Hi ! from June and Robin Lovelock in Sunninghill, sunny Berkshire, UK. We heard about the Hungerford get-together when a friend, who saw the Meridian TV piece, sent us a text while we were on holiday. At the time I remember we were walking the hills near Vinci - birthplace of my hero Leonardo. A few weeks later Yann sent me an email after finding the Family page on my GPS Software website - www.gpss.co.uk
The nice thing about that contact was that it prompted me to phone relatives I'd not spoken to in years. The first was my aunt Win, now living in Eye, Suffolk. Win soon filled me in on what we know of our branches of the Lovelock tree, explained below. Eve and Len, my mum and dad, are no longer with us but head up my charity website www.nhscare.info advising on legal rights to free long term care. My dad would often push bike in the late 1930s from where he worked in London to Swindon, where his parents had moved. By the early 40s he switched to a motor-bike and had a much-envied Brough Superior. He met mum when visiting Kingsmere, a lake not so far from Wokingham, with his biker friends. I guess that's the main reason they chose to settle there after they got married in December 1941 and the war ended. My mum was formerly Evelyn Sarah Georgina Sharp. They had a long and happy marriage together and dad died at home on 18th Jan 2002, mum a year later at Holyport Lodge Nursing Home on Monday 24th February 2003.
I also spoke to Sylvia, widow of my cousin Peter - both he and his sister Wendy passed away young. I discovered from Sylvia that Peter was always known as "Tony" after his time in Canada, when he shared a flat full of Peters.
I was born 25 May 1947 in Wokingham, Berkshire and my sister Sally on 30th July 1951. I met my wife June working at Ferranti, the defence contractor. We got married in 1971 and soon after spent ten years abroad in Holland, where the first of our three daughters was born. After nearly thirty years in the defence business I decided I'd like to get rich doing very little and started our GPS Software business ten years ago. I told June that I would make our first million by Christmas – but always avoided saying which year. The web site I’ve built around GPS has a very "folksy" appearance, as business sites go but - as I say on the Family Page there - "Over the years I've found these pages helpful in getting new business contacts to overcome their shyness in telling me who they really are."
When the first issue of Lovelock Lines arrived through our letterbox, it prompted June and I to look up John Lovelock, who lives in Hedgerley just 30 minutes drive north from us. Our excuse was to make a small donation to the subscription fund and to ensure Win and Sylvia got copies. One spin-off has been me indulging my latest hobby of taking aerial videos using Snoopy aboard a toy electric model aircraft. This hobby tends to take priority over "work" when the weather is suitably calm and sunny, and I've just presented John with a video for Hedgerley Historical Society. Maybe it was hearing about that, or the various light-hearted family and hobby pages on our site, that prompted Yann to ask me for this contribution.
To sum up the family history, then: - My great grandfather was Charles Alfred Lovelock and lived out at Clapham Junction. He owned a hat factory which I guess you could find in a turn of the century trade directory. I think it made pith helmets and things like that since it had a contract with the army. He had four sons: Charles, William, Arthur, and Harold Thomas (my grandad). The eldest son Charles is said to have run off to somewhere like Australia in the early 1900s with cash from the factory. That burned down before the First World War could restore its fortunes. And if anyone down under thinks they’re descended from my Great Uncle, please don’t be bashful about owning up. Send any Postal Orders c/o Lovelock Lines.
My grandfather Harold had a daughter, my auntie Win - and two sons: Harold, known as "Jerry", and Leonard Thomas - my dad, born the middle child in Battersea on 14th November 1915. The family moved to Didcot in 1933 but my dad eventually went to work in London for Dorman Long and used to cycle the 50 miles back to visit at weekends. One time he fell asleep and landed in the hedge.
My uncle Harold married Alice and they had two children: Peter (“Tony") and Wendy. Peter married Sylvia and they had two boys, Phillip Douglas and Jonathon Anthony, who are now the only males left to pass on the Lovelock name in our branch of the family. Our own daughters, Samantha, Saskia and Michelle, are still with us much of the time at our home in Sunninghill - although we hope to boot out Saskia when she gets married to Scott next year. Maybe June and I will become grandparents someday - and, if the new mother doesn't get married, perhaps the Lovelock name will have another route to continue. But I can see June shaking her head already…!
