Burnley Grammar School

I'm completely agree with James cause I don't see any attack towards privacy having boys remove their shirts for intense physical exercises. If anyone says shirtless PE is an attack toward privacy thinking by their logic every swimming lesson sre. Boys are shirtless for swimming too and no one has a word about privacy. What's the difference? I think the most of overrecactions comes from adults not from the boys themselves who had/has to do it.

Many people, like Jake, have said how much they disliked topless PE. At the grammar school I attended there were no skins v vests. No-one ever wore a vest for gym. I was shy and skinny but it did not trouble me. Is that becasue we were all treated the same? My question for all the people like Jake is: how did you cope with swimming? If you didn't mind swimming topless, was it because you were all treated the same, or did you hate swimming too?

Marcus made an interesting point that few have mentioned among the hundreds of comments on vests and showers etc: the amount of physical contact in a gym lesson, usually between the boys. We were told to help each other with vaults, forward rolls etc, and for handstands we had to hold each other's legs. It felt a bit embarrassing upside down with no pants under the shorts but we knew that in a moment the roles would be reversed. Close physical contact was an integral part of gym.

God how I remember being at school (state comprehensive 1974-80) and getting the "skins" order. I was one of those schoolboy shirtless haters. Can still remember the strangest feeling of sickening dread that came over me when I was first confronted by this arse of a teacher with a beaming smirk across his face. It's not an exaggeration to say I felt light headed and almost faint. Yes, I know it sounds rather daft, don't judge me too harshly, just telling it as it was at the time. It was probably some kind of defence mechanism that hit on me. It's a very strong recollection. Light headedness and a somewhat churning gut with it. Quite a powerful reaction, a fear, even if that fear should be considered largely mis-placed. But nonetheless very real. I can't be alone in that kind of sensation can I.

There were some five or six male teachers who took my own PE over time. Four of the six went for shirtless PE quite a lot, and if you had two out of that four you knew it was no shirts for PE because they never allowed us to have them on in the gym hall. Two others were very different and were happy with our t-shirts, vest tops or whatever we came with to PE and could wear them.

One observation about the two teachers who allowed us to wear tops in PE was that they genuinely seemed to be the best and all round nicer pair we used to have in PE, and I'm not saying that simply because they let us wear tops in their lessons, I'd probably be saying it even if they'd been like the others and made us strip off up top. The two who always made us do PE without a top were the two least likeable. Whether it amounts to anything I don't know but it's just an observation of note for what it's worth.

Jason "to be honest", you probably didn't have a PE teacher like ours. When does privacy start to become an issue, in your view?, 18?, 21?, never?.

I am glad these days the feelings of younger people are taken into consideration.

Privacy gets a lot of mentions on here surrounding PE lessons. But I don't think privacy should come into it. I don't think you can cite privacy as a concern just because a teacher told you that you had to take your shirts off and do his lessons barechested, and I don't think you can go on about privacy being invaded just because that very same teacher told you to take all your clothes off in the changing room and get into the showers. I find it a bit of a false narrative to be honest.

Great post Marcus. I felt like I was with you at your boarding school. :-)

If you were a long termer at a boarding school like myself in the early 70's then you had to kiss goodbye to your privacy from the first moment you arrived and said goodbye to your parents until term ended.

Actually I think I might have been luckier than many. I only shared a room with another four boys my age. It could have been a dormitory in some I'm sure.

PE was three times every week, up to an hour and a half. The school day went from 8.30am until 4.30pm. Bed was 9pm for the younger years, 10pm for the older, an hour later on Fridays and Saturdays. Up was 7am, or earlier, but mainly about 7am, every day, Saturdays included, Sunday was a lie in until 8am.

Privacy simply didn't exist. Every single day, weekdays and weekends, we had to get up and walk along the landing to the showers at more or less the same time as everyone else in our house and year group almost as soon as we got up. I remember the morning shower as being noisy and a bit chaotic, too many of us trying to do the same thing at the same time and the communal nudity of us coming and going. There wasn't much towel covering, just going about without, letting it all hang out. One or two house masters were always on call keeping an eye on everyone making sure we did what we needed to do.

