Posted on 08/10/2003 3:01:20 PM PDT by UnklGene
MARTIN'S SAD RETURN TO FARM
Aug 9 2003
By Aidan Mcgurran And Jenny Johnston
ALL the ingredients for that dream homecoming were there.
It was a beautiful morning and a single yellow ribbon fluttered in the breeze.
His pet peacock was resplendent in the front garden as he took his first step on the gravel drive. A green woodpecker chorused overhead. After three years in prison, this was exactly as Tony Martin had wanted it. No bunting. No champagne. No fuss.
Just an ordinary Norfolk farmer returning to the place that means everything to him.
But, as he himself is slowly recognising, Tony Martin is no longer an ordinary farmer, and yesterday's homecoming did not match the script.
ALONE WITH HIS THOUGHTS....AND OTTO: Farmer Tony Martin yesterday, against the stark backdrop of the house he now has no feeling for
For nearly two weeks, he had been talking passionately about his return to Bleak House at Emneth Hungate, the place where he killed a teenage burglar and which has become such a symbolic focus for the debate that surrounds his case.
He spoke of a scheme to join the garage to the main house. He was going to restructure that infamous staircase.
Yesterday his resolve failed him. After an hour of wandering around his beloved gardens, he admitted defeat. "I can't do it. I don't want to go in," he said.
"Not after everything. This isn't a home anymore. It's a shell. It means nothing to me. I am not afraid to go in there, but there is just no point any more. It's all gone.
" I don't need what other people think of as a proper house to be happy."
It was a pitiful sight. Martin was close to tears as he surveyed the ruin Bleak House has become.
Steel shutters on every door and window give the place a menacing air and everywhere is choked with ivy.
His whoops of delight at seeing familiar "friends", as he calls his rose bushes, apple trees and clematis plants, were soon overshadowed by the realisation that all has experienced huge neglect.
"This must be what it is like when you die," Martin exclaimed.
The Mirror had been with the 59-year-old farmer for 12 days, since his release from custody. In that time he had talked longingly about how his only wish was to get back to his farm and to something resembling normality.
A first step towards that came earlier this week when he had an emotional reunion with Rottweiler pet Otto - the dog he describes as "my only friend in the world".
Ten-year-old Otto had been in kennels for the duration of Martin's imprisonment.
His two brothers, Daniel and Bruno, died during that time. Martin was nervous about meeting Otto again.
But fears were soon brushed aside. On a training green outside a kennels complex, Martin and Otto walked slowly towards each other, and the farmer said simply: "Hello Otto. Do you know who I am?"
Within minutes, he was rolling on the lawn with the dog, scratching him behind the ears and wondering aloud just how much physical attention Otto had been getting.
"Otto didn't do anything to deserve any of this," he said. "I just have to make it all up to him." Now they were back at Bleak House, Otto as content with his surroundings as Martin was confused.
You get the impression - although he would never admit this - that he quite liked the routine and stability of prison.
He is still full of talk about how it is terribly urgent that he gets back to work, yet his combine harvester is lying, rusted and unusable, in the yard.
His fields, rented out in his absence, are full of someone else's crops. Rats have the run of the outbuildings he so casually says may now become his sleeping quarters.
Yesterday he went to extraordinary lengths to avoid even looking at his house. When our photographer asked to take his picture on a garden seat, he tried to move it out of the path of the house.
"It isn't fear," he said, of his reluctance to re-enter his home. "It is apathy. I just don't feel anything any more.
"I just want to be left alone. Where I sleep doesn't bother me. I've got outbuildings.
"Maybe I will go back in one day, but not today. I've got my gardens. I've got my land. I've got my work. Those are the things a man needs to live, and no one can take them away from me."
Don't count on it.
Shootings were like a horror film - ( Tony Martin )
L
That was Phil Harris.
Nice man and yes he drank Jack and coke.
He and Alice Faye are fondly remembered in Galveston, Texas. They honeymooned at the Galvez and Harris's Band played there also.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.