Burnley Grammar School

David Terry, a retired schoolmaster, recalled in a letter to The Times that on his first day at work he had approached a long-serving teacher in the staffroom and called him, respectfully, "Mr. Smith".

The intimidating response was: "I am Smith. Mr. Smith is the caretaker".

Apology received with thanks.

The surname calling has been mentioned on here a couple of times previously. Quite a similar view to you Matthew.

Using your surname in school was all about projecting authority wasn't it?

Oh yes Mark so right you are!

I shouldn't think there was a PE teacher who knew my name was actually Matt while I went through the years at senior school in the seventies up until I left back in '80 which couldn't come quick enough.

As well as the PE teachers knowing me just as McCarthy it was also the woodwork and metalwork teachers who acted the same, boys only known by surnames in those classes too, and we did a plastics workshop too and so did that bloke. I hated the metalwork teacher I had big time who was very demeaning to some of us, he was a league of his own, no PE teacher came close to his dislikeability.

We had to refer to all of them as Sir or Mister. It really was a case of yes Sir, no Sir, three bags full Sir. I think there might have been a history teacher one year who went the McCarthy only name with me bit all the others knew me as Matt or Matthew. No women used our surnames in school, not even any of the girls PE teachers if they had cause to speak to us, they always called me Matt.

My best friend at the time called me Matty quite a lot but the rest of the boys across all the classes only went with surnames at each other, so I heard my surname more than my first name in school when you add them into it. I think some girls may have called me McCarthy instead of Matt but most used my first name I think. I'm a bit more vague on that one. I would have preferred those my age I was in classes with to have known me as Matt rather than always McCarthy, while some of those teachers I expected it of in those days.

I'm sure all men of a certain age and at school at a certain time will find what I've said here instantly recognisable to themselves in some way won't they.


My school PE kit.

Autumn/Winter Outside - Football boots. Navy blue long sleeved top. Black shorts. Long royal blue thick socks to the knee almost.

We had to run cross country in our football boots would you believe and they were not designed for that kind of running, especially on the harder surfaces we encountered along the way in part.

Spring/Summer Outside - As much white as possible. White trainers, white socks, white shorts and a white vest. All white! Sometimes the vests would be left aside after we got out there.

All year round indoors for general gym - white shorts. Nothing else. Bare feet and bare chests.

This meant we had less to carry about on gym days and also everyone was always doing gym PE, unlike outdoors when someone always had an excuse to sit it out if they came without their boots or pretended to forget them as there was nothing in lost property to dig out like that.

School showers were compulsory up until the fifth form when they became voluntary but most still decided to take them when the teacher set them going, but we were no longer obliged to do so, probably just because we were older by then but we were still just as sweaty. My view was why remain sweaty if I don't have to be.

Showering at my school was communal in nature, not especially large, but a kind of long narrow set up a bit like crowding down a long dead end corridor. It was quite difficult not to accidentally touch or brush against someone else but you tried not to. You were not allowed to wear shorts in the shower or anything like that, you had to use them fully bare naked. If a teacher thought you had gone in and come out too quickly you got sent right back in again for another go. I guess 2 minutes was the minimum, once we'd rubbed a bit of soap on ourselves. PE teachers encouraged us to pay attention to our underarms, I always remember that bit.

Thanks for reading.

Do you not think things were generally far better in the days when not just teachers but doctors, police and other such like professions were not just admired but respected and those who did those kind of jobs were seen as pillars of society, even bank managers come to think of it.

I do think you earn respect mind you and shouldn't automatically receive it based on your status in anything.

I see nothing wrong with addressing people as sir, miss or madam, or as you say as mr or mrs whoever. All are acceptable. It did used to jar with me somewhat that I had to use these respectful terms to staff when all the PE ones and a few of the others used to address me as nothing more than the family surname any time they called out to me which didn't feel very friendly coming from some of them. I don't think many people refer to their colleagues in the adult workplace just by their surname very often unless in the services but this style of addressing was deemed acceptable for children for some reason.

I apologise to Geoff for thinking he was a school teacher, and for any distress that caused. Clearly I misread his reply. Sorry Geoff.

Comment by: Roy on 25th September 2023 at 19:48

What is wrong with "Mr. Smith" or "Mrs Brown"?, Roy?. Do you go round calling your employer "Sir" all the time?. When pupils see their teachers having a strop and shouting, or behaving like a Mick Lynch acolyte , going on strike at the drop of a hat, why should teachers feel they have the right to be revered? . I don't agree with the idea of calling teachers by their forenames, but the 19th/20th century practice of calling people by an unofficial title is absurd in the 2020s. If I were a 17/18 year old "schoolboy" I'd be damned if I would call an 28 year old teacher "sir".

'or rather witnessing it' was crystal clear to me Geoff.

