Martin Redman is one of the few committee members who is not a leaseholder. He lives in a former village school near Lewes in Sussex next to the river Ouse with striking views over the South Downs.

For five years, including three in the Royal Engineers, he studied architecture. This left him with a useful knowledge of building construction and a great personal interest in architecture. (He cannot look at a building without hazarding a guess at its date and has a great aversion to the insertion of new windows which make this task much more difficult.)

At that time there were so many prospective architects that he decided to try another field. He noticed that many of the others were better at producing illustrative drawings than he was, though in later years he found that those who produced the best drawings were not always the best architects!

He went into management with a bias to administration and found himself in sympathy with the legal studies which this involved. He spent the early years of the 1960s in Nigeria with Unilever and while there he started more serious legal involvement, becoming a student of the Inner Temple.

On his return to the UK in 1966 he joined Stock Conversion, a property company where he gained experience about leases and property management. At the same time he ate his dinners and passed his examinations and was called to the Bar in 1969.

After this he joined the law department at the head office of what is now Glaxo Smith Klein. This is a company which avoids bureaucracy and expects everyone to get on with the job. He found that no one wanted to hear about problems, only solutions, a lesson that applies when dealing with requests for help from FPRA members. Work with Glaxo included involvement with management of properties of the pension fund and also regular visits to Nigeria as a Director of the Glaxo subsidiaries there.

When he retired in 1991, he found a great demand for legal advice with local charities, amenity societies and village organisations. One field was helping villages to preserve their local shops though not always with success. One village was advised to issue bonds to keep their shop open and there was an interesting exchange of views with the Bank of
England when the news of the prospectus reached the Daily Telegraph. The bond issue, though, was a success!

Martin's wife was deeply involved with the Citizens' Advice Bureau and was well aware of the problems experienced by occupiers of leasehold flats, particularly on the south coast. Through her work, she knew about FPRA and suggested that this was an area in which Martin might help. This led to a meeting with Charles Buckeridge, our late Chairman, and soon afterwards to Martin's membership of the Executive Committee of FPRA.

Martin has many outside interests including music and walking, preferably in the Alps. He is proud of having completed the gruelling 18-day hike from Sienna to Rome, and while on the march, he doubtless forgot about the problems of leaseholders.