I RECENTLY read Alan Fleet's excellent book Woolyback.

In it he tells the tale of the friction and jealousy between the two schools close to the Winsford Guildhall, namely the Winsford Verdin Grammar School and the secondary modern, where the children who passed the eleven-plus exam were immediately alienated by their friends who failed.

I must say we Whartoners were never more than jealous of our peers who passed - the most aggravation we saw was the seasonal snowball fight over the dividing walls, which Colin Walsh in a letter to the Guardian described as having personal reputations and school pride at stake.

The Verdin Technical School, still standing opposite the Civic Hall on High Street, was given to the town by Sir Joseph Verdin, then just Mr Joseph Verdin, salt magnate.

It was built for just £8,000 by James Fowles, a Winsford builder and opened as a secondary modern, which it remained until 1906 when it became the Winsford Verdin Higher Elementary School.

Academic

Fees were 6/6 a term and it catered for the older pupils who wished to stay on at school, as most left at 14 in those days. Others however wanted a trade or higher academic studies.

The school saw a drop in pupils attending from an initial 114 to 66 by 1908, a worrying time for the governors but conditions improved and it reverted back to a secondary school by 1925.

An extension was built in 1933 and by 1935 it became the grammar school, which it remained until it reverted to the Verdin Comprehensive in 1970.

New schools were built in Joyce Avenue around the corner and the old building officially closed in November 1987 and became the Verdin Exchange Centre of Mid-Cheshire College, still retaining its founder's name.

No mention of the schools along High Street would be complete without mentioning Jasper Buckley's shop, not unlike the "tuck shop" in Tom Brown's schooldays.

Picture this, two schools directly opposite, several hundred pupils and one shop with the monopoly - Jasper's.

He never seemed to age in all the years he was there.

His dark shop had in the corner a large chest where the older pupils would sit drinking lemonade, Tizer and others, which Jasper would sell at 3d a glass from large bottles, as Alan Fleet writes in his book.

The shelves were stocked with sweets.

The shop was out of bounds during school hours, but before school dinner hour and after school, the secondary pupils and the grammar "grubs" would rub shoulders while having a conversation with Jasper.

Shops like this don't exist anymore, so many old pupils will have fond memories of his shop - never seen before in books or articles.