pÅ svenska Bibliography
For bibliography please go to this page!
This page is dedicated to Dr John Stanley Martin
A poem for John
Oh John!
I still hear
your chuckling laughter in the Babel corridor,
the shuffling of your feet that’s quickly coming near,
your soothing voice through the opening of my door.
I still see
the curiuosity in your squirrel eyes so bright,
and how the tales from gnomish grin your hand for me
is stroking out of Old Norse beard to Aussie light.
I still feel
your verbal arms embrace,
a paternal patting on my back and I can’t conceal
the blush your inspiration leaves upon my face.
Tonight I’ll light a candle whispering my ode.
It will flicker in the Swedish wind and snow,
fluttering a tiny message of my gratitude
across the sky for your Nordic soul to know.
Bengt Karlsson,
colleague & Swedish tutor 1979-81.
John Stanley Martin [1933 - 2010] ~ A Biography
John Stanley Martin was born 9 July 1933 at St George’s Hospital, Kew, Melbourne to Eileen and John Martin, six years after his only brother, Jim.
His childhood was very happy and secure. Life was very simple, centred on school and church, and in the context of a close-knit and supportive neighbourhood community, of which many members had moved to the city from rural areas. It is now hard to realise that this occurred against a background of a world war raging in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific region.
John attended nearby Surrey Hills State School from 1938 until 1944, transferring to Mont Albert Central School. He then spent four years at Scotch College in Hawthorn. Each of these schools fostered a love of, and respect for, culture and learning. John was granted a studentship by the Education Department which commited him to teach for three years at the conclusion of his course. This enabled him to enrol in Arts, including modern languages (French and German) and history, at the University of Melbourne followed by a year in the Education Faculty to qualify as a secondary teacher.
In 1955 he was appointed to teach at the Nathalia Higher Elementary School and then for two years in Beechworth. He became enthralled by the history of Beechworth, having grown up with stories of his maternal grandparents’ childhoods on the nearby Stanley and Yackandandah goldfields. His mind had been set alight at the prospect of further study, but he was prevented from doing so by Departmental rules. Encouraged by a perceptive lecturer in German he attended the Saturday class in Old Norse (the ancient Viking tongue) at the home of Professor Lodewyckx, the retired professor of Germanic Languages. This encounter was the turning point in his life. The Old Norse class was a revelation in culture; it was like a secret society - once in one was a member for life. John became an enthusiast about the Vikings and Iceland.
During these three years he prepared for his trip abroad by undertaking the Honours elements of the German course, studying for a Bachelor of Education by correspondence. This included preparing a history of 'Education in North East Victoria' together with the writing the centenary history of two churches and the history of a third.
Having become an ardent admirer of Iceland as a result of the contact with the Lodewyckx class, John could hardly wait to get there. Desperately keen to go to Europe as a post-graduate student and aware that he was not in the very top group in French and German, he realised that, as more a plodding tortoise than a brilliant hare, he had little hope to win a scholarship against the strong competition. Therefore he proposed to research Viking society, its language and ancient mythology. This novel idea worked wonders.
In January 1958 John set sail for Naples on the Sydney. He was away for two years, spending eight months in Iceland and six months in Vienna researching for an M.A. thesis on ancient Scandinavian mythology, which the University of Melbourne required to be written in German. The rest of the time was given to travelling around Europe and North America.
Upon his return, John taught for a further year at Beechworth, now a high school, and for four years at Balwyn High School, while tutoring in German at the university and helping to write and produce German school radio programmes. At last the M.A. was written and he was offered a Ph.D. Scholarship. Therefore, much of 1965 and 1966 was spent in Copenhagen probing further into ancient Scandinavian mythology. When the thesis was completed he spent 1968 doing post-doctoral research in Uppsala.
In 1969 John was appointed Lecturer in Charge of Swedish and Old Icelandic at the University of Melbourne, becoming a Senior Lecturer in 1979 and Associate Professor and Reader in 1988. The same year he was made a Knight of the Royal Swedish Order of the Polar Star. The Swedish Section, founded in 1962, was a small operation. John worked hard to build it up to become a viable unit. In 1995 he retired from the University of Melbourne. During the 27 years at the university he wrote and edited books and produced articles on a range of topics, including mediæval Iceland, mythology, the mediæval church, liturgical language and Scandinavians and their communities in Australia.
On 29 May 1971 John married, at St Mark’s Anglican Church in Canterbury, Helen Elizabeth Lawrence Tucker, a nurse, originally from Perth.
In 1974 John and Helen adopted Nigel Alasdair and in 1975 Robert Daniel. Robert has a daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, with Emma Thompson. Later he married Emma Ristow. Their daughter, Olivia Grace, was born in 2008.
John and Helen, with the children spent a year’s sabattical leave in Lund, southern Sweden. Thereafter, John took study leave at Monash University from which he was able to attend overseas conferences..
As ecumenically-minded Christians Helen and John have attended Presbyterian (later Uniting) and Anglican congregations and are guest-members of the Swedish and Danish Congregations of Melbourne. Being a staff member of the University of Melbourne, John was able to study Theology part time over a long period at the United Faculty of Theology. He was awarded a Bachelor of Theology and a Master of Theology (on the History of the Swedish Church in Melbourne as an ethnic congregation) from the Melbourne College of Divinity.
Helen and John were members of the foundation committee of the Adoptive Parents’ Association of Victoria (APAV) and later joined the Association of Family and Friends of the Mentally and Emotionally Ill (ARAFEMI). To each organisation they made a significant contribution.
Helen died on 28 th October 2007 following four years of treatment for leukaemia.
The following year, John set forth on a tour of World War 1 Battlefields and also visited friends and relatives in Ireland, Britain and Europe. H e became ill whilst in Rome and was evacuated home for treatment of oesophageal cancer.
His final year was spent at his brother's home in Balwyn, with intermittent periods of treatment at Epworth Eastern Hospital.
John eagerly maintained his social contacts - friends and family constantly rang, visited and took him out. He had expressed a desire to see Darwin so he and Nigel travelled there on The Ghan, toured places of interest and flew home!
Upon his return John stated: My biggest regret was that I didn't make Siracusa, a dream of fifty years!