Hesketh Fletcher Gym Team

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1132 Comments

Hesketh Fletcher Gym Team
Hesketh Fletcher Gym Team
Year: 1935
Views: 342,629
Item #: 1741
Hesketh Fletcher Gym Team of Atherton, Greater Manchester.
Source: G. Smith.

Comment by: Andy on 13th January 2023 at 14:23

I wonder if this webpage existed 30years ago what would people be discussing?

The subject of boys wearing vests or not wouldn't be "isn't it amazing it used to happen vs today" but maybe more "who's school is odd because they dont do barechest anymore?"

Maybe there would be debate about whether school should now allow shorts for girls vs gym knickers?

Maybe school might now allow trainers over plimsolls?

Maybe some schools are now doing more mixed lessons?

Comment by: Becky on 13th January 2023 at 13:18

When I was at High School (early 2000s) we all wore trainers rather than plimsolls.

Most of our PE lessons were single sex, but we did have a few mixed lessons.

Comment by: Andy on 13th January 2023 at 11:15

I wonder if this webpage existed 30years ago what would people be discussing?

The subject of boys wearing vests or not wouldn't be "isn't it amazing it used to happen vs today" but maybe more "who's school is odd because they dont do barechest anymore?"

Maybe there would be debate about whether school should now allow shorts for girls vs gym knickers?

Maybe school might now allow trainers over plimsolls?

Maybe some schools are now doing more mixed lessons?

Comment by: Rachael on 13th January 2023 at 01:48

Though some will disagree it just looked right to see the boys stripped to the waist for PE and Games lessons. The boys were told to strip off in the gym so there was a line of discarded vests visible through the rather large windows that ran the length of the gym I don't think too many in my years at school objected to the attention they received from us and we'd regularly see them in the gym with sweat on their upper bodies. A lot of boys also agreed they preferred being stripped off than having a sweat soaked vest on.

Comment by: Jim on 13th January 2023 at 01:22

So many people over 40 post similar type of experiences on here so it is welcome and almost a surprise when somebody else pops up who is considerably younger than most commenting here and doubly so when you have something rather similar to say.

Comment by: Ethan on 12th January 2023 at 21:07

I'm 24 and have not long left uni in Sheffield where I did a sociology degree. I had thought about doing sports sciences at one point. I lived in Driffield in East Yorkshire and went to the local school by the same name there. When I was there I had to take PE showers in a communal changing room in a communal shower (no clothes at all - 100% nude) when we had finished doing PE. The only time I didn't have to do that was when I stayed on in the sixth form but that was only because I no longer did PE. My younger brother is ten years younger than me and still goes to the school and he still has to take showers after PE right now. It was compulsory and we always had to bring towels with us with our PE kits and my brother still does. Just incase anyone thinks that these days we could wear shorts in the shower at school to spare our blushes you are wrong, that was not allowed. I've read a lot of much older people on here spell out what they did and it seems just about identical to me really.

On the subject of not wearing any shirts for PE, we did wear tops much of the time but sometimes when we were told to take them off for team games or other reasons when we all did it the same it was so unusual that it really did feel like quite a big deal. I don't think modern boys are really very different to the previous couple of generations really, I think we are all similar behind the mask. I think I did five or six PE lessons each year without the top on. I never saw any open resistance to any of the things I've described and we always knew what to expect from the website which set it all out clearly at the time, which is at least the big difference compared to older people who were at school in the last century.

Comment by: Becky on 12th January 2023 at 13:44

I agree with Michelle's comments about changing social norms regarding clothing etc.
When I was at High School in the early 2000s we wore shorts for PE the same as the boys. Unlike the boys we were able to wear tracksuit bottoms or leggings for outdoor games.
However my mum told me that she had to wear regulation PE knickers for indoor PE and a PE skirt for outdoor games. They also had compulsory showers, which we never did.

