Remembering Martyn Sanderson

I recall Martyn from post-Blerta occasions when I was old enough to pick him out from what, as a very young Blerta child, seemed one continuous family of people...

There are myriad images of Martyn as a performer over a long and illustrious career, many I find very memorable. Ultimately, however, to me he is always and irrevocably linked with a particular character, both man and performer suffused with a common thread: the gentleness of the Simple Man. I don’t recall which venture it was linked with – the unlikely Blerta TV series, or another – but there is a clip (probably shot on Super 8) for Simple Man that accompanies the Blerta song of the same name, and Martyn is its star.

Simple Man eclipses other madcap Blerta moments with Martyn, Tony Barry and Ian Watkin (amongst others) haring about the place wearing false chins and silly hats, dodging explosives. Somehow these need to be jogged out of a memory wherein Simple Man is firmly planted.

I don’t know if I am innately melancholic, but “The Ballad of a Simple Man” is undoubtedly a downbeat Blerta moment and not one you hear about much. The song is a haunting refrain, sung beautifully by my – then very young – mother, about a man “passing by, doing the best he can” who receives a letter “What does it say? She’s getting married on Saturday...”. Martyn suffuses his portrayal with a humour that in other hands might have been reduced to plain comedy, but in his hands only makes it more poignant. I think that is true genius; thinking of it makes my heart ache even now.

I found the real Martyn fulfilled that promise of gentility, and – as with most of this family-troupe – only wish I’d spent more time getting to know him once I had “grown up”. The silver lining on such occasions is how they bring us together – although I wasn’t able to attend the funeral in Otaki, today I found a social networking site set up by his daughter, Niccola, as a place for people to “leave memories or stories”, and I hope to renew friendships there.

Martyn obviously was a thousand more things than the gentle Simple Man - not least a beloved father - but in my heart this is always what he will be.

The world is undoubtedly poorer for your loss, Martyn, but I sincerely hope and believe you’ll be having a beer with those who got there before you, especially Bruno and my own Dad, Bill.

With much love, Fritha.

Facebooklink:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=155653488494

Talofa, I am so very sad to hear about Martyn... but also know he has peace now. I’m in Samoa... There is so much sadness and loss here too... If you make it to his tangi, please give him my love. We only met a couple of times, but he gave me profound and gentle advice about life that, years later, has been immensely helpful. He truly was a beautiful man. Tofa soifua, F.C.

Frederick Martyn Brocas Sanderson, actor, writer, poet:

b near Granity, February 24, 1938; m (1) 1960 Elizabeth Eames (diss 1978) 4d 1s, (2) 1983 Wanjiku Kiarie; d Otaki, October 14, 2009, aged 71.

Magic moments in the Life of Martyn:

Being delivered to the world in his parents’ Model T Ford near Granity, on the West Coast… Scholarship to Oxford… Trained to the priesthood but chucked it in… Believed to be the only cast member in The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring (2001) to have attended lectures given by J R R Tolkien… Massey University’s writer-in-residence in 2000… In 2005, he was made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature and the theatre.

Thinking about Martyn

I needed to check my records to see if I was correct in thinking that the first time I encountered Martyn was on my first ever film job, the feature film The Scarecrow, back in 1981.

A little research showed me I’d been fooled, in a sense: Martyn did not act on screen in that film, yet my feeling of his presence in relation to that film was so strong that I couldn’t let it go. Eventually, I realized that Martyn was the actor chosen to speak the most famous opening lines of any Kiwi book: “The same night our fowls were stolen, Daphne Moran had her throat cut.” Martyn’s execution (excuse the pun) of the narration for the film was so strong that in my memory the whole film has the flavor of his characterization all over it!

When I did meet Martyn for the first time (real, in the flesh), I already had a sense of this iconic figure within the New Zealand screen world. But I found him to be somewhat physically smaller than I’d anticipated. I guess that perhaps when people have a big reputation you somehow expect them to be physically bigger than they might actually be!

“Exactly. Don’t let them get you, man, don’t let them get you. Walk taller than your words. And tell us what the weather’s like up there.”

If my first experience of Martyn wasn’t The Scarecrow, then it had to be the small half-hour drama for television that the National Film Unit made in early 1981 (just before its demise and consequent sale to a certain Mr. Jackson) called The Bee King, a story of a young boy who encounters an older man, a Beekeeper, and who learns through his experience of the bees and their master a little about life.

I found Martyn at that time to be very quiet, quite reserved, even shy perhaps - such that I initially felt he would be a man who would be hard to get to know. Nevertheless, unfailingly polite, friendly, disciplined, focused, professional, all those things that crew love in an actor. And what I did notice as we were filming was the way he looked after and helped the young lad acting opposite him; only about 10 or 11 years old. Martyn worked with him superbly, generously. The boy drew strength and confidence from him.

Thinking about Martyn, I do remember sensing Martyn’s reserve; but equally I also remember quietly watching his face on occasion, observing his eyes and the way in which he observed the world… I remember thinking: There’s a hell of a lot going on inside that head!

