Shop Boy: John Birch Thomas

John was born in 1860 within the sound of Bow Bells and this is his autobiography of his life from childhood to manhood - 'above shop' in Peckham between 1860 and 1885. His father was in the grocery trade and often paid his son's school fees in kind, until hit by bankruptcy - whereupon John (using the pseudonym 'Tom Lloyd') was sent to Swansea to start his working life at the age of twelve, first in a brewery, then a pawnbroker's, followed by a spell in a china and glass shop - before returning to Peckham, and a boot shop. As well as recording a vanished spirit of the past and stories of working life, there are humorous anecdotes - often relating to a growing interest in girls. John married and had two sons and one daughter; he established his own shop - J.B. Thomas & Sons: Tea, Coffee and Tobacco Merchants - at 'The Old Cigar Shop' in Kingston. Apart from their surnames, all characters that appear are real and it is a true account of actual events - and 'memories crudely told.'