Shelf, Denholme Gate Road c.1960

Photo ref: S303007

I regret that I feel a slight fraud as I have no memories of my own of Shelf, nor have I visited, YET. However, having researched my family tree of Medleys of Yorkshire back to the sixteenth century, the family that comes in to the first censuses lived in Shelf. This family comprised, John (a weaver) and Elisabeth (formerly widow Wilkinson, nee Haell) and their three children, Grace (b 1780), William (b ...see more

Between 1960-62 my dad, Harry Henshall of Westbury Road, Cooperville drove a Jaguar Mark 2, 2.4 litre in two tone grey over Westminster blue and with the registration number XUG384. At this time he worked at Home Silks aka Mandale Mills as Foreman Overlooker. I can't be sure from the picture that it is definitely two-tone or even if it is a Jag but I'd like to think it was him.

I lived there with mum, dad, sister Iris and brother Graham, my sister got married from that house. I have good memories from that house, I remember helping with hay making, feeding a white cow over my garden wall, getting our first TV in Shelf for the Queen's Coronation . My brother went to live at Pepper Hill. I went to Shelf school. My granny and aunts lived opposite a park, we used to pick blue ...see more

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 ...see more