After 50 continuous years at the Guardian Media Group, Stockport Express’s chief photographer Derek Martin is about to retire. The Stockport Express believes that he is the group’s longest-standing journalist.
Through his years he has built up an unending catalogue of press stories.
On one occasion in the 1970’s he was in Ireland researching the background to a Stockport woman with IRA links who had been charged with the murder of soldiers in a bus bomb outrage on the M62 motorway.
“We were approached by a stranger who thought we were Special Branch officers,” he recalled. “He told us we would be shot and there was no doubt he meant it. It didn’t happen but it was terrifying because the threat was so real.”
Stockport Express editor Mandy Leigh said: “I have only worked with Derek for a few months but in that time I have seen the great respect and regard in which he is held by the public and by his peers.
“After 50 years of work he has not lost either his sense of humour or his enthusiasm for picturing people in their everyday lives – and that is something that is truly amazing.”
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