As long as we were ready for breakfast at 7.45am we could be as long as we liked getting ready for the day ahead, showering, teeth brushing, toilet and all that. If you wanted to you could spend half an hour in the showers. Not sure anybody did that but I sometimes went well over ten minutes. The residential showers were not the same as the ones that got used when we did PE. Showering properly was compulsory in the mornings and after PE.

Those of us scheduled to have a morning PE session would find ourselves in the position of showering at about 7.15am and then by the end of a PE lesson having another one in another shower as soon as 10.15am only about three hours later. But any day we had a PE lesson meant taking two showers with your class in one day. If showers were your thing you were in heaven.

School also had some proper baths too which we could use with permission under certain set circumstances. If we were allowed to use an actual bath then we were encouraged to share it, two boys together, and also share the water once we got out if anyone else wanted it. It won't come as a surprise to know that rarely did I notice sharing of bath water like that. I was a bath type of person at home but at school I preferred to stand up and shower. It was always the cleverer boys who seemed to bag a bath.

I can't tell you what a luxury it felt to come home for the holidays and actually have a bathroom all to myself, with a locked door and to do exactly as I pleased. A real luxury to me, something so basic that most people would have taken for granted.

Our PE seemed top heavy with an awful lot of Rugby and cross country running for one half of the year, and then switched to a heavy emphasis on athletics in general. Some weeks we did two outside lessons and one in our gym or it could switch to two in the gym and just one outside. We we went outside in all weathers and all conditions except for any heavy settled snowfall which wasn't too often.

Outside we always wore tops except for brief periods over early summer. This contrasted with the gym where it was strictly no shirts, vests or anything else and PE was as many others have mentioned for themselves, a fully barechest lesson for all. Unlike what I've seen others on here state, many of my own PE teachers came to gym with us and dressed like us and wore no shirt either, even the older masters. Sometimes we did have some plimsolls but the vast majority of the time we went barefoot and would be told to be that way. I seem to remember that our PE masters kept their own plimsolls on.

Clearly my own PE masters did not feel this need to define themselves differently from the rest of us by means of wearing a shirt. In so many gym lessons we were encouraged to be quite tactile with each other, mostly boys on boys but there are memories such as the cold hands of a PE master grabbing around my waist as he lifted me onto a horse for example.

You had to get used to touching people and jumping onto their backs, linking various limbs or touching people's feet or having them standing on your shoulders or back or something like that.

I always considered it a mostly positive place which tended to knock any hang ups out of people quite quickly and the lack of any privacy on a daily basis simply had to be overcome sooner rather than later for your own sanity.

School also had a couple of old style matron type ladies who were always seen going around in what looked like white lab coats. These ladies gave us check ups in just our pants annually but it was soon done and over within minutes. I seemed to remember there was more talking and questions than actual looking at. Quite soon after I arrived as a boarder one of them came along our landing in the morning into our wash area bold as brass among us and collected sight of a number of our year unclothed entirely, although I never saw that happen again when a woman was able to enter an area like that and mingle amongst naked and semi dressed boys. although we were very young, just eleven and twelve.

It was a good all round education and a good physical education too but I would never send me own offspring away for weeks and months on end as a boarder. Like I said when I got home and could have my own space all over again, I really learnt to value my own privacy. Some people really take to the regimented lifestyle like that and many choose it in adulthood in the army or other service life. I was pleased to leave it behind when I finished school and moved back in full time with my parents when I was seventeen until I left home five years later.

I know in some countries boys always run cross country bare foot, and I knew there are arguments in its favour, but......

Aged 11, my first detention, turning up (nervous, told to do exactly as I was told etc etc), then seeing all the other boys ready for the run, JUST shorts on, nothing else, I was unconvinced it wasn't part of the punishment. One of my classmates said to me, you can't wear plimsolls, we have to have bare feet.

The course was mostly grass/forest tracks, but there was some tarmac at the start and end - not only was I freezing and wet, but my feet hurt as well. As my Dad said afterwards "you are being punished"

John - I wasn't too bothered to find we would be running barefoot but some of my classmates had a little difficulty at first. This didn't last long as they soon got used to it.
Barefoot running wasn't punishment - it was just common sense. At first we didn't understand but by about half way through the first term and after some heavy rain our route developed some very muddy stretches. Plimsolls, if we had worn them, would have become detached from feet and stopping to fish them out of the mud and put them back on would have been a nuisance. Similarly, the prospect of cleaning and drying our soaking wet, mud encrusted plimsolls would not have filled us with much joy. Muddy feet and legs are much easier to deal with.
My school, although a grammar school, did try to keep costs down for parents so a minimal p.e. kit would have been in keeping with that.

