Guy Martin, presenter and former motorcycle racer

0:00Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast from BBC Radio 4. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury, that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music's shorter than on the original broadcast, but you can find a version with longer music tracks on BBC Sounds. Listeners will also get access to episodes 28 days earlier than everyone else. I hope you enjoy listening.

0:46My cast away this week is the TV presenter and former motorcycle racer Guy Martin. On the track, he achieved 17 podium finishes at the Isle of Man TT races, one of the most prestigious and dangerous motorcycling events in the world. Along the way, he's survived numerous spectacular crashes. He's also set seven speed records, including fastest on a wall of death, in a soapbox and on a tractor. On screen, he's the hugely popular host of programmes that bring together his fascination with engineering, history and his daredevil nature. We've seen him build a replica army tank from scratch, train with the Royal Marines in the Arctic Circle and learn the skills of trollermen and firefighters.

1:29He's also the author of six hit books about his life and adventures. None of this, however, is his main occupation. He is, he insists, a mechanic first and foremost. He was born and brought up near Grimsby. He's been working with engines since he was 12 and he's never given up the day job, despite his success. His next escapade comes second to a busy M.O.T. season. He says, I like a bit of danger. I haven't got a death wish. But it makes things exciting, doesn't it? I guess I'd like to see how close I can come to death without actually dying. Guy Martin, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Sounds half interesting, doesn't it?

2:07I've been quite busy. No, no, thanks very much for having us. Well, you've packed it in. We've got a lot to talk about. Guy, you retired from racing quite a while ago now. Where do you get your hit of danger these days, day to day? Where do I start? It's never stopped. and I am looking forward to the day when I can get up in the morning and I'm just happy doing not a lot, but I can't see that day coming any time soon. So just since the racing stops, yeah, I've been getting on for sort of a professional. That was 10 years ago that that all stops. And then because I got bored, it wasn't interesting me.

2:47I was riding round on these motorbike races. thinking, what am I going to have for my tea? What's happening at work? And I just thought, right, something needs to happen here. If I'm not fully concentrating on what I'm doing, I'm going to end up... You say you're going to end up with a wooden top. You know what I mean? End up in the box. So that's a coffin lid, is it? End up with a coffin lid, yeah. So anyway, I have found things since then to grab me attention. Like what? Oh, my word. I've been building this motorbike for... I'm six years into this project. It's an own brood thing. And I'm trying to go fast, but really the eventual goal is to do 300 mile an hour in a standing mile.

3:24Do you think that's possible? Yeah, but it's as much of a science experiment as it is a hunt for adrenaline. What does it feel like to go that fast, to be going at 280 odd miles an hour? I go to a speed event and I have a good run, everything goes well. I do 270, 280 miles an hour. And I genuinely do not sleep for two days. There's just the rush is like nothing I have ever experienced before. No matter how extreme the road racing was, does not come up to the knees of mile racing. It is like nothing else. And what about fear? I mean, you know, and it sounds like you were very calm in the eye of the storm when you're actually racing.

4:12Is that fair to say? Were you ever frightened? Yeah, and I think that was the original buzz, was the fear. And when it's not scaring you, I think we have a problem. Because if you're not scared, then your mind starts to wander and that's when things can go wrong. So what I do now scares the living daylights out of me and that grabs my attention. So as it is, that's what I'm going to keep doing. you once described yourself as good at crashing, which I really liked. I'm a fair hand, yeah. I'm a fair hand. I know, yeah, if it's going wrong, get away from the bike and relax. Let it happen. And yeah, I've got away fairly lightly all the time.

4:58What do you mean relax? Like as you're mid-air, essentially. Try not to tense up. Is that what you mean? That's just that. Just that. I've been, yeah, the bike chucks you off and you can see the roofs of the vans in the pits. You think, oh, this is going to hurt. but just let it happen, don't fight against it and then I've got away quite lucky over time really. I've got lots of nuts and bolts and screws and plates in me but I'm alright really, I'm still here. Alright Guy, it's time to get into your music today. I know you are a huge music fan. What's your first choice? This is Alabama 3, Bama Lam.

5:33A mate of mine called Bill, right? Sponsoring us a bit, he's a legend of a bloke. He's a legend of a bloke and always a man for wise, calm words in awkward situations. Oh, OK. So if I've ever had something a bit tricky, it always, just without getting emotional about anything, yeah, he's been a great man for wise words. And he got me to my first Alabama 3 gig. This song is a massive standout because they came and they did a gig in Grimsby. Yeah, and there was two hours late coming on stage and the place was going wild. And yeah, this was just a standout song.

