Norman’s brothers

The Mockett family, taken in about 1918

    First Reunion in the garden at 12 Chaucer Road

From the left Gladys Smith (Lydia’s sister), Harold, Peter,Teddy, Leslie, Lydia,Chrissie, Kit, Judith, Frank

In front are Shirley (Peter’s wife holding Maureen and her own son), Richard, Milly & Hugh

             Wilf, Hugh, Alf, Harold, Richard, Norman

 Horace Mockett

16th July 1893- 1st May 1972

Horace was the first born son of George and Florence – to be followed by another eight sons. He was born in 1893 in Deal, Kent at the house rented by his parents. It was in the London Road and is described by Alfred as follows:

A row of 4/5 cottages on the right hand side as approaching Deal.150 yards from Upper Deal Church. One cottage in the middle had a well in the front garden. George William rented this cottage after his marriage and Horace was born here.  Just around the corner is the pub The Magnet, run by John, George Williams eldest brother in 1913 and 1914.

Horace, married Florence Lavinia Gillingham, in 1915 in Portsmouth.  Florence was born in Portsmouth on 31st March 1897 and died there on 27th November 1952.

In 1915 Horace was living in Lake Road, Portsmouth and in 1953 was working in the Royal Naval Dockyard as a bricklayer. I understand  from letters, that he also ran a public house as did his brother, Harold.

Horace & Florence had three sons:

• George William Frederick Mockett 1916 -1977 who married Doreen Patricia Lock and then Brenda Ventham in Hertfordshire
• Albert Richard (Tibbs)  Mockett in 1919 who died in the Middle East in WW2 on 1st December 1941 having enlisted on 1st September 1939. He was a gunner in the Royal Artillery and is on the Alamein Memorial
• Frederick James (Jim) Mockett who was born in 1926 and married Betty Doreen Martin in 1946 in Portsmouth. He died in 2008

Harold Thomas Mockett

1894-1963

Harold was the second of George and Florence Mockett‘s nine sons.  He was born on 31st December 1894 in Deal, Kent and was baptised on 3rd March 1895. According to Alfred’s notes, the family were living in Alfred Square.

Harold married Melinda Geraldine Farmer in 1922 in Canterbury. She was always known to us as Milly and was born in 1898 in East Stonehouse, Devon.

I have found the 1911 census, which says that Harold was then aged 16 and, was training at His Majesty’s Royal Naval Training Establishment in Shotley, near Ipswich. He remained in the Royal Navy for a lot of his working life.  His number in the Navy was  J10634. From the letters  his mother wrote, I have since found that he and Milly ran a hotel in Portsmouth after he left the Navy.

Harold appears to have taken part in WW1 in the navy and was awarded the Naval General Service Medal  for serving in Persia on the HMS Swiftsure between 1909 and 1920. He was also awarded the Star, Victory Medals  for WW1.and the RN Long Service and Good Conduct Medal 1925 – 1930.

When Harold left the Navy, he appears to have taken on a public house according to the letter that Milly has written to Alfred just below.

Harold and Milly did not have children and Harold died on 6th February 1963 at the Royal Portsmouth Hospital. He was living at 188 Guildford Road, Portsmouth at that time. He left £496 3s to his wife.

Harold died within four weeks of his younger brother, Wilfred.

Kathie has sent me this letter, obviously written by Milly, Harold’s wife,  of a reunion they had in what must have been about 1952. I am wondering if Kathie will be able to find the photo sent with the letter.

Bertie William Mockett

1897-1898

Bertie William was born in 1897 being baptised at St Georges Church, Deal on 19th May that year. The family were living at Stanford House, 105 Beach Street when he was born. He sadly died a year later and according to Alfred’s notes,  his mother was looking out of the upstairs bay window and saw him as he fell over the seawall. He was killed at the age of one. I have found this photo of Stanford House , where they were living. Unfortunately it is being decorated so has scaffolding up

  The next five sons  were all born at this house.

Walter Richard Mockett

1899-1915

Walter Richard – the fourth son of George and Florence -was born on 20th February 1899 at 105 Beach Street and was baptised on 23 April 1899 at St Georges Church, Deal.

He joined the Royal Navy on 28th May 1914 as a First Class Boy. He was on the SS Agamemnon in the Dardanelles when his ship was in action and he was wounded. He was transferred to the hospital ship as Hugh has a book by a senior officer who says that he saw young Walter smiling and cheerful as always. He sadly died on 5th March 1915 of the injuries he received and was buried at sea.

