Career
In his early years he developed an interest in dance and from here gathered an interest in music At the age of nineteen he became a musician in the Royal Air Force and in 1944 joined the Buddy Featherstonhaugh Sextet. His biggest successes in composition were for the British Broadcasting Corporation series" Friends and Neighbours (1959) and The Pursuers (1961) for which he wrote the themes.
His film scores include,,, and
He also composed the music for the 1965 film Doctor Who and the Daleks, some arrangements from that film have since been released on a Civil Defense called The Eccentric Doctor Who. One of the highlights of Lockyer"s career was arranging and conducting the Bing Crosby album Holiday in Europe (1961), described as "one of the all-time Crosby classics" by the noted jazz critic Will Friedwald in his liner notes to the Civil Defense Bing Crosby: Legends of the 20th Century, which includes seven tracks from the album.
Lockyer conducted frequently throughout the 1960s. Among the many orchestras he led were those for: the British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Home Service"s radio musical version of Jerome K. Jerome"s Three Men in a Boat (1962), and the films and among others
From the early 1960s he was conductor of the British Broadcasting Corporation Revue Orchestra and subsequently the principal conductor of the new British Broadcasting Corporation Radio Orchestra and the British Broadcasting Corporation Big Band when both ensembles were formed in 1967.
Lockyer was the musical director for the 1972 Eurovision Song Contest staged at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh. Unusually however, as noted in John Kennedy O"Connor"s The Eurovision Song Contest - The Official History, he did not conduct the home entry for the United Kingdom. Lockyer had taken part in the very first United Kingdom selection process to find Britain"s debut Eurovision entry in 1957. However, Patricia Bredin went on to perform the song at the final in Frankfurt with musical direction by Eric Robinson.
Shortly before his death in 1976, he conducted The Million Airs Orchestra in 26 Glenn Miller tribute concerts.