6:45Alabama 3 featuring Aurora Dawn with Bambalam, Here Comes Daddy. So Guy Martin, let's go back to the beginning for you, shall we? You were born in Grimsby, 1981, and you grew up in the nearby village of Kermington. You're the second of four, and I know that you credit your mum and dad, Rita and Ian, with teaching you your work ethic. How did they do it? Well, that's all we ever knew as kids. I've got an older sister, younger brother, younger sister, and that's all we ever knew, right? We didn't see that much of Dad. It was great, Dad, but just work. Work, work, work. Get home from work at 7 or 8 o 'clock.

7:24He'd fall asleep watching the news with his newspaper on him, eating his tea, and my mum was only the same. She brought the kids up, and while we was all at school, she would go out picking tits, and then back home and make a tea. And then when we were all at school and we'd all grown up a bit, she went off and trained to become a nurse. Wow. You know what I mean? So she's just never stopped your mum? No, she had an interesting upbringing. She had four brothers, a dad, Walter, Walter Kiddals. He was Latvian, came over to England on the way to Canada after the Second World War. He was in, I mean, it sounds bad when I say it, He was in the Waffen SS.

8:05He was conscripted, right? Yeah, conscripted. Any Latvian conscripts was automatically assumed as Waffen SS, and that's what he was. So, yeah, after the Second World War, he was on his way to Canada, I think, and then stopped in Hull on the way there and then met my gran, Lil. Yeah, and then that's where it all started from there. So you said your mum had quite an unusual upbringing, so quite kind of no-nonsense, quite tough from what I've heard, what I've read? Yeah, just, I mean, there's this one, she used to tell her when she was a kid, pet rabbits, you know what I mean? Because Walter loved to have sheep and a load of pets, all for, as it turns out, for eating.

8:47I mean, mum had a pet rabbit and she gets home from school and says, I couldn't find me rabbit, where's my rabbit? Her dad said, you're eating it. And that's sort of how she was brought up. and then we've all, yeah, she's a good person, but no emotion. It sounds bad, but no hugs when we was kids. Yeah, I think in later life, we've probably all struggled a bit. We're all a bit different. That kind of physical kind of touch, and you didn't learn the language of that as a little kid, you mean? No. No, we never did. Now I've got a daughter, and I think I try and learn from Bill words, but then I look back, she used to get a spaghetti measure and a wooden spoon and tan her back sides.

9:36You know what I mean? That was great, that put discipline in, and that's frowned upon now, isn't it? And I think, yeah, but I don't want that for my daughter. I just think, maybe not stern words, It's just words should police her, not wooden spoons. Yeah, so you're having the conversation instead of... Yeah, my daughter, she's eight-year-old. She's not quite... Yeah, she's cheeky. She definitely takes after me. I could get dead. Yeah, because she was... I mean, my mum, she was a great mother. She was a great... But just strict. Don't mess with her. Don't mess with her. And what kind of dad are you, then?

10:16How would you describe your parenting style? I struggle. I struggle. It doesn't come naturally. I look at mates of mine with kids and they're loving the great and I really have to try. And I really, like, to kiss Dot and just to give her a cuddle, but it does not come natural to me and I really have to try and I do try, I really do try. Yeah, I just, yeah. Let's have some more music, Guy Martin. Your second choice today, what have you gone for? Testify, Rage Against the Machine. because of the last few lines in the song, right? Like, 1984, George Orwell, I read that book 20 years ago, right? And I'm not much of an academic type at all, really.

11:02But I don't know why. I just got into reading deep books, and I just... I spent a lot of time in tractors, spent a lot of time driving and listening to Rage Against the Machine, and just the words from the end of that. I thought, hang on, I know those words. He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past. I thought, I've heard that before, and I know where I've heard that. I'd read it in 1984, yeah. They're just sort of simple words, but yet so, so meaningful.

12:09Rage against the machine and testify. So Guy Martin, we've heard about your mum. Tell us a bit more about your dad, Ian. He was a motorbike racer himself when you were growing up. What kind of competitions did he take part in? My dad. What a boy. Ian Martin, yeah. Yeah, he raced. And we'd go and live out of a caravan for a weekend. He knew that there was compromises to family life when you race motorbikes. So that's why he never encouraged me as a kid to go and race motorbikes. Ah, he thought it would take too much away from the rest of your life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just once you get addicted to it, that's it.

