Shelfield Junior And Infants School And St Mark's Church

A Memory of Shelfield.

I went to Shelfield Junior School and have strong memories of the combined smell of bread being baked, fish and chips being cooked and the smell of horses kept in the stables - all three activities being located in an unmade road at the back of the Infants School. School Street itself was unmade, but the Infants school must have been quite modern for its day - the Junior School however had fireplaces in the classrooms where open fires were lit in the winter. Mr Johnson was the Head Teacher, Miss Edwards and Miss Crawford were teachers in the Junior School and after the war Mr Boot joined the staff.
As children in the Infants we had a rest in the afternoon and lay down on coiled rush mats and if we were lucky had a story read to us.
It was the time of the 11+ so many of us lost touch with our Junior school friends at age 11.
You would find my father, Mr Edwin Matthews, twice every Sunday at the 'tin tabernacle' Mission Church in School Street where he was lay reader, church warden and youth leader. He organised the Youth Club, Sunday School Anniversaries, socials, Sunday school outings and bazaars. He was a school teacher and was briefly at Shelfield Junior School after the war before going to Shelfield Secondary School where he stayed many years before moving on to Rushall Junior School.

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