Kevin Milne: Paying tribute to Allan Martin

Sir David Attenborough isn’t the only broadcaster to reach 100 within the last week or so. 

One of New Zealand’s greats, Allan Martin reached his century last week.  

Throughout his life he was the former Director General of TVNZ, producing some of their greatest current affairs shows, as well as a pilot, a farmer, and even a multi-gold medal winner at the World Masters Games in swimming and track and field. 

Kevin Milne decided to pay tribute to him whilst chatting with Jack this week. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
A'd be Kevin Yoda Jack. So so David Attenburg would
have been in his mid eighties. Yeah at the time. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that's extraordinary age to be strolling around down Tartica,
isn't it. It is?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, I mean he he I remember talking to him
and he said that one of the things because I
was talking to him about how the filmmaking techniques had
changed over his time, and he, you know, he said
that one of the interesting things that people often thought
that he was the one behind the camera all the time.
So you know, when the when the lame gazelle is

(00:45):
getting picked off by the cheetah, he said, people sort
of mistook him for being the one standing there filming
that frame all the time. And of course, you know,
he does these presentations where he is there in the
environment with these animals, and you know, those are some
of his most you know, special and memorable and remarkable pieces.
But he's not necessarily the one behind the camera all

(01:06):
the time. And actually I went and he's got a
couple of amazing stories. He actually published his diaries from
when he was a really young man in his early
twenties and he trekd through Papua New Guinea and he
was he was going to seek various I think birds
of Paradise for the British Museum or something like that.

(01:30):
And this would have been you know, this was eighty
years ago, and they were carrying you know, ninety cases
of equipment because they were trying to film it. And
back then, of course the various you know, cameras and
tripods and things weren't quite as advanced as they might
be today. And so anyway, they would trek twenty or
thirty kilometers and they would get to the edge of

(01:52):
a tribe's region and then they would have all of
these all of the sort of local indigenous people carrying
their equipment. And then they would get to the edge
of their region, and then another tribe would come along
and they would hand over all of this equipment and
do ad for these guys to carry their stuff through
the bush. Really, it's just amazing, it's just such a

(02:12):
you know, it's such an extraordinary thing.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, yes, yes, my dad was fifty when he went
to Antartoic Karen. I remember there was quite a hooha
about the fact that he was fifty. Wow, was that
getting a bit too old to be flying him down there?
And and like that seems so young now and certainly
alongside David Lattenbero, Yeah age been there.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Yeah amazing anyway, Kevin, He's not the only great broadcaster
who's turned one hundred. You are paying tribute to one
of this country's greatest.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, yesterday David Attenborough of course turned one hundred British broadcaster.
But New Zealand has its own remarkable centenarian broadcasta from
Warkworth who turned one hundred last week. His name's Alan Martin,
not to be mixed up with the whiteware retailer Alvi Martin.

(03:02):
This Alan Martin ended up the Director General of TV
and Z from nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty five. But
what a lifetime. As a young man, Alan Martin ran
the family girry farm. When his dad went to war,
he himself had a stint with the New Zealand Armed
Forces in Japan. He then became am a radio announcer

(03:22):
in Mozambique and married Elaine, who's also still living. Alan
learned to fly with the Portuguese Air Force and was
still flying when he was eighty five from the Air Force.
Alan went on to a successful career in television, studying
at London's Associated Rediffusion that's ITV's London channel, or was

(03:45):
not sure whether it's SIG. Later he was hired as
a producer by TV and Z and he oversaw the
hugely popular regional magazine programs CAUN and Around in all
the main centers, and he produced the current affairs program Compass,
possibly one of our first current affair shows. After further

(04:06):
excess in Australia, Allen was given charge of TV two,
changing its name to South Pacific Television. He didn't like
running a channel that had a number two on it.
In that role, he oversaw the twenty four hour live
telethons that raised millions for charity. Eventually he took over

(04:30):
running all of TVNZ as its Director General, now in retirement.
In two thousand and two, he was awarded the Broadcasting
Industry Award for Outstanding Achievement. Four years later, at the
age of eighty, he graduated with a phdm Philosophy from
Auckland University. At the same time, he became a legend

(04:51):
at the World Masters Games around the world, winning literally
dozens of gold medals in track and field and swimming events.
Last year, as a ninety nine year old, Allen competed
in the twenty twenty five World Masters Games in Taipei
in the one hundred meters, the two hundred meters, the

(05:13):
four hundred meters, the javelin, and the discus. So last Saturday,
Alan Martin Obe celebrated his one hundredth birthday with his
family in Brisbane. Happy birthday, Alan, You are a broadcasting legend.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
So good, well well seen, Kevin. Yeah, what an amazing
life as well. Yes, I love I love people who
really you know, have kind of sought to you know,
you get the sense of squeezed everything they can out
of life, you know, every experience, and they have all
these kind of these disparate interests, you know, like he's
flying and flying with the Portuguese Air Force and yet

(05:51):
still in love with broadcasting. You know, they're quite they're
quite different things.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Obviously, he gave it up at eighty six because he
said it's very hard to find anybody who'll fly with
a pilot that's over eighty.

Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, that's a lovely, lovely story. All right, Hey, thank
you so much for.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
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