Nigel Martin

"Nigel Martin, who has died aged 86, was the first general manager of Chessington World of Adventures, the Surrey theme park that has been a place of family entertainment since the late 1980s.


The original Chessington Zoo had opened in 1931, and after the war it was taken over by the Pearson Publishing Company; from 1978 it was managed by the Pearson subsidiary the Tussauds Group. Attendances, however, were declining, and in the 1980s one of the Tussauds designers, John Wardley, was asked to come up with ideas to revitalise the place. It was decided to open a theme park alongside the zoo, and Chessington World of Adventures was the result. Launched in 1987 , it featured attractions such as Dragon Falls, the monorail Safari Skyway, the roller-coaster Runaway Mine Train and the “dark ride” Fifth Dimension.


Martin had been appointed general manager in 1980, and was ideally suited for the task: as a former Royal Marines officer, he had an ability to organise people, while his passion for wildlife had been reinforced by six years’ working in South Africa. He felt strongly that zoos should have a purpose, that endangered species should be protected and nurtured; but he also appreciated that zoos could do this only if they attracted sufficient revenue.


The son of a colonel in the Indian Army, Nigel Stanley Ellis Martin was born in Streatham, south London, on April 11 1928 and educated at Wellington. On leaving school at 17 he was commissioned in the Royal Marines, going on to serve with 42 and 45 Commando in Korea, Suez and during the Konfrontasi in Indonesia. In Borneo he rescued a baby bear which had been caught in a trap and took it back to Singapore, where it lived with his family for two years before being put into the care of the RAF and subsequently of Singapore Zoo."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10860960/Nigel-Martin-obituary.html