Marten was born in South London in 1937 to a mother who nearly died of Typhoid. She was hospitalised for the first 6 months of Robin’s life; his father was a Deputy Commander in the London Fire Brigade, a man he would see little of as the war took over their lives.
We sit down at his dinner table. “I was sent to the countryside during the
war,” he tells me. At the age of six, a bomb dropped near their family home, so powerful that the ceiling caved in, demolishing his toy box. A year later, he remembers seeing American soldiers streaming through the streets of London, handing out chocolates to children. He pauses a moment, relishing the fascination on my face. “Those were the Normandy landings.”
Robin is 87 now. After growing up in postwar Britain, he emigrated to South Africa in 1966 and has lived here ever since. In that time, he has not only built a formidable career but has also been a primary architect of the property valuation profession in the country. In the past, the field was governed by simplistic methods. “People used thumb rules. They’d look at the municipal valuation. There wasn’t much thought to it.”
That was the standard approach. Robin Marten helped change how property was valued in South Africa. His early formation was shaped by a structure and rigour that would later become his professional hallmark. He brings out a tray of coffee and Chelsea buns, slowly and meticulously. Despite his age, Marten is more prepared than I am for our interview, proudly pointing at two massive folders, one red, one white: His life’s work. After attending Frensham Heights, where he was Head Boy, and completing two years of National Service in the Royal Artillery, he pursued a B.Sc. in Estate Management at the College of Estate Management, then part of London University. It was here, and in his subsequent qualification as a Chartered Surveyor with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) in 1965, that he was exposed to a valuation methodology based on thorough research, legal precedent, and empirical evidence.
