Guy Martin
Martin was born on 4 November 1981 in a suburb of Grimsby, Lincolnshire, England. He was named Guy in tribute to Guy Gibson of No. 617 Squadron RAF. His father Ian was a successful privateer motorbike racer who had competed in several Isle of Man TT events, but he was forced to supplement his income with a job as a lorry mechanic, additionally selling bikes. His mother, Rita Kidals, was of Latvian heritage, her father having come to Britain in 1947 as a political refugee. Soon after Martin's birth, the family moved to a house outside the town, where they remained, having four children in total.
Guy Martin
Guy travelled to Latvia to investigate the history of the Latvian side of his family – his deceased maternal grandfather, Walter Kidals, was a Latvian who had come to Britain in 1947 as a refugee from World War II. The family knew little about his story, even his wife had been unaware he was an orphan. Born Waldemars Kidals, the programme found that in 1941 he had been conscripted into the Latvian Legion, part of the Axis Forces when Nazi Germany had occupied Latvia, and later spent two years in a Belgian prisoner-of-war camp. Having been exonerated by the post-war trials, and with Latvia now part of the Soviet Union, all surviving former Latvian conscripts were allowed to settle in the United States and Britain as political refugees – Walter opted for the UK, travelling to Hull.