Burnley Grammar School

Can somebody tell me exactly what Alan has said or done wrong please? You know, a few specifics to pore over.

The irony to me is that perhaps one of the most honest people who has submitted on this forum has been accused of being one of the most dishonest.

¯\_(?)_/¯

Andy.

You said in your profession you have access to programs that allow definition of writing styles. I know something about this subject myself.

This is all about "Stylometry", which is kind of like a fingerprint, although it's never bolted on accurate.

What is the name of the software you use because I'm a software engineer and developer working from home. Nearly all software of this nature is primarily intended for trying to determine those authors who have been known to plagiarise other people's work. Generally speaking the software is designed to work with a minimum of 5,000 to 10,000 words and isn't considered overly reliable at anything less than a few thousand, which would rule out anything such as brief forum style commenting which accounts for words in the hundreds, not multiple thousands.

For one example it can sometimes be used in the examination process for those at universities who have been known to lift large chunks of text and pass it off as their own, although it would only be considered if there were very strong concerns and isn't something that would be initiated randomly just for the sheer sake of doing it on a casual basis.

There are some free ones out there and also some half decent paid for versions. What do you use and how do you use it, have you used it here for example? I wouldn't consider anything too reliable on the text amounts generated by this forum but sometimes you can hit the jackpot when someone who maybe mis-spells a word in an unusual way does so in what would be highly unlikely to have been done by two different people.

Around ten years ago I did some work on this for Penguin and Hearst Publishing.

I know it's off topic but it would be good to hear your thoughts.

Mark: Let me assure you I am NOT Andy, and as I provided an email address, you have your remedy - get Andy to supply his. Some of the ridiculous suggestions made make me realise it is not me who needs to grow up, but I ahve had enough of it. I have told the truth about my experiences but some of you choose not to believe me. Fair enough, that is your right. I find it boring to keep reading about nude swimming and jockstraps, so I will leave you all to get on with it. I won't bother to post any longer, as some of you like to think if we don't share your rosy memories we are trolls or lying. Go through life with your blinkers on and I wish you joy.

If I may follow on from the Maypole memories earlier down the forum.

I went to an outdoor event at Brunel Field Primary over the weekend and we watched the children using the Maypole that school has had for a number of years. Many of the children took turns and did a number of routines lasting around about half an hour. They all looked very smart and happy doing it and brought a lot of joy top everyone watching. It should be a compulsory part of the school curriculum in that case.

I think Andy and Alan both raise questions here. Both seem to be somewhat troll lite to this site and maybe a schizoid vibe going on and Andy and Alan are the same person arguing with themselves. Either way if neither of you, or just 'you' can bring anything other than petty bickering to this forum maybe you could just give your keyboard a rest. Grow up FFS, what age are you supposed to be.

Andy - name them please if you are informed as you say and with any evidential back up because that is something a few of us I'm sure would like to know. Thanks.

I can sympathise with Dave Ingles. I was tall and thin and embarrassed first time in the showers but quickly got used to the sort of nudity that was common at boys' schools in the '60s.
It helped me cope with the potentially humiliating initiation ritual for cadets who were at summer camp for the first time. Most humiliation by boys on boys involves some nudity, as we've heard. The ritual was ball-blacking. Years later the MoD paid compensation to ex-cadets who experienced it.
I couldn't pretend it did me any harm. The no-nonsense, just get on with it, attitude at school helped me but I do appreciate that some boys may have hated it, although no-one ever said so.

Alan, the evidence is in your posts. In my professional life I have access to software that recognises similar writing styles. So many of the posts supporting your stance seem to be written by you.

Back in February 1983 I had a severe asthma attack while playing football on the school pitch and collapsed flat out on my back during a PE lesson. My teacher more or less ignored me for a few moments and it was my great friends that made him take proper notice, get my inhaler and allow me to recover and get me comfortable.