Even at Primary School there were differences. In mum's time boys and girls changed in the same classroom right through Primary, whereas we changed in separate classrooms from the age of about 8 onwards.

Comment by: Jackson on 12th January 2023 at 00:58

The bodies in the photo look mighty fine. I wish I could have done PE like that in school. It's the perfect way to do it.

Comment by: Spencer on 11th January 2023 at 04:47

I was so carefree at school when I was 7. I didn't mind what I had to take off and in front of who. Fast track another 7 years and where had that little boy gone, as I'd become completely obsessed with how I looked and couldn't stand going shirtless for PE and skipped the showers at any available chance I could get, all I could see were imperfections in myself and perfection in everyone else. PE seemed to make me unhappy in my own skin and constantly comparing myself against everyone else I was able to see, on the sports field, in the gymnasium, the changing room, the showers, you name it. If we could take our 7 year old persona and keep it that way many of us would stay a lot happier for a lot longer and less bothered about how we are judged by others, and PE is one of those things that does it relentlessly in your teens. I wonder if anyone else was going through this continual comparing themselves against the others too and in what ways?

Comment by: Ashley on 9th January 2023 at 02:07

Michelle, I remember being at junior first school in the early 1970's when we did quite light exercises mainly to music in our PE where both the boys and the girls did not wear any tops and were all the same. We would have been about 6 and 7 then, everyone had shorts much the same as each other. Even at that very very young age in those lessons I looked at the girls beside me and remember thinking it was unfair they were the same as the boys and that they shouldn't be, even though there was obviously not much difference at that age. Our lessons were all taken by ladies too who you might have thought would have been more sympathetic to girls rather than boys. But we were all treated exactly the same for that short period of time. I got into empathising with others at a very young age clearly. We all changed into and out of our clothes in the same space together as well without any gender divisions. By age 8 it was dramatically different up at middle school.

Comment by: Andy on 8th January 2023 at 20:23

Michelle, if it's any consolation you weren't alone. Our girls at middle school got to wear shorts and t-shirts like the boys (mostly) but felt a backwards step in terms of uniform (as did the boys mind) at the next school at they reverted to a more old fashioned t-shirt and gym knickers combo, so probably felt the same way if not more so!

Comment by: Michelle on 8th January 2023 at 15:16

Social standards of clothing really have changed haven't they! I remember at school in the 80s we still had to wear blouses and gym knickers for indoor PE and games in the summer, which we did not enjoy wearing, especially on the occasions we had lessons with the boys. We never understood why we couldn't wear shorts like they did!

Comment by: Andy on 8th January 2023 at 00:11

Ivan, Your post on the 3rd very much tallied with experiences I had especially at primary, but the difference being I attended a middle school too which gave us a taste of a 'proper' PE kit a bit earlier. Despite this upgrade in PE kit on moving to upper school the kit was a little smaller which felt a kind of step backwards at the time.

Comment by: Ivan on 6th January 2023 at 15:24

Jacob, I remember the school summer holidays. As you say going out in the morning and staying out until late afternoon. Sometimes when it was hot we would go as a group of lads across the fields to a secluded river, Strip off and jump in wearing nothing and letting the sun dry us off afterwards.
There was no inhibition however we were not only school mates we were in the same Scout Group and when we went on Scout camps we would be sharing a tent so were used to undressing in front of each other.

Comment by: Jacob on 6th January 2023 at 03:13

Ivan, responding to your football comment.

In my younger days of the early 1980's I played on a Saturday morning youth football team in a small competitive little local league for boys under fourteen. I played for about eighteen months until the age ceiling was reached. It was fun while it lasted, although I never did anything similar afterwards for the older age groups and the budding England footballer that some in my family fantasised about simply had a rather more straightforward occupation in accountancy.

Shorts in those days really were shorts. They went nowhere near the knees. We always played in short sleeved football tops, not long sleeves, apart from the goalkeeper. Our socks were not too long either, certainly not to the knees. I had to remind myself with a check on one or two photo's from 1984 I have.