Anyway you made absolutely no claim or insinuation in any way that you were a PE teacher so I'm quite astonished you got a blast out of Alan there.

And even if you had been a PE teacher, what a reply to get.

There is nothing wrong with calling teachers 'Sir' or 'Miss' you know Alan, and teachers are important people in the lives of children. What do you expect them to be exactly?

Geoff - Thanks for your response to Alan's post.

I, too, couldn't work out why you were a 'Sir'.

Geoff said "Pre-empting Nathan if he answers your question for himself but I can answer this one easily for myself, or rather witnessing it nearly half a century ago. It was 'stop whining, stop wasting my time, strip off and get in there NOW' and that was the limit of any discussion and no further appealing if you were sensible. I've got in mind a specific timid lad with national health spectacles who was often pleading to be a special case and excused. He never was."




You're not a "Sir" like Alan says are you.

Key word here is "witnessing" surely. It's clear to me, you're the child in this story.

And yes, that would probably have been the attitude without a shadow of doubt, like it or not, nobody kept on about feelings in those days.

Alan.

I don't think Geoff actually said he was a PE teacher there did he, if so where did he suggest he was? I just read him from the pupil perspective, unless I've misunderstood. One of us has.

I was speaking as a schoolkid myself you dozy clot! A witness to others.

What, you actually thought I was a PE teacher? You seem to be seeing them everywhere and with ill intent.

I am not a PE teacher alright. Thank goodness I checked back rather fast so I can set the record straight on that.

Comment by: Geoff on 25th September 2023 at 11:57


I bet you had the little eleven year olds calling you "sir" from the first minute of their first day, didn't you Geoff?. Lovely to feel "important".Even if you are not.

Good to read that highly positive post there Miles. :-)

I was terribly shy as a primary schoolboy and felt entry to secondary school with intense trepidation with many of the things that have been said here worrying me a lot. But secondary was okay, even the PE teachers were fair and understanding and dare I say it in most cases rather reasonable. I know, how lucky does that make me sound for somebody who went to a secondary school between the age of 12 and 16 from 1970 to 1974. I found I very rapidly lost some of my shyer traits within weeks and settled in well. I took to some of the sports easier than I'd imagined I would, no longer feared my body or being seen without my shirt on when we did the gym where it was mandatory not to wear one, although gym wasn't my favourite. The same applied to the showering. That certainly loomed large but doing it diminished it and within a fortnight I no longer felt these things had any hold on me or were able to worry me again. PE lessons often seemed calm and fun, I don't remember much aggression like others report, despite the rugby I did a lot! I never had any problems or felt threatened or intimidated by anyone and was never bothered by teachers looking or checking on me in the changing rooms and showers at school, they must have seen kids/pupils like me thousands of times before, a bit like doctors.

I'm not saying everything was sweetness and roses, of course not, I wasn't keen on the kind of gym shown in the picture on here, me I'd much rather be doing team games than vaulting a horse and always preferred the outside whatever time of year it was. I was a keen rugby player but just missed out on the school team because interest for it was so high. I loved the rough and tumble of the game at that age and liked nothing more than getting into a mess throwing myself at the ground attempting to score a try, and the PE lessons I was into the most involved rugby, muck, sweat and the odd bruise here and there. Walking off the field aching, sweating, mucky and breathless heading for the showers to make ourselves presentable again sounds a nightmare to some but to me felt like I'd achieved something.

Perhaps Tanya would like to define the word - dodgy - that she used? Perhaps somebody else might like to define it. Whatever the definition I think and hope it's well under 1%.

Comment by: Tom F on 24th September 2023 at 12:13
Nathan - What if you're told quite clearly someone doesn't want to shower?



Pre-empting Nathan if he answers your question for himself but I can answer this one easily for myself, or rather witnessing it nearly half a century ago. It was 'stop whining, stop wasting my time, strip off and get in there NOW' and that was the limit of any discussion and no further appealing if you were sensible. I've got in mind a specific timid lad with national health spectacles who was often pleading to be a special case and excused. He never was.

Much like my school, your right to even a bit of privacy as a boy was non existent. In our school changing room we often encountered teachers of other subjects kind of passing through. I couldn't even begin to explain what some of them were even doing there at times. The changing room should have been barred to anyone other than PE staff, especially with showers always on the go. In my case this was 35 years ago in 1988.

Comment by: Tanya on 24th September 2023 at 21:29

Tanya, being a run down old school we only had the one PE teacher (Nobody with any quality or talent wanted to work there as it had been under threat of closure for years, since before I went there, so we had old men hanging on for their pensions, resenting every minute or younger men with "problems" of various sorts, which meant it was the only job they could get). Wasn't we lucky!.