Fast forward to October 1984, the same teacher had another asthma attack happen in the school gym taking a girls lesson. Instead of an ambulance he got her into a staff members car and they raced to the close by doctors surgery where she finally collapsed in the waiting room and passed away at just fifteen just as the school day was ending. Her brother was in my class and on the pitch with me the day I had my own attack.

If it hadn't been for my friends on the pitch with me I could have gone the same way as that young girl did who was my classmates sister did.

You can well imagine what we both ended up thinking of PE teachers and that one in particular. Their ignorance and lack of knowledge on such matters was literally breathtaking, pun well and truly intended.

This reminds me of that time some of us will have had during break time where a fight broke out between two boys and someone had to pull them apart. Sometimes fellow class or more often than not a teacher did the deed.

I actually think your suggestion is a good one Alan, best to take any personal antagonism off the public forum and say it privately as you have allowed others access to your email and they can do that. That's only fair I agree.

An apt time to dip back in. I wasn't going to make a comment today but I'd like to ask a genuine question to you Alan, not with any intent of catching you out or anything like that. If you would like to remind yourself of my background then look back to 10th April when I placed one of my earliest comments.

Obviously you find your childhood quite difficult and school played a large part of that. You clearly have much that you find rather painful to recall and that is familiar to me with people I've often talked with face to face. I'd genuinely like to know what makes you return and make comments on this history board when it involves so much that seems to distress you. I'm not trying to trip you up over anything, just interested in what your personal motivation for using this particular outlet is, as I looked further back and saw what you placed here. I have noticed that you are one of the minority who sometimes leaves a personal contact detail, is that because you are trying to reach out in some way and do you have any luck in doing so?

If you do not wish to answer that's understandable. We are all psychological beings, all with our strengths and flaws and our characters all vary widely even if we go through the very same experiences together, such as going to school or being brought up in the same household.

The attitude of Dave Ingles is the kind I always love reading about.

Andy. I find your comments downright insulting and somewhat cowardly as you make accusations with no evidence. That is because there is none. I seem to remember you were accusing everybody a few weeks ago who didn't agree with you as psychologically flawed. It seems to me you have problems in that department of your own. You will find my email address on this message, so if you have any further comments to make, have the decency to address them to me instead of hiding on anonymous posts.

All,

People who post here from time to time all know Alan has some serious psychological problems for which he should receive professional help. Instead he posts here as Alan and one or two more name always being the victim of some terrible abuse he supposedly suffered as a child that no sane man would recognise as abuse and it was also in a different age where not every adult was an abuser. Give him a wide berth please.

So it was like this for me. I was stick thin build, not much on me and no more than average height, maybe a touch less so. I didn't stack up the well against everyone down below either and took plenty of stick for it that used to flare up now and again when I'd shower and change and all that usual teenage stuff of school p.e. I put up with most of it with a forced smile. But one thing I was great at was running, both short and long distance. I came first quite often and was on the school team. Because of this it completely countered all the p*ss taking I sometimes got over what I was born like, which actually was just a normal lad really when I look back but you can be left doubting it in the cruelty of the school yard, changing area or showers. At least my athletic ability gave me the chance to shut people up when they went on and on at me. Coming first or nearly first answered all those who thought they were somehow better than me just because they were build bigger or had a longer d*ck. I've self censored that. Ultimately I feel I had the bigger balls than those guys.

I loved that phrase "don't be the victim, be the victor". Absolutely spot on.

Worth highlighting the following line I think;

Comment by: Andre on 19th May 2022 at 18:10
Any humiliation was what the teacher and kids said to you but not the mere act of showing up in just your shorts in itself.

Clearly very prickly Alan, you didn't read closely what I said either did you. Just chill man!

Don't be the victim - be the victor.

In an ideal world where nobody said anything negative and all was friendly and full of positive encouragment would you still have found your situation humiliating just for being asked to wear a shorts only kit Alan? Is your view that being asked to do PE like that is the humiliation itself, just so I'm clear.