I find very interesting what Kevin said about state school in the 80ies and their rules on shirtless PE. This concurs with my experience. I went to a state comprehensive which had a very strict PE regime for boys, white shorts, bare feet and bare chest for all indoor activities with additionally plimsoles being allowed for outdoor activities such as cross-country, athletics, etc. There were never any exceptions form this rule, all boys were treated in the same harsh way, always shirtless, and our PE teachers did install a very disciplined environment.
When my little brother passed his 11+ and started attending the local grammar school, I vividly remember my mother complaining during dinner about all the additional washing she would have to do with his PE uniform (trainers, shorts, house-vest, T-shirt), rugby kit, etc and asked why he couldn’t just wear shorts like myself. I especially remember my dad’s answer who explained, that he was with the posh boys now and would be treated more gently as they didn’t need to be put line the same way as this lad (pointing to me) and his mates.
His remark left a big impression on me as they way he said it was quite ambiguous which was his way of showing his disapproval of (in his eyes) un-manly educational practices for his boys. On other hand it made be aware of the discipline that was instilled through our minimal PE Kit, which left us always stripped to the waist whereas our teachers never took their tops of. This is certainly one reason why state school might have been keener on a shirtless PE kit the other being quite simply economic as a lot of my classmates’ families could not have afforded the kind of PE uniform my brother got to wear.

The school had an excellent reputation, so my parents were more than happy when I got a place. It also had a reputation for being very strict !

It was common to see boys at the school out running (both during the day and after school). Not that I ever thought about it, but they were all stripped to the waist and sometimes the whole group had bare feet as a well.

The first week, we had cross country, and I soon discovered that everyone had to run shirtless, so we turned out in just shorts and plimsolls. Before long boys were given detentions, these involved a gym session and run - then I found out why the groups of boys were out running with bare feet - it was minimal kit for a detention run, meaning only shorts, both striped to the waist and bare feet. The price of a "good" school !

Like Walkerson says, don't think there seems like much difference between what type of school anyone went to, grammars, secondaries, comprehensives, private or public etc. Like I said in my previous entry on here, my secondary remit was for going shirtless rather a lot, including cross country runs time after time. Indeed, is it not possible that it is the state school secondaries that went bigger on the concept of physical education being done wherever possible without requiring any top.

I don't know whether there are any genuine health benefits from running or doing any other form of PE without a top but I do remember back when the London Marathon was first run in the early 1980's and seeing a presenter on Blue Peter running the race, Peter Duncan I think it was, and on taking advice on running long distance he was shown being given a couple of plasters to cover his nipples as he ran so he didn't chafe them rubbing against his top. I remember finding this very funny at the time and wondering how that was even possible.

But I rather doubt my own PE guys who took us out for cross country in our bare chests were doing it out of concern that we might finish up back in the changing room with a load of sore chafed nipples if we were to stick any kind of top on.

One thing I felt was that the occasional PE teacher would enjoy seeing us very cold just so it would make us put some more welly into our lesson in order to warm up. I do think there is something in this. On very fresh days when we would go out running barechested I feel I would try to run faster in order to warm up better.

I know damned well that I ran quite a few school cross countries back in the 80's in weather comparable to this weeks and that it might have seemed ridiculous but after a few minutes you warm up and that in turn makes the conditions seem less cold on you. Well it did that for me anyway.



"Runners nipple" does seem to be genuine though.

Stuart, definitely not just grammar school "standards" My local high school insisted we also did cross country stripped to the waist. Such fun...

Bernard raised the point about different school having different kit rules.

Certainly my grammar school had a shorts only rule in the gym, and a shirtless rule for cross country. The secondary modern school in the same town allowed shirts etc. In fact we were reasonably close together, so boys from my school would be out running in winter stripped to just PE shorts, while their boys would be in rugby kit.

Maybe it was grammar school "standards" ?

