Perth,
Western Australia
May 10, 2008
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How Marta grabbed a world scoop
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The Claremont resident, who died at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital aged 88 on April 14, will be remembered for many qualities, including her amazing contribution to journalism in Central Africa, for which she was awarded an MBE. She is regarded by former colleagues and readers as "the icon of Zambian journalism". Her world scoop came about in 1961 when United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold was killed in a plane crash outside Ndola in the Zambian Copperbelt at the height of the political crisis in neighbouring Congo. With the world's press gathered in Ndola to interview Hammarskjold who was flying in to hold talks with Congolese rebel leader Moise Tshombe, it was announced that his plane had suddenly disappeared. Hours later, Marta received a tip-off from a friend who worked in the Forestry Department who asked her if she was interested in finding out what had happened to Hammarskjold. Grabbing notebook and pen, Marta raced off to meet her friend, who took her for a ride along bush tracks to a clearing in which charred human remains were scattered around the still smouldering remains of an aircraft. Several metres away from the wreckage, leaning against an anthill, was the body of a man, who had been thrown clear of the plane and was the only one not to have been incinerated by the raging inferno. Marta immediately recognised him as Hammarskjold, which made her the first person to positively identify his body. Later, after filing her story around the world and running the gauntlet of infuriated journalists who had been beaten to the scoop, she retired home for a Bacardi and lemon, knowing that this was a story that would be told many times over the coming years. Marta worked on the Times of Zambia for 45 years, starting as a cub reporter and moving through to business editor. She was a theatre, TV and features columnist and in 1986 was awarded an MBE by the Queen for her services to journalism in Central Africa. In 1998, at the age of 78, she retired and migrated to Perth to be with her family. Born in Vienna, Austria, in 1920, she fled to Palestine in 1939, but her parents were arrested and gassed by the Nazis in a concentration camp. Her life took a new direction when she met and married Guy Trefusis-Paynter, a South African military officer. After their marriage in 1945 in Durban, he was transferred to Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia), where she applied for a job on the local paper, then called the Northern News. Her husband died in 1976. After she moved to Perth, Marta became a member of Perth's University of the Third Age and regularly attended lectures. She gave presentations on subjects such as the 5000-year-old iceman, discovered on the Austrian/Italian border, the Dag Hammarskjold crash, and other news stories. She is survived by her two sons, Michael and Geoffrey, and grandchildren Marc and Lauren. |
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