12:52Because he loved it and he'd go and race British Championship and then he'd be away for two weeks and go and race the TT. Wow. And then, oh, yeah. Was he successful? He must have been quite successful. He was all right. Yeah. He was all right. Yeah, he got on all right. Always, the older he got, the faster he was. when he's looking back you mean yeah the addiction of motorbikes and he was what was called a privateer your dad what's a privateer? yeah he just owned his own motorbike put it in the back of his van and went and raced, didn't ride for a team just did his own thing funded it himself, he had a few mates that helped him a few mates that would go with him and that's all I grew up hearing the stories so he worked as a mechanic your dad on lorries you know like you do you went to work with him quite often when you were little I think what did you learn from him?

13:44I've been doing it this way for 40 years that's the way it's done but I learned some off my dad I learned some off my dad just very meticulous in the way that he does things very much stuck in his ways but he was yeah just as a kid when he was building his motorbikes he'd let me sit on his bench in the shed while he was building his motorbikes I wasn't allowed to say anything I could sit on the shed just watch him And, yeah, just fascinated by how things work, what's going on. And then that sort of evolved to going to work with him when I was a 12-year-old. So, yeah, what were the first engines that caught your eye when that started to happen?

14:21Because it was such an early interest for you. Oh, no, I started younger. I started, oh, my word, I'd been about seven-year-old. Started building lawnmower engines. And then folks from around the village had given me their old knackered lawnmowers to rebuild. And I just fascinated by taking them to bits and getting them running. And then I got into this obsession with trying to blow them up. I used to drill bits of the piston. So if you couldn't fix it, you would blow it up, would you? I used to fix it, get it running, get it running, and then try and take bits out of the engine until I get it to blow up.

14:53Lightning bits and polishing bits and just, oh, I love destruction. Just, yeah, I just love blowing stuff up. Yeah, pushing stuff to the limit. That's where it all started from. So it started with exploding lawnmowers, did it? And what about you and your dad's relationship? You know, you talked about your mum and dad, both obviously very supportive. I don't know if supportive would be, but just, it wouldn't be, I'm always for doing the hardest, most impossible thing that I'm never going to achieve, but I love that. And like when I first went from racing club motorbikes to racing at the British Championship, he was like, why would you do that?

15:31You're never going to do it. Why would you do that? And I just, that's all I wanted to do. something that was outside of my comfort zone. Let's get stuck in and see how it goes. Oh, right, and he's the man from, as you described, like routine, I've been doing it this way for 40 years. So just different personalities. So did you clash? Loads of times. Just an example. I'd have been working for him. I used to work school holidays and Friday nights from being sort of a 12-year-old at his work, where he worked, and then when he set up his own business and then I went to work for him then. and that must have been a right smart mouth on me when I was a kid right I'd lost his adjustable spanner he said I've had that for 30 years this adjustable spanner I said well it's about time you got a new one then anyway I got a thick ear for that rightly so rightly so so guy you got your first bike for Christmas I think what was it it was a I'd have been five years of age my sister it had been seven and we got a yamaha ty80 straight well first time out on it's crashed it in the rose garden didn't put me off did it honestly straight in the rose garden that's set the tone for a lot that was to come mate yeah get used to it it all starts here a lot of crashing mate a lot of crashing guy martin i think we should have some more music it's your third choice today tell us what we're going to hear next and why are you taking it to your island yeah the streets we've got other streets in now haven't we this is club music to me you have been a big clubber?

17:03No, I'm not. And I've been in sort of rock and roll situations where going out and getting trollied or maybe taking drugs was sort of the normal thing and I've never done that. I think we went out one night on a filming job in Brixham. I think that was the one night, I had four pints that night and that's the most rock and roll I've ever been. But I've never taken drugs. I've never yeah, I'm not a drinker. I'm not teetotal because I just can't be doing with a thick head in the morning. So what is this music? I mean, the track you've gone for, it's really hedonistic. It's about that kind of lifestyle, isn't it?

17:41Well, I think, for me, that song is so descriptive. I never need to take drugs because I might as well have been taken because of that. You can just listen to this instead. I know, I know. Just the words. It tastes like airspray. All of those lines out of that song. yeah, I don't yeah, so I don't need to take drugs I don't need to get drunk because that song does it all These look well speckled, a bit green and blue. Freezes well cheap though, so I'll take three if I need to. Right, I'm on the plan. I wish the bouncers would go away. Borrow water off this man. Here goes nothing to cake. And I'm thinking...