To answer David, I think it fair to say that, thanks to the idea that men are "so brave" for "coming out, think Tom Daley and that Welsh rugby player, who was also brave enough not to tell his partner he was sadly HIV positive, there are certain types of gay men that think that gives them carte-blanche to behave as they like (think LadyBoy Eddie Izzard and his false breasts and clown make-up actually pretending to be a woman, and using women's lavatories - despite many women objecting to him so doing - to try to become an MP. Sense prevailed on Sunday and he was rejected. This is today but think back 30/40 years before Elton John became such a hero to the "Sun newspaper", and these flamboyant men had to be much more guarded,and so their interests had to be disguised. I can give an actual example. I used to work with a man in his 50s, who had been a promising footballer, for whatever reason he didn't go into teaching, but spent much of his spare time training a local under 16s team, and despite many appeals from the teams managers always refused to take on the adult team. You have to wonder why, especially when he lived at home with his mum and just hadn't found the right girl yet. Yes, I do think a minority - and it WAS a minority, of sporty gay men did deliberately go into teaching for reasons that had little to do with sport. Our PE teacher most certainly did. It does have something to do with power and domination as well- one lad I was friends with confirmed his behaviour - but only after we had left school, and he felt safe to do so, having been told several times during the later school years that "it is me [the teacher] they will believe not you".

I have always believed teachers of all subjects should have to undergo a psychiatric examination, rather than a medical one.

Bernard,
I like you did X Country shirtless as that was the school policy but we were allowed to wear training shoes. Not being allowed to wear a shirt when you get hot and sweaty on a run is no big deal but I wouldn’t have enjoyed being made to run barefoot.

I must admit I am surprised, disappointed as well, perhaps that so many people want to attack individual p.e. teachers for the lack of clothing their classes were allowed to wear.
At my grammar school all p.e. classes were conducted with the boys in exactly the same kits which did not include shirts or shoes. This was nothing to do with any particular teacher but was school policy. There were about 5 teachers involved in p.e. and games and they all treated us the same.
I had a friend in the local secondary modern school - in the first year they could choose if they wanted to wear shirts or shoes for cross country - quite a few chose not to wear one or the other with some wearing neither. In the second year that changed and all the boys were sent out exactly the same as us - no shirts or shoes. This was a new rule for the whole school - not any particular teacher. It might have even come from the local authority.
I doubt if many teachers were trying to prove a point about shirtless p.e. - it was just the way things were in those days.

Alan has his knack of firing up the debate again. Andy will be along for his twopenneth quite soon too I'm sure. To think this thread went mute for quite a few weeks not so long ago.

I was thinking about what you said Alan. Hand on heart I really don't think I'd have felt threatened by an out gay PE teacher if I'd had one, any more than a straight one. You've got a real downer on gay men haven't you. Should large swathes of professions be off limits to the anyone LGBT then Alan?

(I'm bi)

'I wasn't saying ALL P.E teachers were homosexuals or lesbians'


I think most readers understood that to be fair. But what you did seem to strongly assert was that of the teachers that were, and are gay/lesbian, all should basically be condemned as being untrustworthy voyeurs and likely abusers while overseeing youngsters in PE a same sex environment. Like TimH and Jim said, that's a repugnant slur against many thoroughly decent people and discrimination on grounds of sexuality. I don't want to throw the homophobic word at you but you feel close to it. You're taking a few bad apples and then condemning everyone else.

Like Tanya says, proportion!

Out of interest, do you actually think that physical education attracted a disproportionate amount of gay teachers for all the wrong motivations? I certainly do not. If anything, those few bad apples were likely just opportunists rather than setting out on a career path just to satisfy their sexual proclivities.

Using the word 'entertainment' in your weekend post was very poor. indeed. It's quite unhealthy to obsess about this so much.

I wasn't saying ALL P.E teachers were homosexuals or lesbians (though our male PE teacher certainly was), and Amanda's description of her female PE teacher suggests a certain tendency. Many of them were just inadequate men and women who used their domination on kids to counteract their feelings of inadequacy, probably henpecked at home, or in a poor marriage.

As regards adult to adult interactions, in football teams etc that is a different matter, if players feel secure enough to "come out". other players should be tolerant and understanding, but it is the child and adult situation which concerns me, because the kids have no power .Only last week , for example a former "club scout" who abused boys for more than 20 years die in prison. Not long before that a former "pillar of the community", a keen scouter, went to prison for abusing two boys over a period of more than a decade. You can be sure many others never got caught, and that it still goes on, because people turn a blind eye and the perpetrators are crafty enough to get away with it.

