Spar runs out of Socialist tea!


“Lancaster was a highly broadening experience, and it changed me completely,” he explains. “I had narrow outlooks on both my faith and in politics. It turned me into an activist as both a Christian and as a political entity. I had knowledge and I could express myself better.”


After Lancaster his career spanned working with Vietnamese refugees in London and Edinburgh, a stint with London Probation Service, teaching in the USA and Ireland, a period in Rome with a Vatican Youth Initiative, and latterly setting up his own transport business. Now he is retired, he is active organising social meetings for alumni based in South East England and works as a student mentor plus hosting the occasional show on Bailrigg FM.


“It’s trying to keep people in the loop who are interested, “he says,“ And building up a network of Lancaster alumni. Repeatedly I get told that when they came to Lancaster, they became part of a village community.”


It is what he experienced himself. Born and bred in Warrington, Cheshire, into a family he describes as ‘an activist desert’, he claims his political leanings and outlook came from joining the local church choir at eight to sing and hearing the message of the Gospels as pure socialism.


Family matters prevented the grammar school pupil from staying on for A levels, so he spent the next few years in the navy, working in Thomas Cook and living in a Christian Communist community in London, before taking four A levels in nine months by correspondence course, whilst also working as a window cleaner.


The attraction of Lancaster was its newness which seemed to him both exciting and revolutionary.


Mother Martin about to go out on the town!


He was also attracted by the collegiate system - still for him the backbone of the University’s success.


At 22 years old he remembers being overwhelmed on arrival by the size of the campus and then finding the safety and intimacy of his room in County College, which made him relax. That night he made lasting friends in the college bar.


The richness of his social experience has left an indelible impression on him. He talks of the excitement of the bands that visited the University including Queen as support to Mott the Hoople.


At various times he was a member of the JCR executive, a DJ on the University’s radio station, a member of the bridge club, the chaplaincy, the hiking club and the Marxist Revolutionary Group (later banned). He also volunteered for the Nightline campus helpline and worked at a children’s home in Lancaster at the weekend - vital experience for his future career with young offenders and drug users.


Fitting in his academic work might have been a problem, except that Martin considers himself fortunate only to have had around 12 hours of contact time a week.


He learned by bitter experience that finishing an essay at 6am was not the best way to study. The teaching, he considers, was ‘superb’ in all subjects. His dissertation was on the origins of Marxism in Christian Philosophy. He stayed on because he wanted to study secular religion under the eminent theologian Ninian Smart.


Everything about his university years supported his then identity as a Christian Marxist. It was go-ahead and exciting and there were often protests and lock-ins. When Pinochet took over in Chile, he and fellow


KEEP IN TOUCH WWW.L OUCH WWW.LANCASTER.AC.UK/ALUMNI | 15


students took action to make the campus shop stop selling Chilean onions out of solidarity.


For him Lancaster was the place where he learned he could attempt to change or challenge what he didn’t agree with. With delight in his voice, he describes the many ‘sit-ins’ including a student occupation of the Senate House in which he was involved, supported by three barrels of beer, a glitterball and sleeping bags to make the protest more comfortable.


After his master’s at Lancaster, he went on to postgraduate studies at Oxford and Washington (St. Louis) Universities. He considered joining the priesthood, but decided against it because as he says, ‘obedience was a problem!’.


The power of his undergraduate experience is why Martin continues to want to help his alma mater: “Lancaster gave me a sense of social and societal responsibility. It also gave me a sense of direction. I realised that I was not the only person adrift, trying to figure out my life.”


Thank goodness finals are over!


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