A Walthamstow man’s memoirs reveal much about life in the area at the turn of the 20th century, but the story of the writer himself is an unfinished tale.

Arthur Spencer, the son of an upholstery maker, moved to Longfellow Road in Walthamstow in 1910 at the age of five, along with his five siblings also with names starting in ‘A’.

Seventy years later he left a memoir, now in the Vestry House Museum archives, describing everything from his mother’s way of making toffee - with condensed milk if she had spare money - to the way of lighting a gas street light – with some difficulty and a ladder.

But his last memory is from 1919 and the rest of his life is unknown.

The final entry of his first job in 1919: “I started in a shop, weekdays 8.30am to 9pm... I was walking down Gosport Road from the High Street where I worked at 2.30am on Christmas morning... It seemed too much for a lad of 14... Five shillings a week and another five shillings for a Christmas box.”

His house, built on land that had once been fields and watercress farms, was part of the town of Walthamstow that was becoming a London suburb and his experiences do much to illustrate life at the time.

He described some of the poverty: “Dozens of children had no boots to come to school, arriving in bare feet, and at dinner time, if father had no work... getting a bowl of soup and a piece of bread.”

He writes that education at the time was basic - reading, writing and arithmetic plus woodwork and gardening for boys, and cooking and laundry for girls.

One of Arthur’s sisters was skilled at laundry and received a flat iron as a prize.

He says his family bought stale bread to save one penny a loaf and when he was offered a place at grammar school his parents could not afford to let him go.

It is believed Arthur was living in Walthamstow until 1980 and the group hope to find out more information about him.

Little else is known about Mr Spencer and today his memoir is helping residents build a picture of life in the Queen’s Road area as part of a Heritage Lottery funded project.

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