I went on a holiday a few years ago to Turkey and to the Dardanelles and saw the British memorial to all those who died. I found the plaque for the SS Agamemnon but sadly Walter’s name was not on it.

Leslie Stephen Mockett

1901 – 1960

Leslie was born on 5th June 1901 and was baptised at St Georges Church, Deal on 3rd July 1901. Leslie was also born at 105 Beach Street.

I have found a record showing that Leslie was in the Merchant Navy from 1918 to 1921. When he left the Navy he became a painter and decorator.

Leslie married Lydia Winifred Smith, (born 1904 in Deal), in 1928 in Deal and Lydia gave birth to a son, Peter the following year at 200 Beach Street, Deal, Kent.  In 1938, Leslie is in Kelly’s directory as living at 53 College Road, Deal and is a painter. I am not sure  at what stage they moved to Broadstairs but it appears to be in the late 1940’s, but they always lived in Howard Road- just behind Chaucer Road where we lived.  Lydia’s sister, Lena Cox,  lived in the same road and she had another unmarried sister, Gladys Smith, who is in the photo of the first Mockett reunion taken in the garden at 12 Chaucer Road.

Their son Peter, was born on June 7th 1929 in Deal. He  married a South African called Shirley and, eventually emigrated to South Africa with her, where he lived until he died on 17th December 2001 of a heart attack.

Leslie and Lydia adopted a daughter, Maureen who was born in 1944. Maureen still lives at St Peters having married David Hicks and having one daughter.

 Leslie died suddenly at Kingsgate Bay. He was painting Kingsgate House and sat in his car for his lunch and died there. Lydia continued living for many years at 21 Howard Road until she went into a home where she died in 1985 and her funeral was held at the Queens Road, Baptist Church (the same church where Wilfred married his first wife)

Frank Hubert Mockett

1905-1975

Frank was the sixth of nine sons born to George and Florence . He was born at Stanford House, 105 Beach Street, Deal which is now a listed building

He was born on 2nd April 1905. On his baptism certificate of 24th March 1906,   it states that his father is a bricklayer.

From the letters that his mother wrote to Alfred, it would appear that in the 30s and the depression, Frank was working in the dockyards and was often out of work. With 4 children, life was very difficult for them and he often had to ask his father for financial help. According to one letter, Wilf cycled the 70 miles  and back one weekend from Deal to Gravesend to take money and to see how they were. When he arrived there he had to go out to buy a cup and saucer so that he could have a cup of tea.

A few years ago I made contact with Audrey, a daughter of Frank, and went to visit her in Gravesend.  I discovered that she had been living a couple of roads down from my sister, Cheryl, and I had not realised this all those times when I went to visit Cheryl! By this time Cheryl had moved to Boston in Lincolnshire.  Audrey  was able to tell me a great deal about Frank and it appears that he was not at all like my father in nature!

Frank married Beatrice M Daft in 1929 and they had four children. The eldest was a son called Ronald, (1929 – 2003), followed by Norman (1930-1984). They then had two daughters, Audrey born in 1933 and Sylvia born in 1936. According to Audrey, Frank was in the Merchant Navy at that time and had his first mates ticket and had hoped to join the Queen Mary but this was not possible and so he was in the merchant navy during the war. However I have since found from a letter written by his mother Florence to his brother Alfred in the US that in 1932 he was working on the SS Avila and later out of work for some time.

During the war he  was on the SS Tottenham which was carrying lorries and ammunition  from Brazil when it was sunk on 17th June 1941.  This is a report of the sinking.

For 18 months the family only knew that he was missing and presumed dead. They  did not know that he had been picked up  and taken prisoner for a long time.  As a result he was a German prisoner of war for four years.

I have recently been in touch with two of Franks grandsons, Andrew and Adrienne Charlton – sons of Audrey.  They have kindly sent me some information on Frank and his family and included is this photo of him in the prison of war camp

He was then a prisoner of war in Poland near Bremen and here is the entry I found on Ancestry about him with his details.