Provided they are only into other adults, that is fine.

PE for me at one stage ended my school day on Friday's which I always thought was a good way to end the week and for quite a while we'd been allowed to just collect our stuff and go home in our PE kit if we wanted to which was great because it meant not bothering with a shower or anything like that and getting off nice and fast. Obviously some boys wanted to dress and did so and took a shower if they wanted but it was quite relaxed all round. That was until a deputy headmistress came up to me and two friends going out the school gate and called us back in asking us why we were not dressed. She hit the roof and told the headmaster who made it the rule, according to what we then got told, that everybody had to leave school at the end of the day exactly how they had arrived in the morning, in full school uniform. That was a bit of a drag, our PE teachers didn't mind but the headmaster overruled them meaning we ended Fridays having to get into full uniform and tie, which in turn meant our teachers then insisted we had to shower before we put the uniform back on, just for walking out the school gates. A great example of why some teachers could really get right up anyone's nose very easily. You should have seen the state some teachers used to arrive at school themselves, I'd have sent them back home to change into something better. The kids were frequently better dressed in uniform than them.

Earlier in the year I sprung to your defence on something I've long forgotten.

But this?

<why should boys and girls at any time have had to provide free entertainment for the many homosexual and lesbian teachers that schools employed back in the day>


Such a slur against certain people. Sorry to have to say you've lost me on this one.

That reaction from Amanda White is the reason so many PE teachers ended up total failures, sending many of their pupils out of school into adulthood with an aversion to anything physical or sporting related. Instead if they'd done their jobs well people would have had the opposite reaction surely and kept up a keenness for some kind of physical exercise rather than completely put people off it for life.

Women PE teachers knew well enough that a few girls felt a level of extreme anxiety over the arrival of time of month issues and such. It was still going strong into the mid 90's like that. I don't think girls in school did the showers as well as the boys did because girls just don't want to be like that together very easily.

There were rumours at school about one of our PE teachers and later she was seen in a pub with another woman and it was proved correct. She took me for PE but to be honest I couldn't care less about what she liked looking at and I showered in front of her a few times. She was okay.

I disagree just a teeny weeny bit Alan with your take here. It's a very dangerous broad brush attitude to take if you act like any gay, bisexual or lesbian schoolteacher cannot be trusted to act appropriately based only on what their sexual preference is. Maybe you are suggesting that all PE teachers should be straight and that if it was discovered that they are not then they should be moved aside or sacked in the same way the British army and navy used to dismiss serving soldiers and sailors if it was discovered they were gay or even bisexual until not very long ago. Forgive me for straying into this contentious jungle but aren't the majority of dodgy abusers actually straight anyway?

I'm sitting here watching the England World Cup match right now. Isn't it these attitudes that are responsible for the fact that literally no top level football player has actually come out, because of ridiculous fears that all they'd be doing in the football locker room before and after each game is checking out their team mates. Yet the women's football game at top level is stacked full of lesbian players without issues. Interesting isn't it.

At a straight level it's as bad as those feminists among us women who think all men are rapists, like hell they are.

Things are rarely as bad as they seem. Proportion is everything.

Alan:
You write:
why should boys and girls at any time have had to provide free entertainment for the many homosexual and lesbian teachers that schools employed back in the day and increasingly so now. The only difference is back then they had to be more discreet, these days with so many Tom Daley types they would probably not get away with it so easily,
I find this totally repugnant ... that is all

Quite a thoughtful piece Kevin.

There's a line in all that - " I wonder what our PE teachers were trying to prove to us by it." when you wrote of your experience of cross country PE whilst shirtless.

Do you know what, that's quite a thought provoking question in many ways and I certainly don't know the answer to it.

Whether anyone liked it or not, most of the ages that come on here had to be in their school gym for PE stripped to the waist at some point or in some places virtually all the time. You can get that without needing to analyse too hard on it for too long.

When it comes to going outside it does seem different. I did a few athletics PE lessons over summertime on the grass in class with some or all our tops coming off, but that's all and it wasn't a huge amount. I would have found no benefit from going out on cross country without shirts. I did loads of times, out and around school, always multi layered on the very cold runs we did. We didn't even have to wear shorts but could bring in something longer if we were well prepared, but I was never a fan of soft flimsy baggy feeling jogging trousers and always went out in shorts even in the freezing cold. But what I'm saying is we had a choice if we wished to do that or be almost overdressed and layered for PE.

