WE go back a whacking 70 years for another memorable Days of the Old School Yard. It reflects a fantastic time back in Canning Town in the late 1930s, and comes courtesy of reader Joseph Hunt, 83, who grew up in the area but now lives in Whitstable, Ken

WE go back a whacking 70 years for another memorable Days of the Old School Yard.

It reflects a fantastic time back in Canning Town in the late 1930s, and comes courtesy of reader Joseph Hunt, 83, who grew up in the area but now lives in Whitstable, Kent.

Thanks for the memories, Joseph.

He tells us that this photograph of the legendary clergyman, the Rev Sydney Goose, which he has had in his possession for many years, was taken in 1938 or '39.

"I knew Father Goose as I lived in nearby Lansdowne Road," says Joseph.

The names on the rear of the picture are Fr Goose, Mendoza, Dowell, Stables, Ware, Moule, B Watkins, Jackson, Dooley, Saville, Clark H, Lee, Clark N.

Joseph says: "I knew Mendoza, Dowell, Stables and Lee. Dowell was in my class at Hallsville School in Canning Town.

"Jimmy Lee went to Hallsville and I was one-to-one mates with him. He lived in Butchers Road above the laundry shop. Stables lived in Portland Road, which is now Radland Road, and Moule may have lived in Scott Street, near Agate Street."

Joseph was born in June 1926. He left school in 1940 and worked mainly at the Venesta factory in Silvertown.

He was also in the Home Guard and the Essex cadets.

Joseph was conscripted in 1944 into the General Service Corps and the King's Own Scottish Borderers. He was demobbed in 1948 and lived in Plaistow for over 40 years, until the late 1980s.

"I am now happily settled in Whitstable in Kent," adds Joseph.