F H Mockett
in the UK, British Prisoners of War, 1939-1945
Name: F H Mockett
Rank: Able Seaman
Army Number: 1112786
Regiment: Merchant Navy : Officers, Ratings & Foreign Seamen
POW Number: 331
Camp Type: Marlag und Milag Nord (Milag)
Camp Number: Mil. N.
Camp Location: Poland
Name of Ship: Tottenham
Section: Merchant Navy : Officers, Ratings & Foreign Seamen

The camp was liberated in June 1945 and here is an article about the camp.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlag_und_Milag_Nord

According to Audrey, Frank was  very jealous and very possessive of his wife. Beatrice did not have any affairs while he was a prisoner, even though she believed him to have died, but when he finally came back she did confess to having gone out with a couple of men. I understand that as a result she had two black eyes and often was hit by Frank, to the extent that a neighbour offered to be a witness for her if she needed one.   He was so unlike my father who would never have raised a hand to anyone.

I believe that Frank worked on the docks at Tilbury after he left the merchant navy.

Audrey clearly remembered coming with Sylvia to stay with my parents at the outbreak of war when she was aged 6 and her sister aged 3. They came to stay as Beatrice was so ill with her weak heart  and was pregnant with her fifth child, She was so ill that they could only save one of them and so saved the mother.  Frank was looking after his two older sons. Sylvia at the time was suffering from rickets and apparently the rickets was much improved when she left Broadstairs as Audrey said they had to go in the sea a lot, although I am not sure that sea water helps rickets and that it is probably more due to diet. Having read the letters from Florence, it appears that Frank was out of work so much during the Depression, that food must have been very short in the home and that could have caused the rickets.

Audrey thinks that my mother was pregnant with me as, my father would come home from work and scrub the kitchen floor for her, to save her from doing it.  She said that my parents then went to Scotland and, as they were not allowed to go with them, the two sisters went to stay at Inglewood with the  Grandparents. I am sure Audrey was right about my mother being pregnant as she was about 3 months when she went to Kilmarnock with my father, before he was posted to the desert. Audrey was aged 78 when she gave me all this information so had an incredible memory.

Audrey left school at the age of 15 and went to London to work but her mother was ill by then. Frank insisted on Audrey giving up her job and returning home to look after her mother, which she did for two years. Beatrice died in 1951 at the age of 44.

After her mother died, Audrey returned to work in London and came home one evening to find her younger sister, Sylvia, in floods of tears. When Audrey tried to find out the problem, Frank lost his temper with her and said that he was throwing Sylvia out of the house and that Audrey could go too. They were only aged 14 and 17!  Audrey believed it was because he was going out with Kit (Kathleen Davy) who lived in the same road – Crouch End, Chapel St Mary, with her five children and that Kit wanted Frank’s daughters out of the house before she would marry him- which they did in Thurrock in 1954.  Audrey and Sylvia went to live in Wimbledon with their Uncle Wilfred (the eighth son of George and Alice Mockett ) and his second wife, Bertha, where they stayed until Wilf moved to Headcorn. Wilfred was much more like my father and he and Bertha invited the girls to remain with them and to move to Headcorn with them.  However they did not do so as, I believe that Sylvia had a boyfriend at that time whom she eventually married,

Audrey recalls Horace going to visit Wilfred when they were staying in Wimbledon and taking his son Jim with him. Jim and Sylvia went out for the evening together.

I gathered that she was extremely fond of both my parents as all my cousins seem to have been!

I have just recently been sent a couple of letters that  Florence wrote to Frank’s brother Alfred who was in the US. From the letters I gather that Frank was out of work in 1933 and 1935 which does not quite tally with what Audrey told me. I have posted the letters under Norman’s parent’s  post.

Frank died in 1975 and Kit died in 1988

Frank and Beatrice had four children:

• Ron Mockett married but  I know little about him as I think Audrey and he must have fallen out at some time. She did tell me that she has no photos of her father as Ron kept everything after he died. Ron died in 2003.
• Norman John was born on 16th December 1930. He married Pat but, unfortunately he was hit by a lorry which broke his back and as a result he was in a wheelchair and the paralysis eventually moved to his hands and arms. Sadly he got cancer and his wife nursed him until his death in 1984.
• Audrey married Alfred Charlton and they had two sons, Adrian and Andrew. Alfred was a manager for a supermarket called Priceright, and I gather that their marriage went through a bad patch as all the young girls there were too great a temptation for him. They were trying to patch things up when he was on the A2 in a cycle race when he was hit by a lorry and killed at the age of 43 in 1974 leaving Audrey to bring up two young sons, She had some compensation, but lost money a couple of times and so had to count the pennies. She worked until she was aged 68.

• Sylvia married Henry A Bedford in 1955 in Surrey and I know she had a family but know nothing more about her.

Alfred Ernest William Mockett

1909-1996

Alfred was born on 9th April 1909. He was the seventh son and was born at Stanford House, 105 Beach Street. Alfred said in his notes that he thought that the house was run as a B&B.