I don't know the percentage of paedophiles then, in teaching generally but as for today - and I know this will make some readers upset, I frankly think because people are encouraged to be "brave" and come out publicly and are lauded for so doing , they are probably more open and more relaxed about things now. They hide in plain sight. Probably not quite as rampant as the child grooming gangs one hears of in the North of England, which are largely comprised of another minority group, people are nervous of airing their concerns, because the politically correct group will cancel them. We know it goes on, and the fact that a few more high profile cases do get to court (and this is often because their unfortunate victims were like Nicky Campbell and famous in the media), and a very few brave people waive their right to anominity we know that such cases are still going on. As to the otiose notion of "safeguarding", I'd say what safeguarding?. Clearly it is not working, if it even exists. I have to repeat that I do not believe al teachers are homosexual, and I have no problem with them teaching any other subject, but with the increase in school age, so that you have young men of 17 or 18 at school compulsorily, I do not think it a good idea for men with homosexual tendencies to be P.E. teachers - the numerous private gyms starting up like charity shops in failing high streets means they could obtain employment in other areas. Of course, not all homosexual teachers will be attracted to boys, but the older the pupil the greater the temptation perhaps. For example, our Mr R became much more "interested" in you when you got to 15 or so.

I have no doubt if I had been to a better school, with more stable teachers, I might have a different view, but we are all victims of our own circumstances. Even so, with the increasing emphasis on individuality, and a much less rigid social order, `I think it laughable that in 2023 schools dictate what pupils wear, from clothes to length of hair to jewellery (I only had a watch) and, unless you are in the armed services, civil service, police or other public service, what employer demands to be called "sir" all the time?. There are currently some politicians who want to take us back to the world of 1997. It seems some teachers and schools want to take their pupils back to 1897.

Nathan I want your opinion on this. It surely could never happen now.

Back in the day, December 1979, I had to leave school a bit early to go and have a brace fitted at the dentist and had to be picked up to be taken along. My PE teacher at that time, I was 12 years old, brought my father to wait for me right into the changing room to stand there until I was ready to go with him, while I myself and everyone else was changing and showering, and he clocked me getting out the shower and many others too. I was so embarrassed he was there you don't want to know and very upset he did that. The teacher should have left him outside the door, or even better my dad should have stayed at reception or in his car for me rather than make his way into the school right to where I was. The very same thing happened a few months later again for another dentist brace related visit during school hours when he entered the geography lesson asking for me. Thanks to my dad waiting in the changing room to take me off, with the full blessing of my PE teacher I should add, I was teased something chronic for days afterwards about how I needed him to hold my hand and the whole bit about being seen without clothes on.

1979 is truly like another planet, I pinch myself that things like this ever happened.

Some 20 years ago there was uproar in our neighbourhood when a dirty old man well known for having a record for touching young people up (he was not a schoolteacher) was in court for these offences and received a non custodial sentence whilst living in the very same road at the same time another lady of mature years was sent to prison for 14 days for non payment of the fine she had received for TV licence evasion. I think she only got out sooner because it was paid in the end. It makes you sick doesn't it.

For the men here who are enjoying jogging while not wearing shirts I say keep it up. I wish we had a group around here, I'd be more than happy to see them going past me, runners tend to be fit and conditioned and worth looking at.

I know you've accused me of being a bit flippant with you previously Alan but that's not the aim. I have backed one or two of your points up. Out of interest, what percentile of PE teachers do you personally think were dodgy in your schooldays and what percentage do you think are nowadays?

I agreed with Marion on the safeguards now. Although I was only born in 1982 and my secondary education and PE lessons were in the mid to late 90's there has probably been a lot of change even since then on safeguards. Lots of men on here make being at school and PE in the 70's and early 80's seem like a boot camp at times.

Alan, if your teachers were all fine and upstanding men who acted professionally at all times am I to assume you would never have had a problem with all the things that your PE entailed in those days, the shirtless gyms and the communal showers etc?

Nathan - What if you're told quite clearly someone doesn't want to shower?

Just wondering if you could tell us what those minor anxieties that you always expect to see actually are?

One of mine was not wanting to be made to play football or rugby, neither of which I liked even watching, never mind being told to play. I did have the dreaded shower anxiety too.

Nathan Hind on 23rd September 2023 at 22:54


The problem is, Nathan, when you have had experience of some of the profession, when you read of cases where no less than three teachers stationed at the same school indulged in criminal offences of a disgusting nature with young boys, you do have to wonder slightly at the calibre of man being employed - considering these days the so-called safeguarding that is supposed to go on. Just this week saw the death in prison of a serial abuser who masqueraded as a 'football scout" (Barry Bethnell) - there are many other cases which I will not weary you with, but it does seem a sad fact that a lot of this sort of man hangs around the scout movement, football coaching - and the school gym and locker rooms. We are not talking of cases 50 years ago - these are instances of events that have occurred in the 21st century.

