Masakhe 02_DIGITAL PAPERTURN - Flipbook - Page 6
BEYOND
THE RULE
OF
THUMB
THE ROBIN MARTEN STORY
TEXT GABRIEL MATHEWS IMAGES CANDICE LOWIN
EDITORS NOTE: Robin Marten is retired, after several decades of
distinguished service to property education and the valuation profession.
I
meet Robin Marten at his home
in Marina Da Gama. His eyes
glint behind a pair of silver
spectacles as he leads me into
his house, shooing away his
golden retriever. Marten was born in
South London in 1937 to a mother
who nearly died of Typhoid. She was
hospitalised for the first 6 months of
Robin’s life; his father was a Deputy
Commander in the London Fire
Brigade, a man he would see little of
as the war took over their lives.
We sit down at his dinner table. “I
was sent to the countryside during the
war,” he tells me. At the age of six, a
bomb dropped near their family home,
so powerful that the ceiling caved
in, demolishing his toy box. A year
later, he remembers seeing American
soldiers streaming through the streets
ISSUE 2
of London, handing out chocolates
to children. He pauses a moment,
relishing the fascination on my face.
“Those were the Normandy landings.”
Robin is 87 now. After growing up
in postwar Britain, he emigrated to
South Africa in 1966 and has lived
here ever since. In that time, he has
not only built a formidable career
but has also been a primary architect
of the property valuation profession
in the country. In the past, the field
was governed by simplistic methods.
“People used thumb rules. They’d
look at the municipal valuation. There
wasn’t much thought to it.” That was
the standard approach. Robin Marten
helped change how property was
valued in South Africa.
His early formation was shaped by
a structure and rigour that would later
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