Gransnet forums

Chat

PE did you love it or loathe it??

(120 Posts)
Babs03 Wed 12-Feb-25 20:45:11

I was the nerdy child who couldn't catch a ball to save my life, so I dreaded PE. The picking of teams - nobody picked me so the PE teacher usually forced a side to take me, the screaming in my face to run or catch or do both, and the humiliation at being so very, very bad at something.
I usually got my mum to write a note.

FlexibleFriend Thu 13-Feb-25 20:50:27

I loved PE and Games and excelled at nearly all of them. Even kept them up after leaving school. The PE teacher liked and encouraged me and knew I'd always turn up even for Hockey which I wasn't very fond of. She always waited with me after matches till my Dad arrived to collect me. I was a pretty good all rounder at school, not terrible at anything really.

Oreo Thu 13-Feb-25 22:08:07

Loved it, especially outside games.

LovesBach Thu 13-Feb-25 22:24:49

Gymnastics - torture. Too short to leap over horse, fell often, terrified of knocking teeth out. Couldn't climb a rope. Hockey in freezing field, changed in dirty barn, no toilets, no showers. Swimming - three to a tiny cubicle, guess whose underwear always ended up on wet floor, train journey back to school, teeth chattering, wet hair. Hated every single second.

Allira Thu 13-Feb-25 22:53:05

LovesBach 😀
I shouldn't laugh, poor you.

We had very brief cold showers which were a form of torture!

Sara1954 Fri 14-Feb-25 06:16:24

I hated it so much, I absolutely loathed the ghastly, sadistic teacher, I had many a run in with her.
Thirty years later, we moved house to a small lane, one of our neighbors invited us for drinks to meet the residents, and who should be there………
I still couldn’t bring myself to speak to her, and didn’t for all the years we lived there.

GrannySomerset Fri 14-Feb-25 09:32:04

Not many happy memories of school games here. I thought netball a waste of energy (all that running up and down), hockey was penitential (freezing in aertex shirts and shorts while games mistress was entirely clad in sheepskin plus we had a twenty minute walk each way to the field), gymnastics was only for the few - the only thing I liked and was any good at was tennis. I suppose that in some way it was good for us but it felt like a waste of time to me. Plainly not team spirited!

Babs03 Fri 14-Feb-25 10:27:20

Sara1954

I hated it so much, I absolutely loathed the ghastly, sadistic teacher, I had many a run in with her.
Thirty years later, we moved house to a small lane, one of our neighbors invited us for drinks to meet the residents, and who should be there………
I still couldn’t bring myself to speak to her, and didn’t for all the years we lived there.

Good for you. I would have had to walk out if the two sadists who took great pleasure in humiliating us in front of our peers were there.
I was a shy child after puberty and though I excelled at academic subjects the constant humiliation in PE destroyed any confidence I had. It took years to claw back the confidence I had. Certainly my school days were not the happiest days of my life. I couldn’t wait to leave.

LovesBach Fri 14-Feb-25 10:33:33

Allira

LovesBach 😀
I shouldn't laugh, poor you.

We had very brief cold showers which were a form of torture!

I suppose no showers at all might be slightly better than freezing ones, Allira - and I didn't add that after the swimming ordeal, we would arrive back at school for double maths - my least favourite subject. How I hated Wednesdays! smile

Sara1954 Fri 14-Feb-25 10:34:08

Babs, I enjoyed school on the whole, but I was not good at PE, we wore the skimpiest of PE kit, and had to do cross country around the town, which I found massively embarrassing after, at only eleven I started my periods.
But I fought her all the way, taking my grievances to the headmistress, she absolutely hated me, and it was mutual.

Allira Fri 14-Feb-25 12:05:51

LovesBach

Allira

LovesBach 😀
I shouldn't laugh, poor you.

We had very brief cold showers which were a form of torture!

I suppose no showers at all might be slightly better than freezing ones, Allira - and I didn't add that after the swimming ordeal, we would arrive back at school for double maths - my least favourite subject. How I hated Wednesdays! smile

There was no soap allowed either, just a pointless 10 second dash under a cold shower!

JackyB Fri 14-Feb-25 12:19:56

I never thought about whether I liked or hated something. I just got on with it.

I wasn't very good at sports and only once made a team - I was left wing in the under 12s hockey team for one match. I was less than average in the gym and not well coordinated. A little bit better at throwing and catching, Badminton etc.

The worst part was walking down to the games field on a Wednesday afternoon in our hockey shorts. We had to pass the secondary school boys who were gardening right by the fence and they always shouted rude things.

JackyB Fri 14-Feb-25 12:28:09

I don't know why I was so useless and uncoordinated as my parents were both very sporty and great dancers. My mother who went to school in the 20s and 30s, was captain of all the teams and was a brilliant swimmer and won lots of medals for diving, loved tennis. My sister excelled at everything that was on offer: fencing, rugby, trampoline....

Sara1954 Fri 14-Feb-25 12:35:25

JackyB, one of my daughters really excelled at sports, she swam and played hockey and netball to a high level, we traveled all over the country with her for many years, and I was either in a boiling hot pool, or by the side of a freezing cold hockey pitch.
Really weird, I was rubbish

mae13 Fri 14-Feb-25 12:46:48

Winter it was hockey and Summer it was tennis. Hated both but especially hockey, trailing up and down a muddy field and some of the more 'butch' girls really took it seriously and could be almost lethal.

But dad bought me a super racket for tennis - 1966 and he paid a stupendous 36 shillings and sixpence. It didn't make me play any better.

P

Eloethan Fri 14-Feb-25 14:15:32

In hockey, I kept right out of the firing line!!

M0nica Fri 14-Feb-25 22:21:49

JackyB

I don't know why I was so useless and uncoordinated as my parents were both very sporty and great dancers. My mother who went to school in the 20s and 30s, was captain of all the teams and was a brilliant swimmer and won lots of medals for diving, loved tennis. My sister excelled at everything that was on offer: fencing, rugby, trampoline....

Much the same in our family. My parents loved sport and were good at it. I can remember them winning tennis tournaments in their 40s and my father played cricket into his late 40s.

My sisters and I were always very active, we all did a lot of (non competitive) swimming and I did athletics and I was always racing around. But none of us had any interest in sport in the way our parents were.

Babs03 Fri 14-Feb-25 22:38:52

Neither of my parents were sporty. They loved ballroom dancing though which I reckon is pretty good exercise, they would push back the furniture at weekends and put the old 78s on the record player, Glen Miller was a favourite, and cut up the rug.
My dad also loved hiking/rambling.
But sport left them cold.

Marydoll Fri 14-Feb-25 22:48:14

I loathed it. I went to a Catholic convent school and the P.E teacher used to crack our ankles with a hockey stick. I was absolutely useless at everything, apart from tennis
We had tennis courts in the summer and I spent all my free time there, when I was in sixth year.

Scottish country dancing was also part of the PE programme. I once was thrown out of the class by the same teacher, for mistakenly thinking, Strip theWillow was actually called Strip the Widow. I had no idea why she was so angry, I was quite naive!

Sara1954 Sat 15-Feb-25 08:31:12

Once a week we had PE with the boys in the hall. They delighted in shouting out who was ‘on the rag’ obvious in our skimpy knickers, to the best of my knowledge no one ever reprimanded them for it.