Spotlight - "Jelly, Swahili and a Hippo" - The Story of Farther Martin Eastwood
Fr Martin was born in Leeds and brought up there and on Teeside. At 16 he went to a specialist music school in Edinburgh little knowing that his future wife was one of the other pupils! At this stage most of his musical interest was in composing, and through two years at the school and four years at Edinburgh University he was heavily involved in new music groups both in composing and conducting. A lot of this music was quite experimental and a highlight of this time was conducting a new work for double-sextet of jellies in the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh (the jellies were of different sizes and colours and were played by being walloped with spoons). On the more conventional side Fr Martin was a lay-clerk in St Mary’s Cathedral throughout this time and he carried on this singing role at King’s College, Cambridge where he went as a Choral Scholar for two years studying music and philosophy. Singing with King’s was a great privilege and hard work and perks included a four week tour of Australia and New Zealand (singing at Sydney Opera House) and singing for various big occasions, private and public. It was during this period that Martin first felt the (most unwelcome) tug towards the priesthood and this was firmly put in the background.
After a year living in London, Martin took up a teaching role in a school in the highlands of Kenya. The school is set in beautiful countryside and is in the centre of what was known as ‘Happy Valley’ from the riotous lives of the first settlers (not much had changed). Martin has smatterings of Swahili, but has never been able to find a use for this since! Kenya was very eventful, including being charged by a rhino, stranded in a game reserve famous for man-(or should it be person-)eating lions and coping with a visiting hippo at school (the children all took shelter in the chapel). After three years in Kenya, Martin taught music in the Middle-East and then returned to the UK teaching at various schools, and singing again in cathedrals, this time in York Minster.
One Easter Day Chrissy re-appeared on the scene from those many moons previously, and they were eventually married in the Minster during the time that Martin finally stopped running away from the vocation to the priesthood that he had first felt at Cambridge. He trained for the priesthood at Cuddesdon College outside Oxford and there Charles was born. After training Martin served his title at Wymondham Abbey in Norfolk during which time a daughter, Helen, appeared, and in 2006 he came to St Andrew’s as Priest-in Charge. He continues his academic work and has had several articles published and contributed to other publications. He is currently studying for a PhD looking into the relationship between musical and liturgical change in the Church of England.
Fr Martin is very excited about all the new life and activity that seem to around at St Andrew’s at the moment and is looking forward to watching things develop over the coming years confident that a hippo is unlikely to turn up one Sunday morning. Having said that, he is sure nobody at St Andrew’s would bat an eyelid if one did!
A photo of Father Martin and his wife Chrissy
It has been a great privilege meeting and working with Father Martin and I look forward to the future of St Andrew's.
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