The Otago Peninsula retiree on Saturday launched his first, self-published book, Tales of a Teamster, about 40 years after he first starting talking about it.
"Well, I thought I've probably waited long enough. I'm getting on and if I didn't do it now, I probably never would have," Mr Martin said at the book launch at the home he built at Portobello.
"I suppose there are a few good ones in there. They come from a time that's very different from today, but there's plenty more where they came from."
The "70-odd" stories, poems, and recollections in the book are a fraction of more than 200 he has already written but has yet to publish.
They are drawn from a lifetime spent first in the King Country then, from the age of 12, on farms and even waterways all around the South Island.
He had jobs as varied as teamster (someone who works a team of horses), deckhand, market gardener, bushwhacker, welder, tile drainlayer, and panelbeater.
Mr Martin even spent a year in Paparoa Prison in 1946, after he was arrested for "doing all I could to avoid going to war, because I did not believe in it".
"I worked on farms, working in one place and then leave for another when I thought they were going to catch up with me.
"I lasted the whole war but when they got me, I thoroughly enjoyed working as a teamster on the Paparoa farm. The gear they used was far superior to what I was used to."
Much later, Mr Martin owned the Hillcrest Fruit Shop in Maori Hill and made Otago Peninsula his permanent home.
"Oh, and I've got some stories about living here, I can tell you, but they made me change the names of the people involved, just to be on the safe side," he said, his smile suggesting he was joking.
Neighbour Sharyn Kellas was drafted to type Mr Martin's notes and Robyn Handtschoewercker illustrated and helped organise the book's publication.
"Without them, well it would all still be in notes and in my head," he said.
"I've learned over the years that sometimes you need someone else to come in and give you a good kick to get you started."
