More tributes to Kent journalist Martin Jackson
After
more than 60 years as a journalist, KM Group columnist Martin
Jackson dictated his final story from his hospital bed just 24
hours before he died.
The article is published in the February edition of
Kent Business, the group's monthly supplement. It includes
recollections of encounters with showbiz legends - and a poignant
signing off as he recognises it will be his final column.
Numerous tributes have been paid to 75-year-old Martin, from
Hawkhurst. He worked for many years on national newspapers and was
a founder and director of Television South, the independent TV
company for the region before Meridian. He was a member of the
advisory board for Kent County Council's Kent TV and had written
his Kent Business column for 16 years.
Tanya Oliver, the Director of Strategic Development and Public
Access at Kent County Council said: "Martin was a real asset
to the Kent TV Board as he had such amazing experience, was a real
visionary and had an excellent sense of humour.
"I will never forget that one of the meetings he attended he
came straight from being discharged from hospital after an
operation! Such was his commitment.
"His support for filming and television in the county and how
important it was to local businesses was also inspirational and we
valued his support for what we are trying to achieve through the
Kent Film Office - he was a true advocate."
BBC correspondent Nick Higham said: "I worked with Martin in the
1980s when he was editor of Broadcast and enjoyed it a lot: he was
entertaining, stimulating, sometimes sardonic, occasionally
scurrilous, exceedingly well-connected and editorially acute: a
proper Fleet Street hack, and we all looked up to him."
Rex Cooper, Editor of Kent Profile magazine, described Martin as
an old school journalist. He told this anecdote dating back to
their first meeting in 1958 when he was a student in London and
Martin was a press officer at Associated Television (ATV)
Midlands:
"Early one Friday evening I was thumbing a lift - as penniless
students and servicemen did in those days - to Birmingham, for a
weekend with a girlfriend. After a 10-minute wait in the Edgware
Road, Martin pulled up, said he was going all the way to Birmingham
and told me to hop in.
"There was no M1 nor M6 in those days, so the journey, right
into the middle of Birmingham to the ATV studios, must have taken
three or four hours. In that time he regaled me with stories about
his job and about the television people he knew and, when I told
him I was in fact studying journalism, he was even more
enthusiastic to talk up the calling.
"On arrival he told me: 'I do this drive every Friday evening at
the same time; if you want to go with me, be in the same place, but
I won’t wait if you are not there.' Over the next few months I
enjoyed seven or eight more free rides to Birmingham with
conversation that did much to convince me that I was choosing the
right job for me."
- More tributes in the Kent Business supplement in the Kent
Messenger, Medway Messenger, Kentish Gazette, Kentish Express week
ending February 5.
Tuesday, February 02 2010