Living In Shelf 1971 1981

A Memory of Shelf.

My mom lived in the shop at Shelf Roundabout but moved away to Bradford, I think when she met my dad.
When I was 8 my mom, now on her own, must have felt the pull back to Shelf and brought me and my sister, Linda to live on Car House Road. We moved a couple of times, once to Cheap Side, Shelf Moor, then to Burned Road just across from the post office.
I worked at Stump Cross garage near Shibden Park from the age of 15 to 18.
I have many fond memories of Shelf as a young boy, playing down Shelf Woods and Shelf Park.
We would often go to Shelf roundabout and hang around the fish shop.
I had a Yamaha fs1e motorbike at 16 and would cruise round Shelf and the surrounding areas with a few mates; Richard Ambler who had a Garrely 50 and Micheal shackleton with his Honda 50.
One thing I always remember about Shelf Park was when I was about 14, I was walking past the front of Shelf village hall on my way to where the swings etc are and I saw what looked like a hooded monk walking up the tarmac road towards the gate house. The figure was about 50 meters down the track and when I came level with the privets at the top of the path/road, the figure had disappeared.
My friends were not at the swing /slide area so I promptly ran back home and told my mate Mark and his mom who laughed it off. Many, many years later I discovered that there was a monastery at the bottom of Shelf Park!!! Spooky ey?
I also remember going to the youth club at the bottom of the park and also the youth club which was an old chapel opposite the mill.
I'm just starting a family tree, starting with my mom's side with the name Hargreaves. My mom had a brother called Malcom and a step sister called Cristeen. My grand father was called Alfred and they ran and lived at the corner shop at Shelf roundabout. My grandfather moved there with his second wife, not very long after my real grandmother apparently committed suicide, when my mom and uncle Malcom was very young, so I know nothing about her. My uncle became a pilot with BOAC and my mom worked as a draft woman drawing plans for telegraph poles and the likes. I don't live near Shelf but I still go to Stump Cross autos to get my cars MOT'd.
Dave who has owned the garage since I left as a lad bought it from our boss, Bob Tiplady and has owned it since. We always reminisce about the rust buckets we worked on and laugh about what we would get up to racing about on the spar land next to the garage.
Happy days.

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