Postcard from the past prompts man's journey
Michael Viner from Sydenham, started his historical journey to find the source of the picture after he picked it up at a postcard fair.
The Edwardian card, dated 30 July 1907, is a message from a young girl sent to her aunt in Tooting, South London. It has a photograph of a class of schoolchildren on the front, possibly featuring the author herself.
Addressed to a Mrs Hough, the card had clearly been written by an adult on behalf of Gladys.
The message reads : My dear Auntie Lot, Just a line hoping you are all well as it leaves us. I am on my holidays, we broke up last Friday; Dad says he is going to bring me to Tooting before I go back to school. Love from Mum and Dad to all.
But the only clue as to where the postcard had been sent from were the words "Boston House" at the top. Mr Viner, a postcard collector, was intrigued to find out more about the card's origins and author.
He said that "In Victorian times a road was sometimes named after the old, large or important house, or sometimes the only house in the road. I looked in the A to Z for a Boston Road in West Croydon and, sure enough, there was one off Thornton Road".
"Boston Road has a school on it and I thought this had to be the school on the postcard and Boston House may well have been where the little girl may have lived with her family".
When Michael went to visit the site he found the school had been demolished but Boston House remained. The A to Z was from the late 1980's and it seems the school was demolished around that time for an estate to be built.
The site where the school stood can be quite clearly seen; the safety railings, where the school entrance was, are still on the pavement and are still on the pavement and two inscribed stone slabs state the area is the property of the Croydon School Board.
The school itself was called Boston Road School and was built in the late 1800's. It also transpired that Boston House was actually a grocers shop, owned and run by Gladys father, Samuel Hough - obviously the brother of Mrs Hough, Auntie Lot.