Oxhey man's vast fossil collections in Wales national museum

Martin grew up in Oxhey and enjoyed the proximity of the family bungalow to the railway line. As a small child, he loved to watch the steam trains pass by. He attended nursery school at Watford Heath, which he remembered as a ‘delightful old cottage with lattice windows and lots of flowers’. His description leads me to believe that his nursery school was in the right-hand room of 34 Watford Heath, formerly Rose Tea Gardens. Whilst in nursery school, he recalled walking in pairs in a long file, ‘like a school bus with legs’.

Martin’s favourite childhood hobby was making fireworks, using The Pyrotechnics Treasury by Thomas Kentish as a guide. He described Oxhey visitors’ alarm at the noises of his explosions! In those days, it was easy to purchase the necessary ingredients in chemists’ shops, with the exception of gun powder, which he resorted to concocting in the kitchen and one day managed to ignite a container-full. To quote him: ‘there was enough oomph’ as everything went up in a white flare and billowing smoke, including the kitchen curtains. He was thrown across the room and against the wall, suffering blistered hands. To his surprise, his parents were restrained at the outcome, but he was never allowed to experiment with fireworks again!

Martin Foster with an Androgynoceras green ammonite days before his death, April 2007. Photo: Cindy Howells

He had a passion for nature that never left him. He so loved wildlife that when he found a young badger that had fallen off a cliff onto a Dorset beach, he scaled the cliff with it in his backpack and returned it to the field above. He once rescued a frozen blue tit and warmed it back to life in his woolly hat.

During the war, at 13-years-of-age, Martin began four years at Kingsfield Preparatory School in Eastbury Road, Oxhey. He collected shrapnel from the roadside after air raids and hoped that the raids would occur during Latin lessons! In the school holidays, he often visited Bushey’s open air swimming pool (Bushey Rec).

A small number of Martin Foster's ammonite collection in his bungalow at Uplyme. Photo: Cindy Howells

In 1948, Martin’s father suddenly passed away at only 45-years-of-age and he felt the loss acutely. Two months later, he joined Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood, likely through his grandfather’s master tailor’s connection.

After leaving Merchant Taylors', he undertook two years’ National Service and, notwithstanding his fireworks escapade, became an ammunition examiner, A posting to a Midlands depot followed, during which he was responsible for ‘sorting out’ World War Two ammunition dumps. There he had another lucky escape when someone tipped a four-foot-long anti-aircraft shell and cartridge out of its sleeve, which hit the railway line, primer first, just beside him. Fortunately, it failed to explode.

Martin Foster excavating an ichthyosaur in Seatown.

In 1952, Martin began work for the Forestry Commission at Tintern, where there was pressure to clear the ravages of wartime tree felling and restock the old woodland, reinstating the national timber reserve. He soon gained a reputation for climbing exploits, once scaling three stories of the forestry training school as a dare.

After two years’ training at Tintern, he was transferred to Parkend, near Lydney in the Forest of Dean. It became a favourite place; one to which he would regularly make holiday visits. Then, a return to Oxhey prompted a study of geology and botany. He joined a geology evening class at Harrow Technical College and, later, Kensington. The classes involved field trips and palaeontology and inspired an insatiable interest in fossils, particularly ammonites.

Martin became a researcher at the Flour Milling & Baking Research Association in Chorleywood; a period that coincided with his mother’s death in 1982. During the following few years, he turned to fossils and made numerous visits to Dorset’s Jurassic Coast, searching for ammonites and gathering so many that they filled his Oxhey bungalow.

One of Martin’s green ammonites, Liparoceras divaricosta, from Stonebarrow, Charmouth. Photo: Cindy Howells

But the call of the Jurassic Coast became so great that in 1987 Martin retired early to Strathaven, a bungalow in Uplyme near Lyme Regis. He spent his days collecting, researching, preparing and meticulously cataloguing so many ammonites and buying specimens from professional collectors, that he had to put bricks under his floor boards to reinforce them.

In December 1994, a technically difficult transfer of 1600 ammonites he had collected in just ten years was made to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. He told Cindy Howells, Collections Manager (Palaeontology), that he retrieved large specimens off the beach by tying them underneath a short section of a ladder, which could be carried by up to four people.

Almost immediately, Martin started a second collection; this time green ammonites from Stonebarrow in Charmouth. Three years later, they too found a home in the museum, but a few days after being taken to see them in April 2007, Martin passed away.

Those wishing to view examples of Martin’s incredible collections in the museum’s palaeontology stores can pre-arrange a visit with the Collections Manager (Palaeontology) on 0300 1112333.

Martin Foster in his prime ammonite collecting days. Photo: Karen Philbin

Martin thrived in the company of fossil collectors, academics and geologists. Always willing to impart his knowledge, he was described by those who knew him well as modest, kind and cultured, enriching the lives of others. His interest in forestry, birds, people and ammonites, together with his empathetic nature, willingness to listen and independent manner endeared him to many.

Richard Edmonds, former Earth Science Manager of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, recalls a large ammonite that he and Martin had their eyes on for a couple of years. ‘It was hanging out of the cliff on Monmouth Beach, Lyme Regis but, unfortunately for Martin, I did a walk on the day it fell off. Fossil collecting isn’t fair!” he concludes.

Coincidentally, Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre, located by the beach and close to where Martin found many of his ammonites, is commemorating its 40th anniversary this weekend (October 26 and 27) with a series of special events. Check out www.charmouth.org for details.

With thanks to Karen Philbin, Cindy Howells, Richard Edmonds and Richard Austin.

• Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.