With Mo Ann Shanks discussing with the Guardian back in November last year how growing up in Walthamstow in the 40s and early 50s was entirely different to what children know today, reporter Douglas Patient asks her about her teenage years in the late 50s and early 60s.

Throughout the pages of ‘To Dear Daniel with Love’ Maureen, now 74, describes the old Walthamstow and what it was like to grow up in the area.

The book was written over four years, for Maureen’s grandson Daniel who would ask her to tell him stories of her childhood.

She was born in Thorpe Coombe Maternity Hospital in 1941 and moved with her family in 1949 to live in Priory Court.

Maureen vividly describes the old market, in the high street, and the bustling nightlife as she got her first job in the town at the age of 16.

She remembers buying cherries in the summer and a bag of hot chestnuts in the winter for 6 pence.

She said: “The Chestnut man would stand outside the Carlton with a huge brazier full of hot coals on which he roasted them.

“It has changed an awful lot in the high street, I have seen it change over the years.

“I remember the market at Christmas time with lots of tinsel on all the stalls, I think the atmosphere has gone now and that is a shame.

“The market used to be a day out with so many different things to do and you could get pretty much anything.

“I have so many memories, you got to know various stall holders who were always very friendly.”

The nightlife in Walthamstow was vibrant in the early 60s with Maureen attending many an event with future husband Roy, two years her senior.

She said: “I remember there were lots of evening functions at the assembly hall in Forest Road.

“It was lovely in there and they had discos and live bands, the hall was utilised well.

“The Granada cinema was beautiful too, the marble floor was magnificent with steps going up to the circle.

“I would often also go over Priory Court on a Thursday night to the youth club and on Saturday nights when they had put on a dance with a live band.”

Maureen also remembers her first job interview for a cable company in Sutherland Road, at which she was paid 2 pounds and 10 shillings per week.

She said: “I was so nervous that my mum came with me.

“The manager wanted to know if I had any exams but I didn’t, as many didn’t in those days, but I was told I had the job, it was as easy as that.

“Interviews have changed a lot since then, it is more about psychology now, and I was also asked when I would be starting a family, they wouldn’t be able to ask that now.”

Maureen has almost finished writing the next instalment of her Walthamstow life, which she hopes will be published this year.