Request for information: Gym Knickers

The ones I recall were the same as corncrake's - though ours had a little pocket where we had to have a clean white handkerchief. In Primary school (ages 5 - 12) they were worn with only a white cotton top, while in Secondary we wore a short pleated skirt over them.

I recall having to wear ghastly maroon coloured gym knickers when I was at secondary school. They were worn in the gym and not outdoors (we had maroon shorts to be worn outside) and with them we wore a short sleeve Airtex shirt which had lots of tiny little holes in the fabric. Hey - I'm glad my knickers didn't have lots of holes in too!

Sometimes I regret going to an all-boys school.

On the subject of forgetting kit, I heard David Baddiel on TV saying that boys at his school who forgot their swiiming trunks were made to go in the pool naked. At my school we were told to find a pair in the lost property box, but this often had the same effect as they probably didnt fit very well and were missing the tie cord. They'd stay up in the water but it was hard to haul yourself out onto the side without baring your bottom in the process.

At our school swimming trunks were forbidden and you bathed in the nude! The housemasters supervising were able to see the stripes inflicted on the boys' bums all too easily!

In the only high school I attended that had a pool, bathing suits were unknown, at least for us boys. I suppose forbidding them prevented lots of problems with wet clothing moldering in lockers. Besides, we all saw each other naked in the shower.

Likewise for, swimming lessons/tests at US Navy boot camp. (Except for when they made in jump in fully clothed to see if we could successfully disrobe whilst drowning)

In high school, all of our swimming occurred after gym class. We all swam in the nude. Nothing unusual about this.

Swimming naked? Weird. Of course swimming hall sauna is totally different thing

That does surprise me, especially if ti was in the uk. It would not have happened at our school or I think the parents would have been uneasy about it, even in those days! However, after gym or swimming we were made to strip off completely and assemble for a communal shower closely supervised by the teacher which I found highly embarrassng at first.

I should mention it was a male only school. It certainly wasn't uncommon in those uncivilised times and some parents even came to view their naked offspring swimming.