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It might be of interest to compare what we wore for PE with what boys at other secondary schools wore at about the same time (1950's and 1960's). This is information picked up from friends and other sources. There was far less variability than at the primary age-range. For indoor PE, the norm was for boys to wear just shorts; plimsolls with or without socks might be permitted, but bare feet were a common requirement. If shirts were permitted, these would be vests (singlets) or rarely T-shirts; but bare chests were more common. Underwear was normally strictly forbidden. The rationale behind wearing very little for PE was that it reduced sweating; in cold weather, it also encouraged boys to keep moving in order to keep warm.
Games would be either football (soccer) or rugby, and in both cases the kit was similar: boots, coloured socks, shorts (usually but not invariably either black or navy blue), and usually two shirts (one white, one coloured), as reversible shirts were rare in those days. For outdoor PE, shorts (often white), plimsolls with or without socks, and a vest, t-shirt or rugby shirt might be worn, but there was considerable variability in how much clothing was actually permitted. In the summer, this made little difference as many boys would take off their shirts from choice anyway. Bare feet might be required or encouraged on grass or tarmac, for almost anything except cricket. At some schools, such as mine, anything between full kit and just shorts was normally permissible: at others, there was much less freedom (and usually less clothing!). Some schools made boys strip to the waist all the year round for outdoor PE; a few schools also required bare feet. Particularly in the 1950s, it was fairly common for boys to be required to do cross-country shirtless, however cold or wet it might be. If the course was particularly wet or muddy, and not too rough, bare feet might be required. One friend of mine hated cross-country because at his school, they had to do it stripped to the waist, whatever the weather. Apparently the course included two or three very wet sections and some of them preferred to run barefoot as well, though it was not required.
Outdoor PE in the winter without a shirt can be very cold - "you get absolutely frozen" was the comment from one friend who'd had to do it. I tried it occasionally to find out what it was like. It can be extremely cold if it's windy, and/or raining or snowing; if it's a calm, dry day, and if you can work hard enough to keep warm, it isn't a problem once you're acclimatised (which took me about ten minutes). Those two "if"s are critical! Much the same applies to barefoot PE outdoors in the winter: in very wet conditions, plimsolls, especially if worn with socks, get waterlogged and I found them more unpleasant like that than bare feet, which don't hold water and dry relatively quickly once you're out of the wet area. Frozen ground I found less cold than wet ground at around freezing, because my feet, whether I wore plimsolls or ran barefoot, stayed dry. I've never tried running barefoot in snow, but I have heard of boys occasionally being required to do so.
The usual way of dealing with forgotten kit was to require the boy to wear an alternative (e.g. plimsolls instead of football boots) or do without it. Some schools did not permit alternatives, and required boys without kit to do without. All that varied was how this was enforced. Indoors, it was common to require a boy with no kit to strip to his underpants: we never had to do this, largely, I assume, because everyone had two pairs of shorts so borrowing was very easy. Outdoors, it was very little hardship in the summer to wear nothing but shorts (I did so from choice!). In the winter, it was fairly common for a boy who'd got no shirt to have to go out without; if he had neither boots nor plimsolls he might well find himself running round the field barefoot; if he had no kit at all, he might have to run round the field barefoot and stripped to his underpants. The general principle was that if a boy got rather cold or embarrassed as a result of forgetting or losing his kit, he would learn thereby to be more careful in future.
