WHEN he was a schoolboy at Nettlestone Primary and Sandown Grammar School, not even in his wildest dreams could young Martin White have imagined where his life would take him.

Now, at 74, he is preparing to retire as the Isle of Wight’s Lord Lieutenant following a distinguished and fascinating career.

His name now reflects his status and the highest regard in which he is held by no less than the Queen. He is now Maj Gen Sir Martin White KCVO CB CBE JP.

So how does one go from finding academic work a challenge at school, to ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, becoming head of the Royal Logistics Corps responsible for 20,000 personnel, to being the Queen’s representative on the Isle of Wight?

I met Sir Martin at County Hall to find out.

He was born in 1944 on the Island, to a family of Hertfordshire farmers on his mother’s side and, on his father’s side, a Newchurch family since the 16th century, who later based themselves in Seaview then Ashey.

He presumed he would go into farming and didn’t consider the army as a career until he joined the army cadets while at Sandown Grammar.

“It wasn’t a lightbulb moment, I just thought I would give it a go,” he said.

“But I immediately enjoyed the camaraderie of the military and when two of my friends went to Welbeck College, a part of me wanted to leave the Island, not that I recognised that at the time. So I went too and I was absolutely sold then.

“Welbeck is an army boarding school which took children like me who had done O-levels and wanted to go into the technical side of the army. I did my A-levels there and progressed to Sandhurst.”

As an officer cadet at the military college, he found it hard work, but undeniably he had found his feet. He also found he had made friends and contacts for life.

“In 2019, it will be the 55th anniversary of our commission and we are all still together, although some are not with us anymore as we are all in our 70s, but it is a measure of what the army does for you, giving you friends for life.”

He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps (later the Royal Corps of Transport) in the mid-1960s and was stationed in Germany during the Cold War, after the erection of the Berlin Wall.

In 1966, he married Fiona, also an army officer, and the couple spent the next 15 years or so working and bringing up their family of four children in Germany.

The army was their life and they never had a posting they didn’t enjoy in some way. The children boarded on the Isle of Wight as they got older, the three boys at Bembridge School and their daughter at Upper Chine.

Postings in the Middle East followed for Sir Martin, as well as instructor roles, all the while never losing his Island links and eventually buying a home here.

By 1989, Sir Martin was a full colonel, working on logistic planning in Germany as the Berlin Wall came down, before he was asked to put a force together and lead the UK’s logistic operation in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the first Gulf War in 1990-91.

He was promoted to brigadier while he was leading the ejection of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and was then awarded the CBE, which he received from the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

He said: “It was a privilege to command people on that operation and then have the huge privilege of my sovereign giving me that award.”

There were more career highlights to come. Sir Martin became a major general and then head of the Royal Logistics Corp, the largest corps in the army, which has the job of sustaining the entire army.

When he retired from the army in 1998, he again found himself in front of the Queen at Buckingham Palace, this time receiving a CB (Companion, Order of the Bath).

People can take three guests to their investitures, so he and his wife asked the children to draw straws for the first trip to Buckingham Palace. Luckily, the second honour meant the other two children got their turn too.

Isle of Wight County Press:

Sir Martin became a military adviser to Ernst and Young, and Deloittes, commuting to London from the Island, but he was also enjoying getting more involved in Island life.

He was appointed vice-Lord Lieutenant in 1999 and became Lord Lieutenant in 2006.

The role has existed for more than four centuries, as a ceremonial presence on behalf of the monarch and a non-political focus for voluntary and charitable activity.

It is an unpaid and non-political role and can be served until the age of 75 — hence Sir Martin stepping down in March 2019.

His responsibilities include planning all royal visits to the Island and his office has worked hard to get us a lot of royal visitors. They keep a list of organisations, charities and businesses that would benefit from a royal visit and have, just in recent months, welcomed Sophie, Countess of Wessex, Princess Anne and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to the Island.

So what was the highlight of all the royal visits over the years?

He said: “It had to be the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee visit in 2012. It was the end of July, on a hot day, and she came into Cowes on Donald Gosling’s yacht, Leander G.

“People had lined The Parade since 4am, it was absolutely packed. Cowes Primary School sang her a song and all the maritime organisations had stands at Cowes Yacht Haven. It was terrific.

“Robert Thompson put together a hamper of local produce, including elephant garlic, and the Queen joked she did not realise we had elephants on the Isle of Wight.

“When she left, she went to the Biles’s family home at Somerton to meet her helicopter and they had quite rightly cut the grass for the occasion. But when the helicopter came down it caused a grass storm and the Queen, from her car, was laughing her head off.”

There’s no news on who his successor will be. Sir Martin said he didn’t know and said, even if he did, he wouldn’t tell me.

Well, you don’t get where he has in life without being the soul of discretion and a safe pair of hands.

He will still keep up his work as president of SSAFA on the Isle of Wight, president of the Army Benevolent Fund, patron of the Royal British Legion, patron of Mountbatten and involved in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust, so he’s not seeking life in the slow lane.

On November 2, he will formally receive his knighthood at Windsor Castle.

Anyone currently struggling at an Island secondary school would do well to reflect on this story and realise life has barely begun.

Just look at what happened to Sandown Grammar’s Martin White.