Many of the pitches we played on were at local youth clubs and such places and the occasional school ground in the main. So much of them were not kept that well maintained by today's expected standards and could be a right old state of uneven grass, patches of earth and grass, water puddles and such like. I remember very many filthy goal mouths for instance.

Our parents would often come along to these things and get over enthusiastic, some things never change with that. Mainly the dads were the weekly regulars, especially if they'd brought us along, sometimes picking up others on the way. It was the dads that took it more seriously than the boys which in some cases began putting one or two off when it stopped becoming as fun.

We'd often get so wet and messy with mud soiling our shorts, shirts, socks, boots and our actual selves that the last thing parents wanted to do was put us in the car and make a mess of the car furnishings as well so most of the time, even on the not so mucky days we'd clean up at wherever we played football and most of the places we played, even the youth clubs had changing rooms that included washing facilities and even showers that we could use, which we did.

There was no paranoia about any of this. The boys on both sides would share the changing room all together, there was no choice in most places anyway with just one place to do so. Nobody seemed especially bashful and you would see most of us stripped down out of our football kit and walking about without tops on, and naked because we were coming and going to the showers that were available to us. During this time many of the male parents would also be hanging about in the changing room with us or close by outside the door, with little or no concern for anybody's personal private space or privacy and walking in and out on us whether we were dressed or actually getting showered with nothing on at all. Most parents stayed outside but there was always about half a dozen actually wanting to be in the changing room with us. Now I don't think there are too many twelve or thirteen year olds who would be keen on their parents seeing them with nothing on but the dynamic of being in a large group of boys on those Saturday football teams in the early 1980's kind of made us braver about such things and I didn't worry too much about it.

It's not just the football team either. I spent a lot of spare time away from Saturday football with a group of the boys, all from various classes in school and have memories over summer months of hanging around with them often in groups of four or five when none of us even bothered wearing any tops at all, sometimes even leaving the house to meet them or when they called and going off not even taking a top along just incase. We'd go down town and hang around the park, ride our bikes around and some weekends could be out all day from breakfast until teatime shirt free and bare chested like it on quite a few occasions. I have photo's of myself and four others lined up on our bikes in our road and we all look happy in small pairs of shorts and trainers, stripped off on top completely. I think one of the mothers took it.

I think the five of us went out on a hot day in the summer hols and impulsively chose to see a film at our towns long gone one screen old style cinema with pocket money just before the explosion of the multiplexes of the late 1980's and we were all allowed in and went in without a top on into a hot un airconditioned old cinema. I think it was 1983. We watched War Games, five shirt free lads in the cinema, care free with just our sweets and a bit of loose change on us in our shorts. I also watched Superman III around about that time too. But when we left and congregated back at my house and said what we'd done my dad who was also on holiday from work was furious that we'd spent time inside a cinema on a nice sunny day instead of being outside doing something and when my mum joined him she agreed we should be outside doing things in the fresh air and saving cinema for a rainy day. Neither cared about how we went around dressed like or to the cinema.

A totally different attitude from a period which really is not that long ago at all in the scheme of things. It seems so much healthier to me than the clammed up fear of everything that prevails and is indoctrinated now. Those boys like me who did these things are now the same adults and fathers that seem to have inflicted a self conscious, bashful and paranoid outlook on our own offspring even if we've tried not to do so.

I've heard so many people lately talking about simpler days of the past. When I think of simpler days I think of 1880's and centuries long past, not 1980's and within our still young lifetimes. We haven't realised what we have lost until we've lost it.

I hope you found it worth reading.

Comment by: Ivan on 5th January 2023 at 12:15

Nigel
With regards to your closing comments about footballers almost completely clothed. I saw a similar thing recently at a junior football match at our local recreation ground. As the teams came off the pitch the boys all wore long sleeves long socks which almost reached their long shorts. I wondered are the youngsters going soft or most probably following the fashion as seen like you on television. It seems that they cannot stand the cold. Although if you are running around playing football you should feel warm.

