Independent type

It was the end of an era, when Allan Lockwood died on Monday night. Allan was the last surviving son of newspaper pioneer Alfred Lockwood. Alfred purchased the West Wimmera Mail newspaper in Natimuk in 1899, and all his six sons grew up working and assisting with all aspects of producing the paper.

Allan, the youngest, was 13 when his father took him out of school to work on the paper (he was folding, wrapping & delivering papers while still at school) at the end of 1935. As an unpaid full-time employee, he set type, reported on meetings, operated the machines with his brothers. Allan joined the Army in 1942, and was at Noonamah when the Japanese bombed Darwin. Allan married Winifred Uebergang on 22nd April 1944.

Keith sharing a joke with Allan, 2009

After the war he returned to the newspaper in 1946. Alfred retired at the end of 1950, aged 83, and Allan and brother Frank took over, until the West Wimmera Mail and Natimuk Advertiser merged with the Horsham Times to form the Wimmera Mail Times in September 1959. The Wimmera Mail Times was established with Frank as manager, and Allan as its editor.
Allan continued at the Mail Times until his retirement in 1985, after which he and Win traveled, and Allan turned his hand to writing a variety of biographies and local histories.
They had eight children - Greg, Bruce, Peter, Keith, Rosemary, twins Miriam & Marion, and Kerry. The family lived in Natimuk, where Allan died on Monday 11th, aged 90 years. His funeral will be at St Paul's Lutheran Church in Natimuk on Tuesday at 10:30am.