With great sadness we have just learned that long time GCG member and friend, Martin Warren of Cromer died aged 72, on 30th April after a long battle with cancer.
Martin Roger Warren graduated from the University of Leicester with a degree in Geology as well as gaining the Museum Studies diploma. He was initially employed for two years as a curator at the University of Strathclyde, then from 1978 to 1999 he was curator of two museums in Norfolk. He was mostly based at the delightful little Cromer Museum, but was also responsible for Walsingham Museum. He was heavily involved in the excavation of the West Runton Mammoth skeleton, made enormous contributions to the knowledge of the Cromer Forest Bed, led numerous fieldtrips, gave talks and helped set up the Sheringham Museum as well. He was heavily involved in piloting the early digitisation of collections documentation across Norfolk, and between 1999 and 2010 he took on the role as Collections and Information Manager with the Norfolk Museums Service in Norwich running their documentation, conservation and digitisation programmes across 12 Norfolk museums. Even after retiring at the age of 60, he still continued to lead local geological walks and was a great ambassador for geology and the interpretation of the landscape. He had a great interest in flint knapping and was very proud of his own efforts in that field.
In addition, he ran the successful Poppyland microbrewery in Cromer for over seven years, and was also very involved in documenting the detailed history and patterns of the knitted fisherman’s ‘Ganseys’ through his blogs and personal Northfolk Project website. He was keen on gardening and was recently pleased to report on the good progress of his home-germinated orange and lemon bushes.
Martin was an incredibly friendly and welcoming person, with a sometimes-wicked sense of humour, and always happy to receive visitors with a smile. He was an active member of GCG for many years and welcomed the group to a most enjoyable meeting in Cromer in 1990. Many older GCG members will remember Martin with great fondness. We send our condolences to his wife Steff, and family.