18:21Lights are blind in my eyes. Oh, that's proper rain. That tastes like hairspray. And I'm thinking... People pushing by, then walking off into the night. I hate coming to the end. The streets and blinded by the lights. So Guy Martin, I want to hear about your school days. We've heard about you as a little lad, a daredevil from a very young age, looking for a buzz. Luckily, you had a primary school. That sounds like it could accommodate that because it was quite unusual, the school that you went to, wasn't it? Bert Acom, the headmaster. Norma Acom, his wife. She was head of the infants and then Bert was head of the juniors.

19:05And we was all in, that was in two separate classes throughout the whole school, 18 kids in the whole school. Wow. Mad sports days, slow bike and fast push bike races. Right, he used to have a putting green out the back of school. That was, we used to go and keep the putting green for him. More the grass, just. Is this at in school hours? This was in school hours, yeah. So this is the curriculum. What else was on the curriculum? I don't know how I'm going to put this. Ari was always an interesting topic for me but I was just too many questions how does that work? feeding the fire thing how does that work?

19:43I was just always asking questions and I thought well how does that work? yeah interesting curriculum but great maybe not the best preparation to go to a secondary school with 400 kids in it what was that like? that adjustment for you? more having to be in the right gang, to have to wear the right trainers with the right jumper to be in that gang. And I was just, to me, it was just, wow, my word, just how does this work? Right. It was just green. Yeah, it was just awkward. Bit of bullying, which you'd sort of expect. What kind of bullying? Just fighting. Punching, fighting, spitting, getting cold names.

20:30And then just, there was a big line. As soon as I learnt to throw a punch, oh, and it was quite, and I'm not a fighter now, but if it has to happen, it happens, and I'll fight. But it just changed people instantly in the way that they look at you. Well, how did you get on academically at school? Just left school, I think I remember we got four or five GCSEs, enough to do. and for some reason I thought, oh, I'm going to go into college and become an engineer. So yeah, left school, started an engineering course at college. Yeah, that's what I'm going to be. I'm going to be an engineer and I think I got one term in and thought, this is not for me.

21:17Why not? Why wasn't it?

21:21All theory, writing down, it just didn't. I'm a practical person. and I just really struggled, I really struggled. And I think I had that mindset about me then that, oh, we didn't do something about it. So, yeah, I ended up going to a truck dealer down the road, John Ebb, and then did my apprenticeship there. How did that go? Did you enjoy it? I, amazing. What I loved is they gave me enough rope to hang myself so many times in fixing things. And I just loved it and I did it. I heard, Guy, that you developed an incredible recall for vehicle registrations while you were there. Is that true? That's always been the case, yeah.

22:04Transit vans, truck wrenches, M303 GRH, first transit van I took to Spain, W173JDO. Yeah, my dad's new type of transit, yeah. Now, around this time, Guy, you met a truck driver called Baz Kirk, and I know that he inadvertently changed your life. What happened? My mum would tell you, I went a boy and came back a man. And that was going, Baz Kirk, he'd come into my dad's, he'd worked for a truck firm, he was one of the drivers, and he said, oh, I'm looking for someone to give me a bit of a hand at the Manx Grand Prix, which is the amateur version of the TT. OK. He says, how do you fancy it? And there's me, I'd have been 16, before I'd left school.

22:47Will you come and spanner for us at the Manx Grand Prix? And there I went. went in that van a boy and came back a man yeah what happened in the interim tell me about it ten pints of guinness most nights for yeah and just working at motorbikes and just dealing with men dealing with men that race motorbikes let's have some more music Guy Martin your fourth choice today what is it my mate Paddy oh he's like a few years older than me oh he's mad for his music oh get a listen to this get a listen to this had a sub in his van. One of the big speakers this is. You've got to listen to this. Yeah, the band, the music.

23:29Because at the time, I've always listened to the music, but at the times of racing, doing dangerous things, there was just lines in this song that stood out to me and I thought, oh yeah, that I can sort of, I can reason doing these things. what's it like up there does the pain stop when you see the light you know what I mean maybe I'm over exaggerating these but I can sort of justify oh yeah if I'm gonna pay a chance I might not come back but does the pain stop when you see the light but this song just because I could pick lines out of them I just thought I could sort of justify what I was doing what's it like up there do you worry

24:41The music and getaway. Guy Martin, your first race meeting was at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire You were 19, were you confident? Oh no I got a 1997 Honda CBR600 I'd only ever rode, rode my dad's classic BSA and my AR50 moped before then It wasn't that fast, it was fast for a moped, it was 80 miles an hour but to go from that to a CBR600 They're really fast, you know, maybe 160 miles an hour. Anyway, the first race didn't last long. I think I got about four corners in, took about four boys down and had a massive crash. Oh, God. Massive crash, yeah. I got up, but I'd absolutely destroyed the motorbike.

