Suffolk Gop Podcasts

O On most days, you can find Frederick W. Martin in the woods, in camouflage and on the hunt. When anything from a bobcat to a loon crosses his path, the 70-year-old is quick to strike, raising his arms and firing off several shots per second. But instead of capturing the critters with a gun, Martin uses a lens. Nature photography has proven a quiet, peaceful pastime for a man whose early memories are anything but serene. As a young child in London, Martin lived through the Luftwafe's infamous blitz, the devastating, extended air strike on English towns and cities that highlighted British resilience while killing tens of thousands of civilians. Among them was Martin's father, William Martin. "Everything got bombed. . . . I was only 6, 7 years old," Martin said Tuesday at Keene's Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 799. Martin was too young to recall much about his father or the details surrounding his death. He does, however, remember the steel of his family's cellar bomb shelter, and his mother, Lillian's, fear of sirens and thunder even after the family emigrated to the United States. To this day, Martin's twin sister, Jeannette L. Chadbourne, said she shares her mother's aversion to rumbling storms. "I'm petrified of thunder," she said, "because it reminds me of the bombs." In the mid-1940s, Martin came with his mother and sister to New York's Ellis Island to meet Donald Bickford, the American G.I. Lillian married. The family settled in Swampscott, Mass., before moving to Nahant, Mass., according to Chadbourne, who said she and her brother attended Lynn English High School in Nahant. Instead of graduating, Martin joined the armed forces – serving the United States as a Marine before gaining his citizenship in the 1960s and later joining the Navy. Life in the military took Martin throughout the Mediterranean – to Athens, Naples and Barcelona – to Havana and to Lebanon for several months during the 1958 invasion of Beirut. "I got a big life history," Martin said. But he doesn't say much about a lot of it. He steers clear of talking about his time in Beirut by explaining, "I don't say too much about that stuff. . . . I just don't." He sums up his feelings about the current war in Iraq with "No one likes war." And as for the drama of growing up to the sounds of bombs in the British blitz? "Tell me about it." But the opposite is true when Martin starts talking about his photography, which he started, without formal training, in the 1960s but began full-time in 2000, when he retired from being a mason. For Martin, looking at a "few" of his pictures means flipping through a box filled with them, not to mention the albums he said represent only a small portion of the photographs he has at home. He pulls out loons and raccoons, cardinals, wood ducks, turkeys and snipe. "You name it, I got it," he says, his enthusiasm rising noticeably. "I could go on and on and on." That is, of course, unless you want a picture of a human being or a photograph taken anywhere but in the wild. "Once in awhile, I'll go to a wedding, take a picture. . . . The pictures will come out lousy," he said. And he's firm about not taking pictures in a farmhouse or some place other than animals' natural habitats – "anybody can do that." It's this thrill of the hunt that makes bobcats and fishers Martin's favorite subjects, because, he explained, they're hard to get. Not that Martin has any trouble being patient. "It's amazing to me," said Raena Bergstein of Keene, Martin's girlfriend of more than two years. "The man has no patience in the house – he's like a caged animal. But put him out in the woods, and he can be there all day." As an example, Bergstein referenced the time Martin managed to snap a picture of a Mississippi kite, a bird that was unusually out of its element in New Hampshire. "Fourteen hours he waited," Bergstein said. "Fourteen hours he was out there, waiting to get that picture." Chadbourne, his sister, who lives in Newmarket, similarly remembers her brother taking that picture because he was visiting her house at the time. He'd "just come home to eat and that was it," she said. In addition to selling his pictures to customers as far away as Australia, Martin is now exhibiting his work at the N.H. Audubon in Concord and will be a featured artist at the Sharon Arts Center in Peterborough this October. The numerous magazines that have featured Martin's photographs include Birds & Blooms, The Michigan Sportsman and N.H. Wildlife Journal. "He is incredibly talented. He gets shots that I've never seen anybody else in my life come close to getting," said Bergstein, who added that she thinks Martin enjoys the "oohs" and "aahs" his pictures inspire. But nature photography provides much more for Martin than accolades, according to his longtime friend, Gregory A. St. Laurent. "I think it provides for him a source of fulfillment," said St. Laurent, 51, of Swanzey. "Freddy's always been a giver," he said, explaining how photography gives Martin something to share with other people. St. Laurent, who is so close to Martin he considers him almost a stepfather, said he first met him 15 to 20 years ago while they were fishing on Harrisville's Silver Lake. On that day, St. Laurent remembered, Martin gave him the lake trout he'd caught, despite their having just met. Bergstein similarly noted Martin's generosity. "He's got an incredible heart. . . . He would give you his last penny," she said, describing the number of photographs, cards and picture frames he's given away. "He would do the world for you if he could." Martin showed Bergstein this generous spirit when he was "courting" her at Lindy's Diner in Keene, where she works as a waitress. "He used to come in every day. He used to give me little things," she said, and he still comes into the restaurant during her shifts. One of these gifts included a photograph magnet of chicks, and he asked her out on their first date with a line about letting someone else wait on her for a change. It worked. And now, Bergstein said, "We pretty much do everything together." Martin's also readily willing to give to veterans in need and has held posts as a Veterans of Foreign Wars service officer and now as a junior vice-commander. "You help other veterans . . . They all served their country. If they're down – especially if they're homeless – you try to pick them up," he said, describing how, among other acts of kindness, he's donated pictures to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in White River Junction, Vt. Of course, Martin has plenty to spare. "I've got framed pictures all over my living room," he said. Meanwhile, at the VFW post Tuesday – standing in a room filled with bar stools and beer – Martin pulled out a photo book filled with butterflies. "(Aren't) they beautiful?" he asked, as he flipped through the pages, displaying a rainbow of brilliant colors. read less