So what were some trying to prove is indeed a valid question I think, in your case Kevin. Wearing shirts does not impact cross country running in any way at all and you said it happened at all points in the school calendar so I take it from that, that you mean any time of year, any season, in all temperatures. When you start getting asked to run around in public like that it smacks of a bit of control freakery to me, along the lines of I can, so I will attitude, of teachers.

So trying my best to answer that question you posed on here, my best effort would be to say maybe your teachers, and others who did the same, not only felt that they had to get guys fitter but had to indulge in some kind of "toughening up" process as well. Perhaps a few PE teachers were infact failed wannabe army drill instructors or something. Shirtless cross country running reminds me of a royal marine training course or something more than a simple PE lesson in a school.

Quite a thoughtful piece Kevin.

There's a line in all that - " I wonder what our PE teachers were trying to prove to us by it." when you wrote of your experience of cross country PE whilst shirtless.

Do you know what, that's quite a thought provoking question in many ways and I certainly don't know the answer to it.

Whether anyone liked it or not, most of the ages that come on here had to be in their school gym for PE stripped to the waist at some point or in some places virtually all the time. You can get that without needing to analyse too hard on it for too long.

When it comes to going outside it does seem different. I did a few athletics PE lessons over summertime on the grass in class with some or all our tops coming off, but that's all and it wasn't a huge amount. I would have found no benefit from going out on cross country without shirts. I did loads of times, out and around school, always multi layered on the very cold runs we did. We didn't even have to wear shorts but could bring in something longer if we were well prepared, but I was never a fan of soft flimsy baggy feeling jogging trousers and always went out in shorts even in the freezing cold. But what I'm saying is we had a choice if we wished to do that or be almost overdressed and layered for PE.

So what were some trying to prove is indeed a valid question I think, in your case Kevin. Wearing shirts does not impact cross country running in any way at all and you said it happened at all points in the school calendar so I take it from that, that you mean any time of year, any season, in all temperatures. When you start getting asked to run around in public like that it smacks of a bit of control freakery to me, along the lines of I can, so I will attitude.

So trying my best to answer that question you posed on here, my best effort would be to say maybe your teachers, and others who did the same, not only felt that they had to get guys fitter but had to indulge in some kind of "toughening up" process as well. Perhaps a few PE teachers were infact failed wannabe army drill instructors or something. Shirtless cross country running reminds me of a royal marine training course or something more than a simple PE lesson in a school.

I totally agree with what Amanda wrote - why should boys and girls at any time have had to provide free entertainment for the many homosexual and lesbian teachers that schools employed back in the day and increasingly so now. The only difference is back then they had to be more discreet, these days with so many Tom Daley types they would probably not get away with it so easily, perhaps why schools are more conservative now in the matter of clothing and showers.

As to the poster (sorry forgotten your name) who thinks it looks so tidy and uniform just to have boys in shorts only they would look just as tidy and uniform if they all wore the same sort of tee shirts - they would all still look alike. Bare chests and bare feet demands always seem so fetishistic.

Starting comprehensive in '82 I just knew we wouldn't get to wear tops in PE, it came with the territory of schools at that age at that time, you almost didn't need to be told. And so it was, barechested for PE. No surprise, I'd resigned myself to it long in advance but was surprised just how much we did it like that. I'm not joking when I say I could probably have identified anyone in class just by their nipples/chests alone we got so familiar with each others appearance on that score.

But what did catch me off guard completely unawares and I didn't see coming, something Bernard mentioned. The first time we all got sent out to do a cross country, some forty of us, we were told to get outside without any shirt, not even allowed to bring one along and tuck it into our shorts incase we needed to wear it. I remember looking directly into the eyes of one or two others and I think there was a bit of disbelief, you could read it on a few faces.

But that wasn't the end of the matter. Although it was called a cross country the school fields were quite an expanse and I anticipated we'd simply be running regular distances around on actual school property. I didn't consider myself naive but that was a naive expectation of mine.

