Martin Strawson's Memorial Website

Before Martin moved into his new house, he was renting this tiny flat in Harborne. We all took turns to cook for each other every so often (Martin, Ian and Steph and me) and Martin was cooking a roast pork dish – with the help of his mum at the end of the ‘phone and of course Delia. He did this amazing roast pork, crackling, and numerous vegetables… The only problem was the tiny kitchen (and it was tiny) had no ventilation, so when Martin was cooking in there, he’d occasionally pop his head out, grab some fresh air, before popping back in again.. He also left us with another image – before we’d got there, it was so hot and steamy from all the bubbling, boiling and steaming, that he admitted he’d peeled off a couple of layers whilst cooking.. Luckily by the time we arrived he was fully clothed again!

Martin and I had the tradition of spending New Year together every year, and our rebellion was not to go out, but to get a few bottles of red wine in, a couple of DVDs, and bitch, gossip and generally put the world to rights together (his favourite hobby and mine too)… One New Year we were in Cardiff where Martin was living at the time, and I was down for a few days, he’d very generously offered to cook, and did a lovely spag bol, the only problem was it was minced beef (I haven’t eaten beef for 15 years) and he’d unfortunately forgotten to take the paper off which comes at the bottom of the fresh mince.. I chewed my way through it, and we picked out the paper. It was only a few days later I had the heart to tell him I didn’t eat beef. Ever since then it was a running joke that whenever he had people around for dinner he’d feed them paper and food they didn’t eat.

Martin as you know loved a glass of red wine, only problem was after a couple, the spillages started.. I taught him the trick with salt, and whenever we knew we were going to have a few, he’d have his massive bottle of table salt handy – just as well, I think when he left the flat in Cardiff there were still a few distinctly pinkish splodges left!

He also has quite a conscience – about some things! – and one year as undergrads we had an open book exam… Everyone else had the two course textbooks that the lecturers had recommended, and we’d all diligently bought… Martin being Martin had got an additional textbook out of the library having thoroughly researched past papers in the library, and took that into the exam. It was a lot more useful and relevant than the books we all had, Caroline and I noticed, and decided to see whether we could guilt trip him… We pointed out that everyone else only had 2 books, and by taking 3 books in he was breaking the rules (bollox of course) but he fell for it, and was all ready to go to the course tutor and confess that he’d ‘cheated’ until we couldn’t keep a straight face any longer, and admitted we were winding him up… Took him years to forgive the two of us, and didn’t believe a word we said after that! Rachel Young

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