Lockes of Portsmouth

The Portsmouth Lockes

This posts was imported here from my old blog.

Leslie and Doris Locke (my parents) lived in Portsmouth, Hampshire,  after they had moved there from Fulham (in London) in the 1940s.

When I was born the family lived in a house on Tangier Road, in the Copnor area of Portsmouth

In 1960 we moved to house in Chichester Road, North End (a district of Portsmouth). I maintained the garden there.

The circular object in the middle of the photo is a bicycle wheel; I placed it there for the Nasturtiums to grow up. In the bottom left of the picture you can see strawberry plants; they produced a good crop of fruits and where brought back from my visit to Surrey went I sent to stay with my Aunt Nell and Uncle George. On the left of the picture are the runner beans that I grew.

Leslie (my father) had parents who lived in Abbotts Ann near Andover, a village in Hampshire in England.

His father was called Joseph, who married  Agnes Florence Snook in 1903.

Joseph was the son of Thomas Locke, born 1828, married to Elizabeth Applegate (born 1828 in Monxton). They married in 1853 at Andover Parish Church. Thomas was born in Little London, near Andover and he lived there most of his life and worked as a shoemaker. Thomas Locke’s father was William Locke, born 1789 in Smannel,  who married Charity Clarke in 1820. Leslie Locke lived in the Hampshire village of Little Ann, near Andover. In 1922 Leslie volunteered to enter the royal navy; he was 18.

The above photo is not dated but could have been taken at around the time that my father entered the navy; he does, after all, have a navel uniform on. It is however the uniform issued to a naval rating, which is possibly why it is white in colour rather than blue. There no information with the photo. Leslie and Doris had their first child in 1936; he was called Peter.

Leslie was a CPO in the Royal Navy when Peter was born; Doris was working as a waitress in Southsea. They lived in Tangier Road in the district of Copnor, in Portsmouth.

Leslie’s Royal Navy records are in my family archive. They show that after he joined in 1922, in the port division of Portsmouth, he served in the navy until December 1960. Ships on which he served included Courageos, Victory, Despatch, Doulas and Dryad, among others. He achieved the rank of Chief Petty Officer.

As a child I remember paying visit’s to my father’s shire base, HMS Vernon.

My mother – Doris Locke – worked as a waitress at the Savoy Ballroom in Southsea, the holiday resort at the southern end of Portsmouth.

I spent many of my childhood days on the beach at Southsea and visited South Parade Pier, Canoe Lake and the Rock Gardens. Leslie and Doris Locke had two children: myself (Trevor) and Peter (born 1938)

The above photo shows my brother Peter in 1939; he would have been around a year old. The photo was taken in Baffins Pond, Copnor, I think. Peter died in 2003.

Here is my grandmother Agnes with my cousins Mary and Derek and my brother Peter. Taken in 1942.

Page last edited 9th November 2022.