As we assembled in this large group outside on the edge of the playing fields with a couple of PE teachers we were told he was going to show us the regular route the school cross country took and that we were all to begin gently jogging/running behind and follow the lead. That alone made me think, hang on a minute, laps of the school are easy and within seconds the full scale crap, excuse my language, of where we were going kicked in as this pair of teachers led the lot of us straight out the side entrance of the school adjacent to the playing fields and off down the street, with me and probably 39 other lads labouring behind, not a stitch on above our waistlines, and off we went, this mass of young lads clumped in a tight group with each other at first, until we thinned out into a long single file at one stage, street after street, into a local parkland area, more streets, another green area, yet more streets and then returning some 45 minutes later. We must have looked a right pretty picture to any observers, our bodies jogging along fully displayed. I remember both teachers in joggy bottoms and zip up tracky tops.

I didn't live near the school but soon found out that in the 70's and 80's it was common to see large groups of shirtless PE boys running together from the school in the vicinity at almost any time in the school calendar. Looking back I'm astonished at the kind of weather we got sent outside to run like that in.

I'm now fascinated by what turned out this preoccupation with condemning boys at school, at least at mine anyway, to being dragged out and about in some quite inclement conditions barechested like that. I wonder what our PE teachers were trying to prove to us by it. Of course there was never a peep out of anyone and like anything back then it was complete and total compliance at anything you got told to do. If I'm honest it felt barely legal but I'm only saying that retrospectively, I wasn't thinking like that when I was doing it.

All boys had to shower, again no surprise there. One big oblong room, very claustrophobic with everyone packed like cattle, stripped naked, very little room and no personal space very much, not great when none of you had a stitch on. It was an effort not to accidentally brush part of yourself against someone's protruding genitals and and effort to try and make sure your own didn't touch anyone, certainly on the bum. I do remember many jokes about bending over in the showers and the term 'bummer' which just shows the throwaway homophobia among school ages then at fairly young ages. I saw one or two unkind shower incidents of a personal nature from the class fools. The showers were on the ceiling directly above our heads, not on the side walls. But they did at least give us some decent hot water and we were encouraged to bring a soap in any form but that bit wasn't a hard and fast rule, some did others didn't and doing so meant you'd likely be longer. Nearly all my PE lessons ended with a follow on lunch hour or a break time so there was no instant pressure to get off to the next lesson, that was one positive but I think the whole scenario should have been far better and it doesn't surprise me that so many schools have decided to give such things a miss nowadays. When we all went in the school minibus for swimming in my first comprehensive year, using one of the timetabled PE slots now and then, we'd shower after coming from the pool but the whole thing was so much more civilised because there were shower cubicles for most of us to share between pairs or even individually, a real luxury that felt and quite ahead of the times in early to mid 80's possibly.

Not sure if it's being magnified too much but I get the feeling that many men and women who did school in the 70's and 80's and are now hitting a certain age and looking around at what the world has now become are now comparing their experiences unfavourably and with an element of resentment having seen some earlier comments on here and in one or two other places I've dipped into on this subject.

Anthony - I agree completely - that photo of the class all in the same shorts with no tops and no shoes does look really discilplined as you say and with a good work ethic.
At my school we all wore identical white shorts with no tops or footwear for gym but we were only about 30 in each class so might not have looked so good. Again, we looked the same and were treated the same - we were lucky enough to have had generally keen teachers who were happy to encourage the less capable and keep us all moving as much as possible. When we had to keep still to listen to instructions we stood - there was no sitting down in our lessons!
We wore the same kit for cross country so, hopefully we created a good impression for any members of the public who saw us out and about. There would have been up to 90 of us out running so it must have been quite a sight, especially in winter.

Communal showers at my school in the 70s. All forced through with the PE teacher watching. It was totally humiliating not least because of developmental issues - I was the last to grow boobs and start my periods and I shall never forget how unhappy and inadequate it made me feel.

We all had to go through completely naked and the PE teacher watched to check that we did. She had a manly haircut, huge legs, wore lace up brogues and tweed suits when not in PE kit.

Looking back it fills me with utter disgust and I find it difficult to believe that neither parents nor girls complained. Today I think she would have been dismissed for gross misconduct. She was an utter bully too.

The day I finished by O'Levels and left the school I vowed that nobody would ever again make me hit, throw or catch another ball and to this day I have never used communal changing room - although I don't they exist either now.

My brother felt much the same in the boys class too.