What concerns me is that though a few end up serving a custodial sentence, many others, like people who ill-treat animals, end up with a slap on the wrist, a fine, or "community service" (and God knows what that entails). The crime is not taken very seriously. The first of the three miscreants in the story I have highlighted had served a term of imprisonment, for his original offences, but for his second conviction he was given a suspended sentence - totally inadequate in my view. He should never have been employed by an education authority to give him a chance to indulge himself again.

I know for a fact at my old school (and we are talking years ago) other teachers were well aware of Mr R's proclivities, but decided to act like the three wise monkeys, and say and do nothing. In my book that makes them as guilty as the man himself, for condoning it. I suppose the mitigation for that man is that by the time of his second trial he was in his 70's - well, other people are in prison at that age, many for far less revolting crimes, and being so fit he should have been able to withstand his punishment better than the old man or old lady who has been jailed for motoring offences or not having a TV licence, or falling behind with their rent.

When these dubious characters are weeded out, and, if convicted, given stiff prison sentences, then I will be more charitable towards them

For me barechested PE/Games started when I was 9 and sent to a mixed boarding school in 1992.Though there was a formal kit (games top, school vest and t-shirt) we were told the preference was bare chests for any indoor activity which. Outside, we would usually start off having already been split into skins vs vests or with the whole class told to strip down to shorts, we also quickly found out those in vests could be told to strip later in the lesson which happened a lot. Cross country was always run barechested without exception and usually in the of crappiest weather too. Some adapted earlier than others to the variable conditions but with a 90 min PE or Games lesson timetabled daily you did become sort of used to it and it really did wake you up.

What I would say to Alan here is that you should indeed share Marion's faith which I found to be a refreshing change, despite her initial concerns for her grandson in a new school environment. There is far too much darkness and nowhere near enough light in your view of PE teaching.

I've told the new boys at school if they have any problems they can come privately to me anytime or be more open if they wish in front of class. It's been quite a smooth first month back so far, no major concerns. We didn't ask the new ones to shower in the first week back and really only started doing things as we mean to go on since last Monday. No complaints so far other than the usual minor anxieties you will always expect to see.

Paul I often take a late evening (about 11.30pm) power walk of about 20 minutes because I find it helps me when I get back in get to sleep quicker if I do this. It was a discovery I made about three years ago during lockdown number one. I would actually rather enjoy doing it 'bareskin' like the other two chaps but like you say I would be somewhat embarrassed to suddenly bump into anyone coming in the other direction if they saw a man walking rather fast without his shirt on late at night even though where I walk is reasonably quiet and I seldom pass many others. I am in my late fifties by the way. I always go walking in shorts and trainers anyway. A short power walk while shirtless in bracing cold appeals to me for the health benefits it brings. The warm bed afterwards even more inviting.

When I was at school we did cross country but always in shirts. We did however do athletics through summer shirtless quite a bit and gym was shirtless about half the time.

Craig and Rick, good to hear you're going bareskin running, but I wanted to say that in some places in the world (such as the US where it's warmer), bare skin running is normal and you'll always see shirtless runners on the trail of all ages. Thanks to school in the UK, I was aware of how interesting it is to feel the different sensations of weather on my chest, and I realized that a shirt is often cumbersome and uncomfortable.

When I was young I always would hope to see other shirtless runners or cyclists as I felt it gave me permission to do the same. I worried so much about it because I was scared people would call out things to me, embarrass me.

Excellent Rick J. You should set up a local whatsapp group like I did and find others who want to do the same or give it a go. We've got 17 so far on mine. Going running tonight at 8pm in the dark!

Good article that was. People are so judgmental at times aren't they. If someone wants to run in the snow with their shirt off whose business is it but theirs. I agree it does give a feelgood factor. Tonight will be quite a fresh run out, so far we have 9 due to join us, so a big one. Always come back feeling really good.

I've read some of the comments from a few months ago about school cross country's and how some of you here would run them bare chested and then I saw someone write up about the new phenomenon recently of bareskin runs which is still very niche to say the least.

Well I've done both.

Is there anybody who hated things in school that they like as adults? I never much liked cross country running in school and didn't exactly thrill at sometimes doing it stripped off more than I wanted to. Now I've just hit my 50th and took up running again when I was 45 and got myself back into good shape, and now I often go out with a pal of mine and we do this new fangled bare skin run which takes me right back to school days because some of where we both run is exactly the same places I did in school years back. I'm really enjoying something at the age of 45 to 50 that I had no time for when I was about 13 to 17. It has worked wonders for my mental faculties and sharpened up my brain as well as my brawn.

If my old PE teachers could see me now they'd be amazed at how physically active I've become through my 40's having not been since school, actually they'd hardly recognise me as the young guy they had who was always quite reluctant.


I'm hoping to try it in the colder weather after I saw this item in the Telegraph from two years ago.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/forget-wild-swimming-bareskin-running-now/