We come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and I defy anyone to say they didn't compare themselves with others around them either favourably or unfavourably. It's automatic.

Every single school seems to have its clique of undesirables doesn't it, those who just love to make others feel bad about themselves. The story Richard told from the swim lesson really makes the blood boil because you just know that those three louts who did that probably thought it was one big lark and funny in their own warped minds and yet 27 others had to suffer the consequences even if they got booted out of school.

I wonder how many adults are ever prepared to admit to being school bullies, not too many I bet you, wasn't there someone on here recently who met one in denial at a reunion or something.

Andre: I will be kind and suggest to you, that you did not bother to read my last post. My teacher habitually made remarks about me (and one other lad - me for being too thin the other for being overweight) on a regular basis, every week - if you do not think that is humiliaing for a self conscious teenager, frankly there is no point in talking to you. Have a nice life.

Liam = at least one ladybird book depicted a lone boy, minus shirt and vest participating in "music and movement" with a number of girls clad in vests and knickers,

https://www.flickr.com/photos/larkingabout/392753573

Can't find any pictures where the girls had their vests off as well.

Richard - another way in which my PE experience seems to be rather different to most reported here is that at neither school was there any concern as to whether or not we wore anything under our shorts, or even under our shirts in the non-topless situations. The nearest we came to any form of teacherly concern as to our underwear was when I was twelve or thirteen. Following an incident in which one of my classmates, going commando at the time, as most of us did by choice, received a blow in a tender location. The teacher stopped the lesson to let him recover, using the hiatus to advise us that we ought to at least consider wearing some form of supporting garment. A certain item was mentioned, but as none of us had ever heard of it, the message probably passed over our heads.

Alan how can you possibly accuse your school of humiliating you just for asking you to dress in a way that is perfectly within the norms of physical education? Any humiliation was what the teacher and kids said to you but not the mere act of showing up in just your shorts in itself.

A little story of mine about schooldays humiliation.

If you want to know what horrible humiliation is at school then I can help out with this. Back around April/May 1980 two boys my age, 14, got a month suspension and a third ringleader the same age was expelled from my school for 'attacking/humiliating' another boy in a ground floor changing room after a swimming lesson at our local leisure centre. With our teacher absenting himself briefly they pushed a large swing window wide open and got hold of him while naked taking his swimming trunks off and dangled him upside down outside the window by the ankles before letting him go. Trying to climb back in they slammed the window shut while some other boys attempted to re-open it and a minor scuffle broke out between sensible lads and these other class idiots. I was one of the innocent bystanders to it. The boy they hung out the window had to make a walk back around into the building with nothing on. This could be seen from the nearby busy road with people about, the reason they did it to him, and also other users in the leisure centre. The boy was in bits afterwards and did nothing to deserve it. It was completely random and unexpected.

The management of the swimming pool noticed what was going on before our actual teacher did and were absolutely furious at this behaviour and although it was only three idiots out of 25/30 of us our whole swim class for the rest of the school year was cancelled and we couldn't go back for the whole summer ahead as planned. Our school took it very seriously and even though I'd done nothing every single one of us in that class was made to write out a written apology in a separate letter in an exercise in collective guilt by association, which was a humiliation for us as well I suppose. Most of us hated those class idiots for wrecking everything for us and were very pleased with what happened to them.

I wonder how well that individual now remembers that, because I still do and it didn't happen to me directly. We all know kids have boisterous fun but all I remember was how determinedly nasty they were in this instance. That lad was humiliated badly, so were the rest of us and also the whole school felt humiliated too.

Your school change left you completely the opposite way around to me Chris. There was a big difference in my two schools. It kind of makes you wonder what makes varying schools behave so differently from each other where one insisted on a full and proper kit and another insisted you get it off and keep it off. I see nothing wrong being pro-choice with the whole thing and I applaud your own approach, but it seems the only pro-choice decision was our former teachers who liked compulsion one way or another.

