16 PT Class (Jul 1961)

Upgraded entry in preparation Feb 19th onwards

This set simply depicts a group of gym students performing Physical Training exercises under the direction of their Instructor. In the 1950s, physical training for health in gym classes was much in vogue, just as 'Fitness' is today in a more varied and individualistic form. The words 'PT Class' struck fear into many a school boy's heart. 

 Unlike the Airman Gym set, there's no punishment or intimidation involved in this storyette, but numerous provocative poses are contrived. Unfortunately, our ability to enjoy them is limited by the hazy quality and low resolution of nearly all the available, original images (see example original of the above image). These originals come from the magazine spread mentioned below. It was published with 6 pictures to a roughly A5 sized page.

Images from this set first appeared as 'The P.T. Class' in Man Alive 15 (Jul 1961). A Hussar ad in the same issue mentions a 'playlet' called 'Jim Nasium' and it seems possible that this was their official title, although there isn't anyone called Jim in the cast. The set was published under the new Hussar brand, but the cast are all stalwarts from the Royale era:- Tibor Urgay, Brian Lamprill and Fred Collins as the gymnasts plus David Tompkins as the PT Instructor. The cast of 4 is unusually large, it's exceeded only by 'Football Ballet' (5).

 The archive has 13 images from the set, but the original total number is not known.

 Read PT Class

The Original mitchmen article is superseded by this article. It contains most of the imagery in unenhanced form, but a different sequence to that used here. That sequence was taken from the printed order of Man Alive's article, the six on the first page followed by the six on the second page. The sequence adopted for the newer Archive article takes the images row by row, reading right across the two facing pages before dropping to the next row below. This method of ordering pictures was used in other Man Alive spreads.