25:29Oh, no. You'd think it would bring it home to me. Guy, what are you doing? Yeah. But I just, it was just an obsession that I... So you never thought about giving up? Never thought about giving up. even though my mum and dad was like Guy, I think this may be in for you this isn't for you I would do whatever and that first year I ended up crashing 14 times I'll never forget that, I just kept crashing because I wasn't very good and I didn't know, but I wasn't scared I wasn't scared, I just kept crashing but I just loved it I just loved it, obsessed and by 2002 you had got your racing licence but you ended up having it suspended did why at that point i went and did british championship i got half all right really i was getting in the top 10 then the second year came and i made a bit more preparation and i got a couple of podiums and then after one of the podiums i ended up getting a penalty for running across a chicane right and the clerk of the course at the time called me in for um a telling off and told me he was going to give me a 10 second penalty he was going to take the podium off me because I'd run across the chicane which I had and I hadn't read the rules that if you cut the circuit and you just gain time then you would get a 10 second penalty but actually I'd lost time and I was really stubborn about this I'd actually lost time so so by going across the chicane you'd actually like ended up further back than you would have been so it wasn't like you were trying to get ahead of someone it was just right okay exactly that and I was dead I was adamant I had lost time right and the clerk of the course would not listen to me one bit and at the time I thought he was being smarmy so obviously my time at school I wasn't shy of a fight so I slammed his laptop on his hands and told him um I told him what I thought of him so that got me banned from that championship so I thought oh that doesn't matter I'm gonna go race at Scarborough where my dad's career finished, I thought, right, I'm going to go road racing.

27:41And I did all right. And then a bloke from an Irish magazine, there was a famous Irish magazine called Irish Road Racing Ireland, it was called, and the editor was a bloke called Leslie Muir. And he saw me race at Scarborough and he says, oh, right. He said, there's a race going on in Ireland next weekend. You can come across and do that if you want. I thought, oh, yeah, I'll have a go at that. So you're self-funding, you're building the bike yourself, you're fixing everything that needs to be fixed and training and everything else. Well, and having to work jobs outside of my normal job to be able to earn money, right?

28:15Spend a lot of time in trucks, driving on the docks we didn't need a licence for just to be able to, so I could work a night shift to earn enough money to pay the tyre bill for the forthcoming season. But Ireland was different. Went to Ireland, raced at Scarborough, earned a few quid, went to Ireland, right? Me, W173JDO, Red Transit, and me me mate jim andrews and my brother stew went in a van and went and raced in ireland we got there with the pits and we just said to these lads where's the track we're on this bit of road outside this field where's the track and they'd look at you and say you're on it oh that's like a goat track where you're on it and they was not joking anyway won a couple of races and come back with like 1500 quid.

29:03I thought, oh my word, this is the future. I've seen the future. I've seen the future. Anyway, after then, this would have been fairly early on in the year. After then, they said, no, because of the laptop incidents, maybe the month before they said, we can't have that. We're going to take your racing license off you. So I didn't race any more that year. But that gave me time to plan what I'm going to do for the year after. You had it in your sights. I think we should have some more music on that note Guy Martin what's it going to be next? Yeah this is Me and My Monkey by Robbie Williams this was the Red Tranny again W173JDL driving to Spain me and Johnny the lad I used to work with my best mate and Longy another lad we used to work with borrowed my dad's van drove down to Spain with the motorbikes in the back for a bit of an adventure and we had one of those devices it only had a tape player in the van we were one of those devices that you could put the tape in that had wires coming out of it that would actually play CDs.

30:02Oh, yeah, so it was kind of like a fake tape where you would post the tape thing in and it had a wire coming out of it and you could plug it into a CD player. I do. You've got it. We didn't have many CDs, but one of the CDs was Robbie Williams' Escapology. We flogged it to death, yeah, and Me and My Monkey. We just thought, yeah, such an odd song. There was me and my monkey And with his dongeries and rollerblades Smoking filter tips Reclining in the passenger seat of my supercharged jet black Chevrolet He had the soft top down He liked the wind in his face He said, son, you ever been to Vegas?

30:46I said, no He said, that's where we're gonna go