Site History

Why are we doing this?

This email from Kiran Meen sums up the reason why we started this website. Many of us have wanted to ask our deceased parents what was Walthamstow like all those years ago... Kiran writes:

: "it was with great affection I was directed to your website by an old friend of mine. After the death of my father I was no longer able to ask or hear stories of what Walthamstow was like when he first emigrated to this area during the late 1950's. This has now caused for me to think back to my own youth of things I remember that are no longer standing or have been redeveloped.

The areas in particular intrest to me were of Blackhorse Lane Infants School, the old Stoneydown Park, the Jubilee street parties and the Crown Luggage factory. Any information, memories or pictures any of the website members would have on any of these topics would be fantastic as internet searches have proved difficult.

If you could make a plea on my behalf it would be greatly appreciated. Kind Regards, Kiran."

We are happy to receive emails on your memories and items about Walthamstow, as well as those on lost relatives for both personal reasons and family history research. These will be posted in the latest "Postbag" until time permits them to be placed on to more approriate pages of the site.

We are not able to answer any queries about the history of Walthamstow or about relatives etc... - We provide a bulletin board service, where your query is recorded with your email address in the hope that someone browsing the website may have an answer for you. In the past this has worked well and numerous queries have received responses and connections have been made between people. So keep them coming...!

It all started...

In year 2000, 'at the turn of the millennium', I shared with many friends a common feeling: an ancestral, almost unconscius, fear of stepping into a new era, accompanied by a sudden, strong - and quite shocking - perception that we were all leaving our past behind. The same feeling one has, individually, when an old building in your neighbourhood is pulled down, or when you lose someone close to you. You stop and wonder: "How many stories that building must have seen..." or "I wish I had asked old granny more about life at her times..."

At the closing of 1999, with the emerging new star, the WEB, quite briskly widening the opportunities of a totally new form of communication, I though I could open a little "window on the past" of my childhood hometown: Walthamstow". I soon found a valid sustainer in my old friend John Newell (his personal story/pictures you can see here). I was immediatly surprised by the number of emails I received: Postbag 2001 is there to show...!

Over the years I've kept the site up, encouraged by the increasing number of visitors, although the scarce amount of free time I have - my business involves me in many other projects - has occasionally influenced the regular update of the site's contents. However, at the end of 2008, a new visitor, Daniel Quinn (a semi-retired calligrapher residing in Italy) offered his help in taking care of this aspect - wonders of Internet!.

Of course, this site's success is strongly tied to the great contribution that you, our visitor, bring in with your emails, stories, photographs and general feedback. Use our Contact Us section for this purpose, or email direct to John or Daniel. A great big THANKS to all of you!

Recent changes

4 Jul 2010: Added a George Monoux page to the Schooldays section
2 Jul 2010: Introduced new reply method to mails posted on site: [Private reply] / [Public reply]
4 Jun 2010: Added Len Hall's memories Part 5;; Added Barrie Stevens' memories Here;; Modified "Live Chat Lounge" to 'public chat' Here
1 Jun 2010: Added a "Live Chat Lounge" Here
3 Apr 2010: Added Len Hall's memories Part 3; Altered pdfs files to show in a new browser page