Really sad to hear this news. Martin was a big character who made a huge impact to so many people's lives, just reading all the comments is testimony to that.  

I only recently got reacquainted with him in the past few years over curry nights at the Blue Bengal in Carshalton with Mark Lavender and Dave Clarke. I first met him when his family moved into Westmead Road when I think he was about seven. His road was linked to ours, Rossdale, by an alleyway, and he became an honorary member of the Rossdale gang, Dave Clarke, Neil Watson, Chris Barrington, Nigel Conquest, and my brother Matthew and sister Chris.

Football, of course was integral part of our friendship. This was in the days when all the cars were parked in people's drives so you could still play football in the road without any obstacles, and because it was cul-de-sac, we could actually have a proper game without constantly being interrupted by passing cars. So it seemed appropriate for a football mad Martin to later move to Brookfield Avenue right next to the park and Carshalton Athletic, something I can remember feeling quite envious about at the time.

Not surprisingly, given Martin's mischievous nature we'd get into quite a few scrapes away from football. Before he departed to Brookfield, I can remember, pushing his brother, Peter down Highfield Road, which was the steepest hill around, on a homemade go-kart with no brakes other than your feet. Peter went like a bullet downhill and straight into Westmead Road, without using his feet to stop and narrowly avoided serious injury after a glancing blow with a car. Martin told me recently that when someone alerted his Mum who was at home at the time, she got up so quickly she either cured her bad back she had at the time or caused it. I'm sure Peter will put us straight.

Another time in the Easter holidays in our early teens, Robin Burgess, Martin and I decided to cycle to Brighton and back. Martin and Robin had five-speed racers and I had a rather sad three-geared Raliegh Hustler. We went straight up the A217, only when it gets to the M25 junction at Reigate Hill we didn't go straight on but joined the M25 and carried on for about a couple of miles until the Police stopped us and gave us a two-vehicle escort back up to the 217 to carry on our journey. They were pretty angry about it and gave us quite a bit of grief, but we'd thought we'd dodged the bullet until they wrote to our parents a few weeks later.

Then there was the time that Dave Clarke came off his bike in Poulton Avenue fracturing his skull and Martin quickly got one of the neighbours to call an ambulance, as was able to bask in glory with a special mention in a Camden Junior School assembly. There's many more.

Then throughout our teenage years it was football and more football, and in the summer holidays it was quite literally dawn to dusk, interspersed with bar-football and games of L.O.N.D.O.N on the witch's hat, if anyone can recall that, and playing day long games of tag over the Grove Park.

The happiest of days.  He's gone but he certainly won't be forgotten.