Archive On 4: PE - A History Of Violence

When Matthew Sweet was taking his daughter to secondary school open days, he noticed a pattern emerging: the PE teachers were intelligent and thoughtful people with clear and sophisticated ideas about the social and psychological benefits of their subject.

What had happened to the PE teachers of old, who were represented in popular culture by bullies and drill sergeant types like Mr Sugden in Kes and Bullet Baxter in Grange Hill?

He sent out a tweet: “Why was PE the only subject in which humiliation was considered part of the learning process?” Hours later, he had collected hundreds of traumatic anecdotes from former students put off sport for life.

In PE - A History Of Violence, Matthew haunts the gyms, playing fields and communal changing rooms of PE’s past, to interrogate former PE teachers. What’s the point of PE? Did it once do more harm than good?

Matthew finds followers of Rudolf Laban and PE pioneer Madame Österberg. He also meets a tortuous bully in Andrew Davies’ 1970 play, Is That Your Body, Boy? Nearing retirement and struggling to come terms with the changing curriculum, Cracker Carstairs mourns the loss of the old PE lessons. “I am not afraid of pain. That is what life is all about.”

With Matthew is Dr Anne Elliott, sports scientist and senior lecturer at the London Sports Institute, Middlesex University; and Margaret Whitehead, former physical education teacher, PE consultant and editor of Physical Literacy: Throughout The Lifecourse.

• Producer: Tamsin Hughes
• A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4

Publicity contact: Radio 4 Publicity