June Martlew, MBE
Last updated 10:40, Saturday, 03 May 2008
A secretary and shorthand typist from Carlisle who became Britain’s deputy high commissioner in the African country of Sierra Leone has died at the age of 72.
- Leave your tributes: to June Martlew
On her return to Carlisle, June Martlew had a prominent career in local politics. She will be given a full civic funeral today.
She leaves a sister and three brothers, one of whom is Carlisle’s long serving MP, Eric Martlew.
A woman with strong religious beliefs and political views, she served her country in places far afield, initially as a clerical worker and then as a diplomat.
She worked in Europe, Central and South America, in the Middle East and in Africa. And she had, literally, been in the firing line during her time in countries where there was civil unrest.
In Jordan, for example, she had been shot at – and she had the bullet to prove it – and her car had once been blown up.
Yet she survived it all and continued her diplomatic career until she retired and returned to a somewhat quieter life in politics, back home in Carlisle.
Miss Martlew wasn’t born in the city. She was one of a family of seven from the Lancashire town of Ince, near Wigan and they all moved north when their railway engine driver father was transferred to Carlisle so that he could drive on the main north-south line.
They lived in Petteril Terrace and, as a teenager, she studied shorthand and typing at Carlisle Technical College and then found herself a job in the office at Carr’s of Carlisle.
Later she moved to work at a travel agency in the Binns store before becoming secretary to Commander Adams, the man in charge at the Spadeadam rocket development site near Brampton.
Always keen on travel, she applied for a job at the Foreign Office and another with the United Nations – and she won them both. She chose the Foreign Office and became a shorthand typist in the West German capital of Bonn before moving on to work in Belize, Argentina and Chile and, then Jordan, where she became personal assistant to the ambassador.
It was at this time that she was asked to change from clerical to diplomatic work and, as a diplomat, her postings took her to Prague and then to Africa, to the country that had been known as the Belgian Congo. Promotion to very senior ranks followed and her final posting was as Deputy High Commissioner in Sierra Leone. Her work for her country was officially recognised with an MBE.
When she was 60 she retired from the diplomatic service an, back in Carlisle, soon began to make her mark in politics and in work for her local community.
She served as a Labour councillor for the Upperby Ward for 10 years and was a leading member of the city council’s planning committee. She also worked on behalf of many local groups and organisations.
For some time she was chairman of the governors at the Petteril Bank Community School and she played a prominent part in a project to link the school to a new community building, children’s centre and nursery.
Latterly she had been closely involved, as a city council representative, in meetings about the proposed expansion of Carlisle Airport.
She was admitted to the Cumberland Infirmary with a serious chest infection just a few days before she died and up to then had been out and about helping her party with its election campaign, even though her own seat was not about to be contested.
A life-long Christian, she had been secretary of the parochial church council at St John the Evangelist Church in Carlisle.
She had done a great deal of youth work, usually through the Church and wherever she went had worked with the Girl Guide movement, at home and abroad.
Very family orientated, she kept in close touch with relatives throughout her career and had friends all over the world. Girls she had gone dancing with in the 1950s were still her friends half a century later.
Councillors of all parties paid tribute to Miss Martlew when the full council met this week.
Labour group leader Michael Boaden said: “June’s untimely sudden death has robbed us of a very good, generous, colleague and friend, someone I learned a great deal from and who you could turn to for wise advice and support.
“She was not averse to criticising when there was a need but always had the best interests of the city at heart.
“I for one will miss her greatly.”
A civic funeral involves a procession of councillors in robes led by the mayor.
There have been only 24 in Carlisle since 1973 – the last for ex-mayor Jim Long in 2004.
The funeral, at St John the Evangelist Church in London Road at 3pm, will be followed by cremation.
The Michael Walsh company is making the arrangements.
