Long time Hampstead Town Ward Chairman, Penny Martin passed away on 28th August 2024. She was a great life force and will be missed by many. The obituary has been supplied by her husband and Association friend, Dr Vivian Martin.
Penny was born in the Middlesex Hospital, Westminster on November 15th 1941, and she grew up in Edgeware. She was her parents Rose and Leon Samuels only child and - probably
because of that – she wasn’t evacuated during the War. But it undoubtedly had an impact on her young life, as it did on so many kids born at around that time. And not just the rationing of sweets. She remembered the blackouts and seeing her first banana after the War had finished. She had family across Europe – her father had come to London from Poland, via Belfast, and
her maternal grandmother was French. The impact of the War must have been widespread. Penny was a bright and clever child who won a scholarship to South Hampstead High School,
and she went on to study French, Italian and Psychology at Trinity College in Dublin.
She also studied the local language and vernacular in the bars around Trinity... There is a story that she and some friends were drinking one day, left their glasses on the table, went
to a lecture and then came back to finish the drinks! Penny had a wicked sense of humour, which developed through her life, and also a great sense of style which never left her - she apparently drove to and around Dublin in a pink Mini!
Back in London Penny was introduced to Vivian Martin, a young Australian medical student. He was staying with relatives who were neighbours of the Samuels, and the rest as they say
is history. They were married on December 9th 1967 at the New West End synagogue in Bayswater and the young couple honeymooned on the ski slopes in Austria. Ever stylish and on trend, the young bride travelled in a mini skirt and boots, and consequently suffered with very cold and chaffed thighs. A slave to her style. They lived in Vivian’s native Australia for three years and then returned to London to start their family – having their two sons Simon and Nicky.
When Nicky’s hearing issues were diagnosed, Penny started a passionate and energetic fight to keep him in mainstream education, and inevitably she won. It was a joint venture
between Penny and Nicky and an equally fierce speech therapist gave homework to both, with the threat that the pair would be dropped from her schedule if it wasn’t done and done
well. Which of course it was.
Penny’s children were key to her interest and passion learning the Greek language. On holiday one year, in a small mountain village, she wasn’t able speak enough Greek to buy
them an ice cream, and she determined that since they would probably go back to the islands on holiday again, she needed to learn. Penny spent 20 years learning to speak and write Greek, and also studied the culture. On a side note – there was no electricity in the village so there would have been no ice cream even if she could have asked for it.
One of my favourite things I was told about Penny is that when she was making a note for herself that she didn’t want Vivian to be able to read – she wrote it in Greek!
She could also have chosen French or Italian and possibly German since she spoke all of those as well. She religiously wrote letters – by hand, pre-email – to Vivian’s parents in Melbourne every week, keeping them up-to-date with their grandsons development and progress. Incredibly diligent and generous of her.
And I expect they were laced with her sharp wit and wicked sense of humour, as was her running of the Hampstead Town Conservative Committee.
Penny was loved, and adored, and respected. She was generous, quirky, sensitive and supportive. She is going to be very sadly missed by everyone who knew her.
