Nights when 11 slept in the same bedroom.

Byline: Tony Pogson ,

Shepley-born Mrs Jean Warner, of Mirfield, has contacted the Examiner to add one or two extra details to Lindsay Pollick's recent article on the village.

Mrs Warner, who lived in Shepley until her marriage in 1955, says the article mentioned Shepley First School which she herself attended until she was 11. Her late father - who ran the local football team for 50 years and had been secretary and treasurer of Shepley Evergreen Party for 33 years - had also been a pupil there.

But she says when it was built in 1896 it was then known as Shepley Board School.

Before that schooling in Shepley was in the back of what is now the library building. The front part of that building was built on in 1864, as confirmed on a carved stone.

The house next door was the headmaster's house. It was always known as School House until the houses were given numbers. There Mr Chambers lived with his wife and nine children.

Says Mrs Warner: "There was only one bedroom before it was divided, so there would be 11 people sleeping there until the two eldest girls went up the road to sleep at Prospect House, which is now Woodroyde and renamed when Mr Harris Wood bought it in the early 1900s."

The reason why she knows so much about School House. says Mrs Warner, is that she was born there in the back bedroom and "I have some very happy memories of living there".

Mrs Warner says her paternal grandfather, who was born in Shelley, attended the school (morning one week, afternoons the next) for a fee of two old pence per week.

She adds: "He was taught copperplate handwriting and I have an exercise book written by him on this beautiful script."

Moving on to the New Connexion Chapel on the current Marsh Lane, Mrs Warren says the chapel was previously called Trinity Methodist Chapel and the road was School House Lane because of the school there.

Finally, Mrs Warner adds to the follow-up letter by Beryl Mannifield about Shepley Co-op, near the Farmer's Boy. Mrs Warner, who started work there in 1943, says the full title was Shepley Industrial and Provident Society and the address Holly Park.

She adds: "It was quite a big store for a village. Orders were delivered each week, by horse and cart, to people who could not get to the shop easily."