There is more information about Alfred and his parentage on the page about my Grandparents, under Alice Florence.

I always understood that Alfred was in the merchant navy and jumped ship in  1928 in New York. Kathie has just emailed me this message:

Yes, he did jump ship but it was a job offer by an American captain who ran a ship and needed someone aboard and the pay was 3 times what he was earning so, yes, he took the job!!! that very night. and the rest, as they say, is history

He lived there for the rest of his life. I have found that he returned to England on the Cunard ship, Aquitania, in 1930.

He married Christina Beaton Macinness from Scotland in New York on 10th September 1938 in the Presbyterian Church in New York.

In the US census of 1940 they are living in Rutgers Street, Belleville, Essex, New Jersey.

From information that Kathie has sent to me, Alfred enjoyed acting and singing and she has sent me this lovely photo of Alfred with Kathie in the choir together

Al & Chrissie came back to visit us all in Broadstairs in 1958 and we had a photo taken in the garden of 12 Chaucer Road. Al and Norman went to Dover to visit their old school and I found this report of their visit in a copy of the school magazine

Al did well for himself going into advertising, and working for the Beneficial Finance company. They had a lovely house in New Jersey which I visited when I was flying and also took my parents to on their first ever flight in October 1967.

Al and Chrissie had two children:

• Douglas born 17th June 1940. Douglas married Sonia and they had twin boys, Andrew and Christian.

• Katherine Alicia Mockett who was born on 12th June 1944 . Kathie married Jack Palmer on May 10th 1968 and they had two daughters. Alyson and Amanda. Kathie later married John Oberteuffer on 22nd February 1983 in St Croix, Virgin Islands where Al and Chrissie had a house.

Al always said that he did not think that George William was his father. He apparently had been given a locket by his mother when he went to America which had a photo of him as a  young boy. One day he dropped it and the photo fell out revealing a photo of the local Deal doctor in the back. He felt that he was his father and that it explained why he was always the son sent to the surgery to collect prescriptions and why the doctor always asked him about his schooling and how he was getting on.  Just recently Kathie had her DNA done and this was confirmed when it came back showing not a single link to a Mockett but plenty to the Doctor – Alfred Mason. I think it is so amazing to find out that ones Grandmother had an affair over 100 years afterwards.

Here are photos of the locket that Kathie kindly sent me

Wilfred Arthur Mockett

21st January 1911- 6th January 1963

I know little about Wilfred’s early life. He was born on 21 January 1911. From letters from Florence, I found that he worked in Broadstairs for some years, living in digs. I do know that he worked as a barber in Wimbledon for many years and remember going to stay with them there for a few days with my parents

Wilfred married Gladys M Hughes in 1938 at Queens Road Baptist Church. I have copies of two newspaper reports and understand that the bride was attended by three bridesmaids, one was her sister and the other two were nieces. The best man was my father, Hugh Norman Mockett.

According to Audrey, Gladys had an affair and as a result of which she gave birth to twins. As a result she and Wilfred divorced, and he married Elizabeth Bertha Hatton in 1950. Bertha had been married before (her maiden name being Carpenter), and she had a daughter Joan who always lived with them both as she was slightly disabled.

Wilfred moved from Wimbledon to a bungalow called Holdfast in Griggs Lane, Headcorn which was on a farm. This must have been in the late 1940’s or very early 1950 as I remember going to stay with them when I was about 12 and one year Bertha took me hop picking with her.

Cheryl and I were reminiscing about Wilfred just now and she told me a lovely story of when she was aged about 4 and went to stay with Wilfred and Bertha. We were going camping in Italy and were unable to take Cheryl with us as she was not adopted at that stage and we had no passport for her.  Bertha gave Cheryl a basket and instructions to go out and look for eggs under the hedges etc ready for them to make a cake. Wilfred asked Cheryl if she knew how to tell a good egg from a bad egg and when she said that she didn’t he explained. He said that you threw them into the water and the good eggs sank and the bad eggs floated. Having collected the eggs, this dear little girl carefully threw them all into the pond and found that they all sank! She was found by Bertha, sometime later, on the side of the pond and with an empty basket

Wilfred died on 6th January 1963 and his wife, Bertha died in 1990. When Wilfred died (four weeks before his brother, Harold) he left an estate of £8180

Hugh Norman Mockett

Hugh Norman – always known as Norman- was the youngest of the nine sons and here is his story:  Norman