Remembering Martin

Most of you know that I have been a regular at the Irish Pub in my town, mostly to play the pub quiz on Tuesday nights, but also just for a drink or a meal outside on Ludwigsburg's beautiful market square in the summer; I even celebrated my 50th birthday there by renting the entire place for me and my 70 guests.

Of course, the two years under Covid-related restrictions meant no pub quiz, but I was able to meet up with my team a couple of times outside. And since my birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, it was the perfect occasion to gather The Corner Shop for our first pub quiz since before the pandemic.

I am telling you all this because the man who started it all, our friend Martin, died unexpectedly at the beginning of April. We'd known each other for about 15 years, which is when "our" Irish Pub opened, and he was there at its very first quiz night. Not much later, he asked me and another friend along, and since I had been to what my husband called queez neet in Yorkshire*, I was happy to have a similar event right in my home town.

It was through Martin that, one by one, I met the people who over the years have become not only my team mates, but also my friends. While several others came and went over the years (some moving away, some losing interest), the core of our team has remained. 

When we learned of his sudden death, we were hoping for it to be a mix-up with someone else by the same name. But it was soon clear that it was indeed our friend Martin. You can imagine the shock; he was only 61 and generally in good health. He played squash and walked a lot, and as far as I know, he never smoked.

It was on April 6 that I learned of Martin's death. After work, I went for a walk, and as I was thinking of Martin I turned around and looked at the sky behind me. It seems fitting to include the photo I took at that moment with this post.

Our friend C, who had become closest to Martin in recent years, wrote: "He died alone in his [London flat] without any signs of foul play. [...] After the autopsy was done, [his partner] learned that he died of pulmonary thromboembolism. Martin and Anne were in the UK taking care of things for 3 weeks with Anne taking a short side-trip back to her home state of Colorado when an unusual radio silence in Martin's response time to text messages started occurring. She had to ask the local police to break in and [they] found Martin."

Originally from Liverpool, after years in Berlin and Moscow, Martin settled in my home town. He ran his own company, an agency for copywriting and translation. Twice I worked for him there for short periods when I was between jobs, playing secretary and taking care of his terminology data base. I learned a lot from him and was pleased to find that working together did not harm our friendship at all.

I had organised for us to be at the pub quiz again this past Tuesday with Martin supposed to be there as well. In fact, his confirming email was the last time we were in touch. It still seems unreal that he's not there anymore, and when I send an email to all the team, it just does not feel right NOT to include his email address with the recipients.

We agreed that we still wanted to meet at the pub on Tuesday, and dedicated the evening to Martin. Chris, our host, had known Martin from the start, and he was equally shocked when we told him. After the quiz, he joined us at our table with a drink on the house, and together, we raised our glasses to Martin.

His humour and wit, his vast knowledge on many subjects, his creative thinking and grasp of languages and above all his kindness and friendship are sorely missed, but never forgotten.

*The first ever pub quiz I attended was at The Telstar in Wath upon Dearne.