

PE was still be done very similar 25 years later, just a little less choreographed. It's how it should be done. I enjoyed it immensely. I was so pleased to discover such a short film from the British Film Institute showcasing what for me amounts to perfect PE exercising, instilling both fitness and discipline. The PE kit is perfect, our shorts were less lengthy in my time, but I do think this has always been the most effective way PE can be performed. Coming off PE like this I felt like I'd achieved a worthwhile effort. It wasn't just for the cameras. I question whether even the most able boys in a current PE class could do many of these exercises so effortlessly. In my time we did not do shoulder stands and I've never been any good holding myself steady while upside down. I admired those who could manage it.

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-secondary-school-gymnastics-leyton-county-high-school-for-boys-1936-online

My dad had a lot of gym apparatus in the double garage for his use that I also used as a teenage boy, weights, rowing machine, bike machine and much more. The odd friend popped by and had a go sometimes too. Dad often used it late at night after work when I'd gone to bed and I could hear him with it. It got quite addictive and I liked the weights and rowing machine, preferring proper biking rather than peddling while stationary. I always ended up with a sweaty tea-shirt in the home garage if I spent any length of time using dad's stuff. I always wore a top there.

But I was at one of those secondary schools in the latter part of the 1970's and beginning of the 1980's that compelled on boys PE in the gym being done blanket barechested for allcomers. After feeling strange and very different initially to previous PE it was something that soon became accepted as normal and expected in PE at my school. PE class also ran quite a few spring cross countries barechested too following on from winter when we wore shirts. I can remember the surprise the afternoon we first did that rather unexpectedly. Our cross country route was mostly away from any public areas to get us noticed by too many. It was kind of okay.

Most of our PE teachers took gym in a vest and shorts or longer sports bottoms. Never did any of them elect to teach gym or wider PE in the barechested manner to which we had been made to become accustomed to. I don't think that comes as any surprise and didn't then.

One autumn evening my old folks came back from a parents night around school and told of generally positive feedback about me, but then my dad began chuckling away and I questioned why before he told me the PE teacher he'd spoken with had described me as having - an impressive hunk of a body. Exact words. I was I think either 14 or 15 by then. Father found it highly amusing, questioning how poor the rest of my PE class must be if I was getting described like that by the PE teacher. PE class always seemed full of very slim boys in those days. Spending time on his garage equipment at home hadn't made that much difference to me I don't think, maybe a bit of tone here and there. A few months later when the end of year assessment slips came out that PE teacher used the same comment in part of his assessment and wrote the impressive hunk of a body comment down in biro and it was then that mother thought it wasn't quite the language to be using the word hunk as a description. But I was happy with it as it seemed better than some alternate opposite and I felt sure he'd used the term in PE among class too. I never told my PE teacher I was using the old folks garage gym set up at the time and if the beach photo's I've got from the same summer as that school assessment are anything to go by then I was just a perfectly normal school aged young man of the time.

Sam and Stu.

Sam first, did you eat plenty of greens as a kid? I got that one a lot for putting hairs on the chest. I knew a lovely girl at school with a very pleasant personality and who was very much a female in every aspect, except for one thing - she naturally had a very hairy body and the hairs were dark to make it worse. When I say body I mean arms and legs, I never saw anywhere else. Her arms were extraordinarily hairy, would have beaten any man any day. But she never made any attempt to remove the hair, not on her arms anyway, and I know she did receive what I would call 'attention' rather than bullying over it. She had a couple of other sisters at school neither suffered the same thing. Clearly it was some kind of condition. Fair play though, she made no effort to cover her arms up in summer. I hope she never put up with too much nonsense in PE or the girls changing room at the time, forty years ago now.

Sam I stayed on at school and did sport until I was close to 18 and never saw anyone with an obviously hairy upper body, chest or tum, other than one middle aged PE teacher who was a right sight of chest, shoulders and back, once seen could never be unseen unfortunately but fair play he some days took his shirt off when he asked boys to do it outside in June or July like now. One thing I can confidently say is I never even noticed the belly button issue mentioned up thread or would have even been aware of such differences at school age, maybe because we must have all looked the same in that regard, heaven knows, it's a long while back for me. But I do think a teacher of PE picking up on personal appearance even if not meaning to with any harm is fraught with trouble in that you can never quite know what anyone thinks about themselves and what inner hang ups they might have, so best just shut up in most cases I think unless it's a genuinely glowing compliment but even then some people can't accept those can they.

