93-year-old’s Sunday school prize returned
A PENSIONER was surprised when a book he won as a prize more than 80 years ago turned up at a church sale and was given back to him.
In 1938, Alf Martin – now 93 years old – received a copy of E. M. Stokes’ Brave Brothers as a prize for good attendance at the St Sampson’s Methodist Church Sunday School.
The school was in New Road in what is now the Church on the Rock.
Mr Martin married Betty Herquin in April 1954, since when they have moved house six times. They have been at Rodley Park, Mont Morin, St Sampson’s, for the past 10 years.
Their belongings were moved from place to place in boxes and at some stage a number of books were donated to a church sale.
‘My daughter was at a church sale recently when her friend gave her the book and told her that she thought it belonged to me,’ said Mr Martin.
His daughter, Sandra Frihmat, then gave it back to her father.
‘They know I like reading a lot and I hadn’t seen it for years,’ he said. ‘I doubt I’ll read as it’s not really my type of thing.’
Mr Martin enjoys crime fiction and he is currently reading David Baldacci’s Split Second.
He said his father was a church man who first took him to Sunday school.
‘It was every Sunday at 2.30pm and just like going to other schools. My father died when I was seven and my mother had six children so she had to go out to work packing flowers and tomatoes and life was tough for her.’
During the war, Mr Martin was a sergeant in the RAF. He was trainee aircrew and spent a year in Egypt.
He spent most of his working life in greenhouses at Petite Quartiers, where Grow is now, and the latter part of it in cleaning.
He and his wife have four daughters, two sons, 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
They will have been married for 65 years in April.