Comment by: Nigel on 4th January 2023 at 19:21

That Huntley clip looked just like lessons I took at those ages.

My school years were 1969-1981.

Not sure how unusual my own situation was but I did compulsory barechested PE in the infants school from the age of 5 until 8, then again in my middle school from 8 until 11 and at my comprehensive from 11 until near to 16. Every indoors lesson I can remember at infants and primary, and rather a lot at comprehensive. At the two lower schools everything was shared boys/girls, and just now and again at the comprehensive. Outside was a mixture at all three schools of tops or nothing. I took compulsory showers in both my primary and comprehensive. All the schools had two lessons each week. So I guess I didn't have much time to get funny about these kind of things and it all felt quite normal but as I got older I didn't like sharing PE with the opposite sex if I didn't have any top.

I don't know of any explanation that was ever given to us about the reasons we did things that way. It was just how it was, you're told to do something and you do it and don't reason with it very hard.

I do wonder if everyone would have a much better self image if they all went through school doing things the way I did instead of obsessing about covering up. I saw a recent football match on TV where the both teams were completely covered up, the only skin exposed was the face and hands, the socks were so long they were to the knee and the shorts so long they went to the knee, meeting the socks, and they were all in long sleeves, some wearing gloves!

Comment by: James on 3rd January 2023 at 19:26

Chris G, Likewise I don't remember many objections when vests came off other than a few grumbles about going barechested outside during winter. No-one really minded being barechested indoors. Our PE teachers really made us sweat so it made sense. I'm guessing your teachers were of the same ilk.

Comment by: Ivan on 3rd January 2023 at 10:50

Re the clip of the primary school. When I was at primary/junior school we did not have specific clothing for pe. The boys all wore grey shorts and for the lesson we simply removed our shirts and we did the exercises in our vest and shorts. The girls simply removed their dresses and exercised in their under wear. That was how it was. I agree however that when I went to secondary school, that there was a feeling of growing up as we now had to change into gym kit. No top was worn indoors and no underpants and plimsols and no socks.
The next "taste of freedom" was going to Scout camp and being away from parents when we went to bed it was felt daring to sleep in just our pants and not wear the "nightwear" that according to the camping list we had to take with us.

Comment by: Chris G on 2nd January 2023 at 20:30

Don, it's a long time ago, no, but I seem to remember that it was the health aspect of going bare-chested that was stressed when topless PE was introduced after I had been in secondary school for a coupe of years. Contrary to the experience of many posters here, much, I don't remember anyone (in my class at least) objecting to the new order of things, in fact I think we all relished the freedom from clingy restrictive clothing.

Comment by: Matthew on 1st January 2023 at 23:44

This is a link to a piece of colour footage of a gym and school playground, taken at an unnamed primary school in 1981:

https://www.huntleyarchives.com/preview.asp?image=1041996

Huntley Archives are a business, but state they are happy for members of the public to view the watermarked low-resolution previews on their site, such as the one above. The 1981 date is on the clapperboard at the start of the playground sequence.

Comment by: Don on 1st January 2023 at 18:07

Was at school until 1995 and going barechested in the gym was mandatory. We were told it was healthier and more appropriate for physical exercise

Comment by: Bernard on 30th November 2022 at 23:21

Bernard, it sounds quite plausible this rumour was in fact had some truth in it. I remember do less apperratus based lessons as the year went on, but whether that was the trend anyway or driven by safety worries I have no idea. I have also heard the trend toward a more mixed PE lessons forced changes to more modest kits was another driver...again I don't really know unless anyone else does?

Comment by: Bernard on 29th November 2022 at 23:11

Andy - I had heard that as well - apparently there had been one or more accidents reported when a boy's shirt got caught in the parts connecting apparatus to the wall. In addition I heard that the momentary loss of vision caused by a shirt falling over a boy's face during an inversion could also be dangerous due to reduced spatial awareness.