Not so unusual Andrew. Infact I've got an i.t.a early learners reading book from about that same period when my oldest sister began school which has a lot of pictures in the style they used to do them in the well known ladybird books and on one page there is a drawn picture of a small boys and girls PE class with ten of them together all topless with lady teacher, the drawing makes them look about 6 or 7, and they must be a mixed class because I'm sure that half the boys were not going to school with pig tails in the 1970's even if some have top knots and fancy styles now that look quite androgynous. It's really no big deal is it, or at least it shouldn't be. It wasn't then but some would cast doubts in this day and age and find problems where none exists.

Well I can lay claim to doing mixed P.E class without my top on with the girls too. Okay so I was only five or six years old at the time we did this back in the mid seventies but time and again our rather severe old bag of a teacher who looked 80 but was likely 40 and had a horrible looking large grey bun on her head took the weekly P.E lesson on the floor of the school hall and none of us, either boys or girls had any tops on, topless the lot of us with nowt on our feet. We all changed together at our tables and put our clothes in front of us and just walked out the door and the hall was not too far away. This was how P.E was for the whole first year of my schooling. That seemed unremarkable then and who knows if any of our parents even knew that's how we did P.E with each other, I've no idea, but that's how we did it together, bare chest and foot. Some of it involved physical contact too, with piggy backs and linking up as well as using hoops and balancing along beams, throwing bean bags and so much more. If boys or girls didn't have their P.E shorts to wear on the day for whatever reason then it was just pants or knickers instead or possibly something found out of lost property if it was available. If I close my eyes and think back I can visualise these lessons so clearly in full colour and almost feel the atmopshere of that hall, the smell it gave off and the aroma of our teachers perfume. What I can't remember is anyone being bothered doing P.E like that.

Alan that's awful of your teacher to pass comment and lay you open to further comments from others in the class. What is a man like that thinking, and the trouble is that those who are sensitive get massively damaged by it while those who have thick skins can bat it away assertively. I'd have been the latter, I took no prisoners at school and gave as good as I got in anything, including PE. I was nothing like as confident as I probably looked but I tried to project otherwise and I think it worked.

To Chris, some girls can get envious of boys ability to strip off everything. I'll admit to being a bit so myself although even if it was possible I doubt any of my girlfriends in school would have been brave enough. Anyway there were lots of girls in school with me that found the bashful boys rather endearing, we don't all go for the over confident cocky ones with ripped torsos you know.

Dylan and Robbie: It is humiliatimng when said teacher makes personal remarks about your physique, to a classful of lads who take up the remarks. I don't want to say any more about it. That is how I felt and no hyperbole

"The one size fits all attitude is the problem."

This works both ways. When I changed secondary schools at age 15, I moved from a school where topless PE had been ithe norm for two or three years without any obvious opposition from pupils, to one where tops were absolutely required for all forms of physical activity bar swimming. A group of us who had come from topless-PE environments, and who were all anxious to continue the experience, tried again and again to get the PE master to let us take our tops off, but to no avail.

There is a vast difference between feeling humiliated, as Alan says he felt, to feeling self conscious or embarrassed if you ever got told to take your shirt off and have a bare top half of the body. Humiliation is a very strong word, why humiliation? It sounds like you took it very personally but I guess everyone else was exactly the same alongside you, or were you deliberately confronted with what you yourself looked like by others?

I never thought there was any real need for my teacher to tell our class to all take our shirts off for PE on a regular basis. We could have done it just as well with our tops on no problems. Some of my teachers were the shirts off kind and a couple of others weren't.

The one size fits all attitude is the problem. You get a class of boys and tell them all to do the same thing and some won't mind and others will. Shirtless PE is a great example of this actually. But you'd rarely get boys openly complain that they had to do a bare chest class like that would you and I strongly suspect that even you Alan who felt humiliated didn't give rise to your concerns either did you.