He returned to his old school, Hautlieu, in Jersey to teach physics in the science department for 19 years before illness led to his resignation. During this time he contributed poems to the occasional school publication "High Places". After a six month break he returned to working life, becoming the IT trainer at Jersey Health and Social Services. On leaving Jersey, he spent six months in St Heliers, Auckland before moving to the winterless North of New Zealand and settling in Whangarei, where he still works as an IT trainer.
Martin is a founder and continuing member of a lasting and innominate writing group in Jersey, together with Linda Rose Parkes and Alan Jones and the informal group “Take Flight, Whangarei”, meeting in Whangarei, New Zealand. An occasional blogger, performer and experienced lecturer, he writes regularly and has even been published on rare occasions, including Wavelengths, an anthology of Channel Island poetry and Live Lines in Auckland, New Zealand. He has been a prize winner in several of the Jersey Evening Post annual writers’ competitions and won the poetry prize in the Channel Islands Writers Competition in 2005.
Martin's writing is often informed by his scientific background. He takes delight in the similarities between poetry and scientific expression, where sophisticated concepts can be condensed and expressed with elegance. Occasionally he even writes on a scientific topic. He enjoys reading across a wide range of subjects and authors. Ted Hughes, T S Eliot, Herman Hesse, Alan Garner, Michael Leunig and the Book of Common Prayer are current favourites among many others. He is an extensive listener of popular music and the spoken word, tunes into BBC radio and takes great enjoyment from old episodes of “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue”. Occasionally he will visit the theatre or opera house, and recalls performances of Sophocle's "Theban plays" performed at the RSC in one day, Shostakovich's "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" at the Bastille and Handel's "Midsummer Night's Dream" at the London Coliseum as notable highlights.