Comment by: Andy on 28th November 2022 at 10:47

Back on the 17th Robbie mentioned his amazement anyone over a certain age would have never experienced barechest PE.
It was an experience I also encountered into the 1990s, but with two different schools whereby one was it was the rule for all indoor lessons, and at the next it depended on what we were doing in that lesson.
I heard a rumour in that second school it was risky to do apparatus work with tops on, which might explain the ban on tops to a certain degree kept going for so long. Did anyone else hear anything like this as a reason?

Comment by: Andy on 28th November 2022 at 09:50

Back on the 17th Robbie mentioned his amazement anyone over a certain age would have never experienced barechest PE.
It was an experience I also encountered into the 1990s, but with two different schools whereby one was it was the rule for all indoor lessons, and at the next it depended on what we were doing in that lesson.
I heard a rumour in that second school it was risky to do apparatus work with tops on, which might explain the ban on tops to a certain degree kept going for so long. Did anyone else hear anything like this as a reason?

Comment by: Chris G on 27th November 2022 at 09:38

Robbie, can I add Switzerland to your list of countries where topless PE, while not necessarily the norm, occasionally happened. I spent a couple of terms at school in Zurich in the sixties, and PE in the height of Summer was often "hemdli auf" (my Schweitzer Deutsch is a bit rusty now).

Comment by: Ged on 20th November 2022 at 18:04

Robbie on 17th November 2022 at 02:56

I absolutely agree with you about lads doing PE bare chest until the mid 1980s at the very earliest, I don't think certainly in boys schools its so uncommon now, it may not be mandatory but I think it's just something lads do. I live near two secondary schools and at all times of the year it's usual to see lads out running without shirts.

I think there may also be a reason why many gyms, I've been a member of 4-5 over time, have in their rules that men must wear shirts in the gym - because many men would prefer not to having grown up that way. When I run outdoors, I usually start in a shirt but it almost always comes off at some stage and returns home tucked in the waistband of my shorts which of course are worn without underpants.

Comment by: Dave on 20th November 2022 at 16:16

Hi Robbie!

Of course no problem with the question of my place of living. I'm a non UK person.I live in middle-Europe so I don't know much about school life there.
Answering yout question of shirtless PE apart from the UK. I think it was very widespread too till about the 70's. I started my school years in the very beginning of the 90's. Back then shirtless PE (I mean for the whole lesson) wasn't recommended but as you said about people over 40 even over 30 (in the case of myself for example) most of the boys experienced having to remove their shirts many times during their school years. The reason is shirts vs skins as you said. In the 90's it was a very common thing here too. It started to become a rarity during the early 2000's. Primary school here is 8 grades so we go there between the age of 6-14. Back then we had to wear a white vest short gym shorts white socks and plimsolls for PE. As I know it was the case in most of the schools even in the 70's and 80's here. Well it doesn't mean that there weren't any school with a stipped to the waist rule.Maybe I'm wrong but I think having to be stripped to the waist for the whole lesson (not for only team games )lasted later in the UK than here.

Comment by: Jamie on 17th November 2022 at 13:16

Very thoughtful post, Robbie and I agree with the points you made. Doing PE bare-chested is something the majority of British boys would have experienced until the last 25-30 years. I left school in the mid 90s and we were still doing vests v skins then. As you said, I think there's a key difference between making it optional for boys to wear a top and enforcing its removal (sometimes if not always). My class was probably typical in that there were a handful of more confident lads who were quite happy to abandon their tops at any opportunity. Most - and that included me - were a lot more reluctant and wouldn't ever have gone bare-chested in PE given the choice. Like many, I recall feeling nervous the first time I was chosen for the skins team and told to take off my vest. Yet I honestly think being compelled to get used to that in PE did us good in the long run.