Over the years, Martyn popped up in quite a number of film jobs that I was also involved with - no film was too small for him. (“There are no small roles, only small actors” - originally a theatre-world proverb.) The last project we both worked on was Angela Zivkovic’s film about her Croatian father and his experiences arriving in New Zealand as a young man in the 1930s and working in the gum fields up north. Only a ten-minute film, an unproven first-time writer/director, self-funded, but Martyn journeyed up from Wellington especially, to be a part of it. The range of emotion in the character that he was able to elicit in what was a very simply stated, very static single scene, an interview over a desk - he gave it real life, real depth. Typical of his work - that restrained but bursting at the leash performance makes the film.

When Martyn passed away such a short time ago, I guess like a lot of people I was a little surprised. I hadn’t heard much in the way of news about him recently. I had deeply regretted that I was unable to make it to Barry Barclay’s tangi last year; this time, though an even greater distance to travel for an Aucklander, I was determined to get there, even though other commitments dictated a rather compressed time frame in terms of travel there and back. But I also think Werner Herzog has a point when he talks of time taken traveling by a slower means yielding greater reward…

I have to say - I’m really glad that I was able to go. The great joy for me of Martyn’s funeral was discovering and sharing a little in his other life, the family and community life of a man that I’d only known through work. The discovery was not just of the love they had for him, but of the way that he had inspired them all with the strength of and commitment to his passionately-held convictions as to how we might make this world a better place.

In the church, when his brothers and sister got up as a group to speak, with the oldest brother taking the lead, it struck me how, unlike many actors who tend to be the odd one out in a family, Martyn’s siblings were all similarly vibrant, fascinating personalities, energetic people. Martyn was probably the quietest one of the whole family, not your actorly extrovert at all. Then when his children came forward together to pay Their tribute, again with the eldest (Pippa) leading the way, I was struck by the unique strength of character of all these people. Yet again with the grandchildren: looking across the array of mokopuna, once more I could see some extraordinary personalities emerging. There must be something rather special in the Sanderson genes, I’m forced to conclude!

The church, named Rangiatea, an extraordinary place built by the local Maori community, burnt down to the ground a few years ago, and was rebuilt recently. A beautiful building, which could be described as conventional European on the outside, although looked at more carefully it does resemble a Wharenui. But on the inside the design is strongly contemporary Maori, and quite unique in its beauty.

The ceremony itself: an appropriately overcrowded church, people standing, a proper celebration of a good man’s life; a lot of discussion, a lot of references to Martyn’s socialist principles, and to his quiet but incredibly strong determination to live and work according to those principles - yet with a deep understanding of and compassion for those who did not share his beliefs. (My ideal of a human being.) The way that his children and grandchildren have been inspired by that commitment to doing good in the world, to trying to change the world into a better place, not just for themselves but for all people, was clearly inspiring to many of the people there, and I’m privileged to have witnessed it.

“But words are too often transparent, too much like smoke in a wheelbarrow. Too often, honest little boys point out that, under the wondrous imperial cloak, one’s private parts are showing.”

After the ceremony, Martyn’s casket was carried up to an extraordinary site. The urupa surrounds the back of the church but also flows up over the hill behind and looks over the church, over the community of Otaki, to the mountains beyond. But turn around and you’re looking over the sand dunes to the Tasman Sea and to Kapiti Island. Martyn’s grave is in the best possible position on that hill, looking in both directions - a superb site, no less than such a man deserves. An extra surprise for many of us was to find that Martyn was to rest alongside the hugely respected actress/writer and health advocate Tungia Baker. It seemed absolutely appropriate that as we mourners took our turn passing by the grave, some of the women began to tend to Tungia’s grave, removing weeds and rubbish. A connection being formed… or perhaps re-established.

At the after-gathering in the “Winemaker’s Daughter” restaurant just down the road from Otaki, a fantastic spread was laid out for us, really appreciated by those who had travelled long to be there that day. But the real highlight of the afternoon was a reel of clips of Martyn’s performances over the decades, compiled by editor Annie Collins - a job done superbly in very little time, and a marvellous illustration of that aspect of Martyn’s life. With the small space we had to have repeat screenings, so that everybody had a chance to see it – magnificent.

Later that night people were invited back to the house Martyn and his wife Wanjiku shared, and the party went on late into the night. I delayed my return to Auckland; I was persuaded (kidnapped almost!) to share a meal with them before departing, and again I’m really glad I stayed - meeting all these people who were part of Martyn’s other life as an obviously highly valued member of the local community, rather than as a film person.

But then there was also the time late in the evening when somebody played a DVD of television shows from the Blerta days. To see the young Martyn clowning around, clearly having great fun with his Blerta mates, was delicious; and of course those mates include so many people known so well to Kiwis all over, not least of which was our Executive Officer Fritha’s mother, Beaver - my goodness she’s a great singer! A delightful coda to the day.

And if there’s one thing I love about long drives at night, it’s the time to gently think over things, to reflect…

Kua hinga he totara i te wao nui a Tane.

_ A totara has fallen in the forest of Tane._

The quotations in bold are from Martyn’s 2006 collection of his poems titled “Like Smoke from a Wheelbarrow”, published by Steele Roberts at $25.

And from the Greeting that introduces the book:

_ “Maybe it’s an actor’s way to glimpse reality: I know who I am when I have your attention, because then I know you know that I am not who I appear to be._”