Today would have been my paternal grandfather’s 101st birthday.
Percy Martin was born on the 1st October 1913, as the third of four sons of Daisy (née Burnell) and Herbert Martin of Little Downham, Cambridgeshire.
In 1917, during the First World War, when he was only a little over 4yrs old, his father was killed in a train accident in Boulogne, France.
Percy appears to have gone to St Owen’s School on Third Drove of Little Downham Fen, alongside his Martin brothers and cousins.
The photograph above shows the four sons and their parents – within less than a year, his father was dead.
His widowed mother, now with four sons all under the age of 8yrs, eventually re-married in 1919, and had three further children – half-siblings to Percy.
Percy married my Grandmother Edna in 1937, and together they had four children, although they later divorced. Percy re-married to Irene.
He worked mostly for the Great Ouse River Authority in Cambridgeshire.
I was fortunate to know my grandfather for about 13 years (both grandfathers as it happens), and whilst it saddens me that I never really got to know him, and not at all as an adult, I’m pleased that we were able to spend a little time together.
Percy died on 9th September 1991 in Ely.
Happy 101st Birthday Grandad.