Secondly to Stu's point about feet in PE, which brings in many of the previous comment to Sam. I didn't enjoy barefoot PE when it came along. In my case I noticed everyone around me starting to have bigger feet than me from about 13. Nobody ever said a thing to me. By 16 I knew that I was going to be stuck at just a modest male size 6 forever. Nobody is perfect but school PE by the very nature of it gives opportunities for too many close up comparisons. If anybody had actually come out with a comment about my feet size at school it would have had an affect on me. and I've never considered myself one of life's terribly over sensitive souls.

Maybe someone can explain the PE obsession about barefoot gym and being seen like that. They didn't like trainers in my school gym very much. At comprehensive school I had one school visit to the medical room for a health check with everyone else at age 13/14 which was fairly rudimentary and didn't involve paying much attention to anything below the waist that I remember and certainly although I stood there in pants without socks on absolutely no attention was paid that end. It was all upper body, head, eyes, ears and mouth. But even before the medical room visit we did we had been spoken to by a PE teacher in the gym about our foot health and had them looked at briefly, possibly a verucca check it could have been, which one might have assumed to be the remit of the medical room visit not the PE teacher in gym so I don't know if anyone else can vouch for anything similar happening to them some forty years back or other time.

Stu's post rang a bell for me. At 15, just like the boy he described, I had hairy legs and also some hair on my chest - which, as he said, wasn't very common at that age. In fact, none of the other boys in my class had chest hair before I did, but nobody drew attention to it until one PE lesson in the gym when the teacher chose me to play in skins. When I'd taken off my t-shirt he noticed my chest hair and commented approvingly in front of the rest of the class. Maybe he thought that would make me feel manly or something, I'm not sure, but instead it just made me feel terribly self conscious and different from the others. After that he clearly decided I was someone to be held up as a kind of example to the rest of the class and the upshot was that from then on he regularly made me a skin so I had to do PE with my hairy chest on show. I felt so relieved when another couple of boys started to develop chest hair later in the year so I wasn't the only one in the class any longer.

Like quite a lot here, I was at secondary school from the early to late 70's, 1971 until A levels in 1977 and have long memories of physical education and the dread anticipation of days with bad weather or a bad teacher and the worst getting both bad weather and a bad teacher on the same day.

I had a teacher who thought any lads not wildly enthusiastic about kicking a ball about were somehow mentally deficient in some way and thought the best way to encourage us to gain a little enthusiasm was to scream and shout as if some of us were playing professionals rather than a handful of somewhat disinterested school lads doing a quick hour's PE.

School back then really did play up to the gender stereotypes very strongly, not just in PE but in other areas too. I never saw any girls doing metal or woodwork for example, yet there's a young woman nowadays who lives in my road who has her own carpentry business. I think I know what the careers officer would have said to her in 1975.

I also remember the man who took us in the gym regularly up to O levels because he looked quite different to the look of the time and had a close cropped crew cut hair style at a time when many boys in school, and the other male teachers had some quite long and thick styles going on. Our most regular gym teacher threw insults at boys with long hair but couldn't do anything about it. Boys at school were allowed to grow it past our necks a bit. Gazing the school photos I think I now agree with my old PE teacher, there was too much on top of a few of us. This long hair did have one benefit for our anti-long hair PE teacher, it gave him something to grab at the back. I always thought of hair pulling as a very girly thing to do but trouble in PE could be met with a sudden pull on the back of the hair pulling your head back and feeling his warm breath in your right ear from a distance of about an inch. Speaking from experience.

PE was generally vests for gym but the separation of class into two halves of skins and shirts (vests) was very common indeed. One observation I will make about that is this perception of always being on the skins side, which was a feeling I was left with, and also how those who got picked to be skins teams boys would often feel rather hard done by for being on that chosen side and having to remove the top for the lesson and bare their chest. I'm unsure just how we got chosen but think methods varied but did see complaints if you'd been a skin last time and were again. But arguing with our PE teachers wasn't a good idea.

The PE teacher who hated long hair made sure we got it thoroughly wet through in the showers after PE. If our hair wasn't dripping when we came out we would be sent back in to finish the job as he called it. He spent far too much time concerned about that.

