My eldest brother Martin died a couple of days ago having recently been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer.

Born on 1 September 1939 in Bath, just a couple of days before war was declared on Germany, Martin was the eldest child of four of Frederick Harry Jackson and his wife Lilian, and was named after his maternal grandfather, Martin Healy (1876-1954), and our father Fred.

Here are the four of us, in 1951 or thereabouts, and again in 2006. Left to right: Mike (b. 1948), Martin, Margaret (b. 1941), and Edgar (1946-2019).

Not long after Martin was born, my parents moved to Congleton in Cheshire, which was to become the family hometown until 1956. But with the advancing war, Dad was called up to serve and joined the Royal Navy, and Mum, Martin and Margaret left Congleton to live with her in-laws in the small Derbyshire village of Hollington, about midway between Ashbourne and Derby.

Margaret (center) and Martin with cousin Marian Paxton.

With mum and Dad on the steps of ‘Ebenezer Cottage’.

Hay-making with Bull relatives.

While living in Hollington, Martin started his primary education at the village school in Longford, just a couple miles down the road. After the war, the family moved back to Congleton where Dad was the staff photographer for the local newspaper, The Congleton Chronicle. We lived at 13 Moody Street, which was owned by the newspaper’s proprietor.

No. 13 and No 15 Moody Street. My dad’s boss, Mr Head, lived at No. 15.

Martin and Margaret then attended the Church of England school in Mossley, a village just to the southeast of the town centre (and which Edgar and Mike attended as well when they reached school age).

In 1953 all the local children in Moody Street celebrated the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Martin is the cricketer on the extreme right.

Martin was a keen swimmer, and won a number of trophies.

I don’t remember many family holidays in the early 1950s (before we moved to Leek). But there were a couple where we stayed in a caravan near Llandudno in North Wales, and another year in a camping coach alongside the main railway line to Holyhead in Abergele, just along the coast from Llandudno. I have no idea why our parents insisted on us wearing school uniform, but I guess that was quite normal back in the day.

When time permitted, we’d visit our grandparents in Hollington, and during the summer there would be picnics in one of the meadows, and visits to Dovedale with our Paxton cousins who lived across the road from our grandparents. In 1954, Grandma and Grandad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary with family and friends.

With Paxton cousins

Family picnic

1949

1950

At Dovedale with Thorpe Cloud in the background

The Stepping Stones in Dovedale.

Golden Wedding 1954

By the autumn of 1950, Martin won a scholarship to King’s School in Macclesfield (which entailed a bus and train journey each day from Congleton), and stayed there until he completed his school certificate at the age of sixteen around 1956.

At Macclesfield, Martin had joined the Air Training Corps (ATC) and would go on to join the Royal Air Force in 1957, where he continued his swimming prowess. His passing out parade was held at RAF West Kirby.

He remained in the RAF, with Fighter Command, until 1965, serving in Scotland at RAF Buchan near Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, and in Cyprus at RAF Akrotiri.

Martin was a motorbike enthusiast, being the proud owner of a 200 cc Triumph Tiger Cub, and then a 500 cc model, making the journey from Aberdeenshire to home in Leek in all weathers. When he was on leave in the summer months, he would often take me out for a spin on his bike, reaching the incredible Ton (100 mph) on one stretch of road near home on one trip.

In November 1965, Martin married the love of his life, Pauline, daughter of the Revd. Neil Henderson (died 1960, a Church of Scotland minister) and his wife Markie, in her home town of Huntly, Aberdeenshire.

L: Mike, Dad, Edgar (best man), and Martin; R: Pauline and her brother Nigel, who ‘gave her away’.

Leaving the RAF, Martin joined the computer company ICL, and worked for a couple of years in the computer department at the Ravenscraig steelworks south of Glasgow.

By 1968, Martin and Pauline had moved to Filton, just north of Bristol, where Martin had joined the flight testing program for the Anglo-French Concorde.

Their first son Alexander Neil was born in March 1968.

Proud parents and grandparents.

Their second son, Michael Bruce, was born in July 1969.

After the flight testing program moved to RAF Fairford in April 1969 (Concorde could take off from Filton but not land there), Martin had opportunities of joining the flight tests in many parts of the world. It’s poignant that 2 March—the day Martin died—was the 54th anniversary of Concorde’s first flight in Toulouse, France.

Leaving the Concorde project, Martin joined the small commercial jets division of British Aerospace near Manchester, setting up home in North Wales near Holywell, Flint.

However, in August 1993, Martin and Pauline embarked on a new adventure, when they became landlords of the Llyn y Mawn Inn near Holywell. In need of a complete refurbishment, within a few months they had turned the pub around to become of the best in Wales. They even extended the premises to increase space for dining.

Behind the bar at the Llyn y Mawn, flanked by Alec and his wife Lizzie on the left, and Bruce on the right.

I don’t remember how long they stayed at the Llyn y Mawn. Maybe until 1999. I remember Martin once telling me he wanted to retire by his 60th birthday. By 2002 they had retired from the licensed trade and were settled in Crieff, Perthshire to be closer to Pauline’s mother.

Steph with Pauline and Martin in the garden of their Crieff home.

There Martin returned to another interest, model railways, and built an impressive layout in the roof of their garage.

However, after holidaying in Portugal, they decided to make the move there permanently, finally settling in Tomar, north of Lisbon. It was there in 2012 that we had a cousins’ reunion. Martin and Pauline had built this beautiful house standing in several acres of its own land, and large enough to accommodate us all. What a lovely two weeks we spent with them. And although we have seen them briefly on two other occasions, this was really the last time that I spent any time with Martin.

Martin embarked on yet another, and larger, model railway layout based on his beloved LMS theme.

But one of Martin’s most enduring legacies will be the database and website that he began work on in 1980 after the death of our father Fred. Martin decided to research the genealogy of the Jackson and Bull families, taking our family history directly back (on our paternal grandmother’s Bull side of the family) to the late 15th century. His website contains the records of more than 39,000 people related to us in one way or other.

Martin and Pauline were proud parents to Alex and Bruce and their wives, Lizzie and Susie, respectively, seen here at the joint christening of Sam (in pushchair) and Maddie (in Bruce’s arms; Seb wasn’t born then) in 2004.

And Martin being the dutiful grandad in 2006 with Sam and Maddie.

It’s hard to believe that Martin has been taken from us so soon, and quickly. It was only a couple of weeks ago that he called me by video to tell me of his diagnosis. But it’s also a relief that he was spared months of painful decline, and for that we must be tankful.

Martin was always my big brother. For some reason I (we) called him ‘Jake’. I have no idea how this came about. So here’s Jake, me, and Edgar on the beach in North Wales, early 1950s.

Rest in Peace, big brother! I will miss you.