A HUDDERSFIELD area woman has shared her memories of the Pope.

Mrs Zofia Gabanski, of Shelley, has photographs of the late John Paul II meeting members of her family.

Her son, Stanislau, met the Pontiff while he was a young Scout in 1979.

He was in Rome and met the Pope outside the papal summer residence at Castelgandolfo.

Mr Gabanski is now living in Oakes and works for a computer company.

Another photo shows members of the Our Lady of Czestochowa Church in Fitzwilliam Street, Huddersfield, at a Vatican reception in 1990.

The two women standing either side of the Pope were both members of the church and of the Legion of Mary.

The one on the left was Mrs Gabanski's sister-in-law, Mrs Janina Gabanski, a teacher in Huddersfield. On the right was Mrs Wanda Grochowska, a nurse at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

Both women have subsequently died.

Mrs Gabanski, who watched yesterday's papal funeral on TV at her home in Park Close, said: "The Pope will be greatly missed, not only by his fellow countrymen but the whole world.

"It is wonderful to have such memories of the Pope as we have with the photographs.

"A number of people from our church in Huddersfield had met him over the years and he was greatly respected.

"I saw him in the Vatican in May last year and it was a moment I will never forget."

POPE John Paul's coffin of blonde cypress wood had no decoration other than a slender cross and the letter M for Mary on the top.

He was buried "in the bare earth" as he requested, not in a majestic marble sarcophagus like many of his predecessors.

The simple way John Paul II was buried was evidence of his unostentatious style during his 26-year papacy.

He left no personal property in his will, asking only that a few everyday items be distributed by his personal secretary.

He ate sparingly, mostly soups and other simply prepared Polish fare.

He wore the same type of oxblood-coloured leather shoes throughout his pontificate and was buried in them. His bedroom was sparsely furnished.

In his will, John Paul wrote a note in the margin on March 13, 1992, stating his wishes: "burial in the bare earth, not in a sarcophagus."

The Pope was buried in the grottoes underneath St Peter's Basilica, on the site where Pope John XXIII had been laid to rest, until his corpse was exhumed for public display upstairs in the basilica.

Pope John XXIII had been in a sarcophagus, but John Paul was buried only with a simple stone slab covering his coffin.

The first cypress coffin, its grainy fibres visible, was placed inside a second one, of zinc, then a third of walnut - the latter two to slow down decomposition.

The walnut coffin bears a cross and his papal coat of arms.