John Newell...

More about a partner in Walthamstow Memories.

 

I have known...

 

...John Knowles author of the Walthamstow Memories website and this Facebook page for over 70 years! I suppose it must have been 1946 when we moved to live with my father’s
parents at 6, St. Mary Road, Walthamstow, E.17. telephone number Coppermill 6954 originally Larkswood 6954.

In the morning after my Dad had gone to work I was escorted to infants’ school by Mum or by John Knowles’s Mum, I think they took it in turns but Mum did not go
out to work in those days. A woman’s place was still in the home and the chores would fill the day.

I attended St.Mary’s Church Infants School and was in Miss Davies’s class and occasionally went to the Church too, probably at Christmas, Easter and certainly
at Harvest Festival. The Vicar was Canon Druitt and he lived in the vicarage at the end of the footpath by the Church before reaching Church Hill.

I was a Grenadier at Saturday Morning Pictures and a member of the 22nd Sea Scouts

I did a large paper round for Desboroughs in Orford Rd, now part of The Village.

I pushed barrows away in the market on a Saturday for 2/6d. After which I would go for coffee in the Black and White Cafe at the top of the High Street

My local park was Selborne Rd.

In the early sixties I worked in Jobstocks as a Saturday boy with Jim and Frank.

I enjoyed my regular visits to Leyton Baths, The Royal Forest Hotel and Tottenham Royal.

Working in Soho meant I travelled from Hoe Street every day and eventually i got married and left E17 in 1968.

I feel privileged to be involved with John on this great site and attached Facebook Group.