Buster Martin

Buster Martin, who died on April 13, possibly aged 104, became celebrated at the age of 100 as “Britain’s oldest worker”, a triumph that was largely untarnished by persistent allegations that the story of his life, including his age, was fabricated.

Buster Martin before his marathon run Photo: PA

He was feted by the media, by his employers (a south London plumbing firm for whom he worked as a van cleaner), and by politicians including the former Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell, who hailed him in 2006 as “living proof of why people should not be written off once they pass retirement age”.

A former Brixton barrow boy with the looks of Captain Birds Eye, Martin hit the headlines in 2007, allegedly at the age of 100, when he signed up as an agony uncle for the men’s magazine FHM. With his straggly beard and dry wit he was irresistible copy for the press and later the same year he found fame with The Zimmers, a 40-strong group of elderly rockers (combined age: more than 3,000) who scored a hit single with a cover of The Who’s My Generation. He hit the headlines again the same year when he completed the 10km Great London Run in 2hrs 22mins, and yet again when he was reported to have single-handedly beaten off a gang of three teenage muggers. He also notably refused to take a day off work on his “100th” birthday.

In late 2007 he announced that he would be making a bid to become the oldest person to run a marathon, in London the following April. During the winter months his stooped figure, staggering around Docklands in a blue tracksuit, became a familiar sight and attracted wellwishers who made donations to his charity, the Rhys Daniels Trust.

But on the day itself, even as he began to hobble his way round the 26-mile course, his story began to unravel. Guinness World Records refused to verify his claim to be the oldest marathon runner. The company, it appeared, had evidence that Martin might not be 101 as claimed, but 94 — a good deal younger than Dimitriou Yordanitis who, in 1976, completed a marathon at the age of 98. Even though the BBC was said to have confirmed his claimed age through social security numbers, a senior adviser to Guinness warned that Martin had two birth dates registered with the NHS: September 1 1906 and September 1 1913. Martin, he added in correspondence leaked to the press, “appears to be a fake, and more so, one being exploited by his company, which is using him to promote their services”.

Martin, who completed the course in more than 10 hours, dismissed suggestions he was younger than he claimed: “I know how long I have lived. There are always rumours from a lot of people who are jealous.” His birth certificate, he explained, was with his granddaughter in Canada.

And indeed the dispute over his age overshadowed what was by any standards a remarkable achievement, given his claim that he owed his longevity to a combination of drinking, smoking and “good red meat”. “I’ve been smoking since I was seven,” he said. “When I get to the line, if there isn’t a pint of beer there waiting for me I’ll want to know why. I’m not worried about the fags because I’ll carry them with me. Everyone says smoking kills but it’s taking a long time in my case. ”
As Buster Martin told it, he was born Pierre Jean Martin (either in 1906 or 1913) in France (a fact which, if true, might account for the absence of a birth certificate), but as a result of his teenage mother’s illegitimate pregnancy or (possibly) death, was sent to a Cornish orphanage aged three months. He claimed to have acquired the nickname “Buster” aged three for “whacking a priest on the nose”, and to have been thrown out of the orphanage aged 10 “for eating too much and growing too fast”.
He travelled to London where he found work running errands for stallholders in the Brixton Market. There, apparently aged 13, he met his future wife, Iriana, aged 12, from Tonbridge, Kent. “I got married in 1920 and had to go over to France as I couldn’t get married here due to my legal status,” Martin recalled. It was noted, however, that even allowing for the earlier date of birth, he would have been 14 at the time and his wife 13, whereas the legal age for contracting marriage in France at the time was 18 for a boy and 15 for a girl, with parental consent, or 21 without. There was no record of a marriage certificate.
Martin claimed to have been happily married for 35 years until Iriana died in 1955, and to have fathered 17 children: “twins, triplets, singletons – all sorts”. Yet no record either of Iriana’s death of his children’s births could be uncovered. They had all moved abroad, he explained.
Martin claimed to have left Brixton Market the same year he got married and joined the British Army, where he became a physical training instructor in the Grenadier Guards. He served in the Second World War and left the Armed Forces in 1955 after reaching the rank of regimental sergeant major (though he sometimes claimed to have finished up in the Royal Navy). During his military career he and his family moved house several times “because my family kept getting bigger. We were very virile in those days.”
He left the Services in order to mastermind the pitches at Brixton Market and did not retire until he was 97 (or possibly 90). But he got bored with retirement and, three months later, in 2003, landed his plumbing job.
Martin lived in sheltered accommodation in Lambeth, where he continued to do his own cooking and cleaning. Apart from a daily visit to the pub, he was said to enjoy reading, doing crosswords and watching cowboy films on television. He swore that he would only give up work “when they put me in a wooden box”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/8451727/Buster-Martin.html