As a teenage actor Herman Martyn performed at the Old Vic with Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, Margaret Leyton and Sir Laurence Oliver. The thespian urge was nurtured at London’s Hasmonean School, and at the Italia Conti School for Music and Drama, where he acted with some of the future greats, often directed by a youthful Peter Brook.
But Martyn, who has died aged 87, was destined to be in business, not theatre, where he rose to top management, and in communal life where, as one of the longest serving governors of NW London Jewish Day school he considerably enhanced the school’s development.
In 2004 he helped negotiate state funding of £60,000 for an outdoor learning area, raised funds for the latest computer technology and helped bid for grant maintained status, for which the school raised over £1million. He also became the Jewish representative to the London borough of Brent LEA on the school organisation committee
To escape the Blitz, his parents Samuel Martyn and Rose Wolfson-Martyn, sent him as a nine year old with his younger sister to live in Chicago. Educated at a New Jersey boarding school, he celebrated his Barmitzvah in Westchester with his American family before returning to Britain.
In 1949, he joined the RAF for two years, before applying to RADA. But rather than wait for demobbed servicemen to take up their places, he opted for retail, and in August 1948, at the age of 17, travelled to South Africa, selling furniture
In 1950 Martyn was employed by Great Universal Stores and in 1955, married Miriam Azulay in a double wedding with his sister Marlene, who married an American, Hal Spitz. The couple had two sons, Mark and Richard, and a daughter, Lee. Miriam was also active in fundraising for education and young people in England and Israel, raising millions of pounds during her voluntary fundraising career, with Herman by her side.
In 1979 he became Managing Director of Houndsditch Warehouse Company- progressing to Chairman and Managing Director. At the same time he was also MD of the New Universal Stores chain of department stores, and of Great Clewes, the GUS, DIY chain.
His work was acknowledged by the industry in 1984 when he won the Mecanorma Judges Advertising Award for consistency and high quality in price listing advertising. He became one of the first companies to employ an advertising agency, Saatchi and Saatchi.
In 1987 Matyn left to form Yarden UK, introducing Israeli products into mainstream UK stores in the UK including Selfridges. Despite suffering a heart attack and undergoing a triple bypass in 1992, his business and community work continued. From that year until 2000, he became managing director of Catalogue Bargain Shops – managing around 60 shops. During his long retail employed over 3500 people.
Since 1990 he sat on several council bodies connected with education in the London Borough of Brent, and between 2007 and 2018 became Brent Council’s faith schools representative, which included North West, Sinai, JFS and Torah Temima. He won Brent’s Community Champions Award in 2008 and two years later was nominated for a Teaching Award for governorship. In October 2014, he was invested with an MBE for Services to Education.
Herman is survived by his wife Miriam, sons, Richard and Mark and daughter, Lee. His sister Marlene pre-deceased him in 1997.