Not many months before our O levels the headmaster played a part in one of our lessons one afternoon, taking part in a game of football with us for a reason that was never fully explained but I actually tackled him to the ground at one point which gave me a badge of honour among mates and a death stare from my PE teacher for daring to do it. Our headmaster was great and patted my back afterwards, came back and changed with us afterwards, sat chatting and watching us come and go showering, thankfully not doing so himself, and the regular PE teacher was suddenly on his best behaviour, maybe he was being assessed.

No Ivan I don't think PE in pants was much of a thing by '94 like it was in my time in '74. But I knew my son did PE the same as me going shirtless because I remember being so interested in knowing how much it had changed or not when he went to the same primary as me and even shared a teacher or two who had hung around without moving on since my day. Nothing about it bothered me but perhaps if I'd been the father of a daughter I might have thought a bit more about it if they'd done the same as the girls did in my class in the seventies. I don't think I would have wanted my daughter in the 90's doing primary PE top free like girls did in my seventies class for a short time but it looks like seventies parents like mine didn't mind even their daughters doing the same as the sons at school at primary, presuming they even knew what went on in primary PE lessons. But my parents knew because they always asked and I always told them what I did at school.

Sean M
You say that during your time at Primary school you did pe in your pants (Y fronts) When your son attended 20 years later had things changed or did the school still have mixed pe classes with boys in their pants and not tops and girls the same. Or had attitudes changed by then?

Comment by: Toby on 5th July 2023 at 21:45


Apart from wondering why they took such a keen interest, I wonder if it ever crossed any of their crass minds, that they were encouraging - perhaps even leading - bullying?.

If a kid hears an adult making pejorative remarks, it gives them permission to copy, to legitimise put-downs and insults. You would like to think the sort of behaviour of the past wouldn't be tolerated today, but sadly because so many teachers seem to be socialy inadequate, I suspect it does go on. Only recently in my own area , a teacher was forced to resign for repeatedly swearing at pupils during one of his hissy fits.

As a boy PE done shirtless followed me throughout my entire school time from more or less the beginning. Some of my first memories soon after starting school are doing PE in my pants only, in mixed classes of boys in y fronts and girls in knickers, also girls not having a top same as boys. Most of us being too young to care at that age. It was something I've strong memories of, although it wasn't a constant, so I'm not sure how we found ourselves doing early PE like that sometimes and not other times. But at that age in that time boys and girls were treated exactly the same sometimes.

Then going up to primary whenever we did PE in the school hall the boys went to PE there in a pair of shorts without any tops on, we were all shirtless and shoeless, and primary rarely separated the full class so boys did PE with girls, who did wear a polo top of some sort, often blue or white in my school. The vast majority of my primary school PE was taken by ladies. It was at the primary school age I began to be much more aware of what I looked like and also noticed others around me.

I began my primary school in 1974, my son is exactly twenty years younger than me and went to the same primary school as me, starting in 1994 and one of the teachers there twenty years later was the same one who had taken me for lessons, including PE in '74 and thereafter, she must have been early 30's at the time, and my son had her too, and in '94 he was doing PE in the school hall shirtless with no difference to me in '74, with one of the same teachers I had. Little seemed to have changed in those twenty years or so. Primary hall PE in '74 often involved using a lot of props such as hoops, ropes and beanbags and a lot of mat work, sometimes with music.

At secondary level the school sports gym was used twice weekly, and another session of PE was outdoors. In that sports gym at my secondary boys were once again turned out shirtless nearly always but no longer associating in any way with girls, except for summer sports afternoons when we all came together.

So I got very used to such things throughout schooldays and childhood until the mid teens, and boys not being asked or told to wear shirts for physical stuff like PE in school, or actively being told they shouldn't or couldn't wear shirts and tops of any kind was seen as perhaps more normal than sticking a top on in many schools.

What is maybe an intriguing question is if you asked any of these schools we went to who decreed PE was done in this manner, boys shirtless, many of them would not be able to give a definitive answer other than it was just the way it was. In my case I think my primary school is especially interesting, boys were never considered able to put tops on in PE lessons inside there, in an overwhelmingly female run environment and it was like that for a very long time.

Luckily for me I didn't have anything about myself and my appearance that I fixated on unlike those on here who mention birthmarks, their big feet or even belly buttons! I was content with how I looked, so even at secondary when the time came along to hit those large group communal showers after PE I dealt with all that demanded naked showering remarkably matter of factly, but knew one or two who were at least initially absolutely petrified at the prospect of such stipulations in school and I must admit to seeing some shockingly unsympathetic PE teachers laying into ones who didn't feel great about all that.