Martyn Heighton (1947–2016)

摘要

Martyn Heighton was not only my friend and a valued colleague and mentor, but also a stalwart leader in UK and international maritime heritage. He was always unstinting with his help and good humour for everyone, and he will be very sorely missed. His career was quite remarkable: he served the cause of best practice in UK and international heritage with extreme energy wherever he went, and where he went something significant always happened. I first met and got to know him while sheltering together from a hurricane called Floyd that was barrelling through Philadelphia in 1999. Starting out in heritage for Oxfordshire he was, for example, responsible for setting up the open air farm museum at Cogges Manor in 1974. In Liverpool he worked closely with Richard Foster to create the wonderful Merseyside Maritime Museum in the restored Albert Dock. Not only is it one of the first and greatest of the regeneration schemes for Liverpool docks, but it also collected several full-size historic Liverpool ships into the dry docks, and raised the profile of Liverpool’s maritime heritage to hitherto unreached heights. Moving on to Bristol, he became the lead officer at Bristol City Council for arts and culture, and devoted time and energy to all other art forms as well as the large city museum service, particularly his love of theatre, especially at the Old Vic theatre. But here he will be remembered not only for supporting the first International Festival of the Sea in 1996, but commissioning and securing the funding for the replica caravel Matthew, which then re-enacted the 1497 voyage of John Cabot from Bristol to Newfoundland.