Martin John Short (22 September 1943 – 27 August 2020) was a British TV documentary producer and author. He is best known for his exposés on

organized crime Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally tho ...

and on

Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

Early life

Short was born in Wookey, Somerset but later his family moved to London, where he attended

St Dunstan's College ) , type = Public SchoolIndependent day school , chair_label = Chairman of Governors , chair = Paul Durgan , head_label = Head , head = Nicholas Hewlett , address = Stanstead Road, Catford , city = London B ...

. His father, George Short, was an aircraft engineer, and his mother, Hazel, was a nurse. In 1962, he went to

Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

to study history and was also a member of the Footlights Dramatic Club.

Career

After graduating from university, Short travelled in the Middle East and did freelance work for the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

, before working, from 1969 to 1984, on major current affairs programmes for the ITV companies

Thames Television Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a Broadcast license, franchise holder for a region of the British ITV (TV network), ITV television network serving Greater London, London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until th ...

Granada Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...

and

London Weekend Television London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 ...

(on the

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

) and for

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

's Dispatches series (on the international arms trade). In 1988 he presented ''Charlie Richardson and the

British Mafia British firms are organised crime groups originating in the United Kingdom. Organised crime in the United Kingdom In analogy with the ''Penose'' in the Netherlands and the ''Milieu'' in France, organised crime in the United Kingdom has traditio ...

'' for Longshot Productions and

. Short has also completed a television series based on his 1989 book ''Inside the Brotherhood (Further Secrets of the Freemasons)'', for the

ITV network ITV is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passi ...

with Twenty Twenty Television and

.Page three of Inside the Brotherhood (Further Secrets of the Freemasons), Grafton Books, 1989 As a result of his work on

, Short made an extended appearance on

's '' After Dark'' television discussion series, and on 6 April 1989 was praised by Labour MP

Max Madden Maxwell Francis Madden (born 29 October 1941) is a British journalist and Labour Party politician. Parliamentary career Madden unsuccessfully fought Sudbury and Woodbridge in 1966, coming second. He was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) fo ...

in the

UK House of Commons The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 me ...

by way of two

Early day motion In the Westminster parliamentary system, an early day motion (EDM) is a motion, expressed as a single sentence, tabled by members of Parliament that formally calls for debate "on an early day". In practice, they are rarely debated in the House ...

s asking the House to take action on information that Short had brought forward, and to congratulate Short on his work. Short wrote, produced and narrated the prize winning ITV documentary series on the Mafia in America, ''Crime Incorporated.'' To accompany the series he also wrote ''Crime Inc.: A History of Organized Crime in America.'' In addition to feature articles for

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members o ...

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pun ...

and

Time Out Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

, he co-authored (in 1977) ''The Fall of Scotland Yard'' about police corruption in London. Short appeared in two episodes of the BBC documentary series ''Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty'', and provided the closing words at the end of the final episode: "Corruption doesn't go away. It's always there. You cannot get rid of it. All you can hope to do is to contain it, bottle it up, expose the worst examples of it, send the worst offenders to prison. Just as the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, the price of a clean police force is to never give up on the fight against corruption".

Personal life and death

Short married Sana Saidi in 1974; when doing research in Lebanon in the early 1970s, a family he met asked him to take a letter back to their daughter (Sana), who was studying at university in London. Together, the couple had three children, Ramsay, Alexander and Jumaan. Short died in 2020, from cancer, and was buried on the eastern side of

Highgate Cemetery Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...

Books

* ''The Fall of Scotland Yard'', with Barry Cox et John Shirley,

Penguin Books Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Thames Methuen Publishing (1984), * ''Inside the Brotherhood'',

Grafton Grafton may refer to: Places Australia * Grafton, New South Wales Canada * Grafton, New Brunswick * Grafton, Nova Scotia * Grafton, Ontario England * Grafton, Cheshire * Grafton, Herefordshire *Grafton, North Yorkshire * Grafton, Oxfordshi ...

(1989) * ''Lundy: The Destruction of Scotland Yard’s Finest Detective'',

(1992), * ''Informer'', with Ron Farebrother, Smith Gryphon (1997), * ''Survivor : Story of Jimmy Evans'', with Jimmy Evans,

Mainstream Publishing Mainstream Publishing was a publishing company in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded in 1978, it ceased trading in December 2013.Charlotte WilliamsMainstream to cease publishing 1 March 2013, The Bookseller.com' (Retrieved 30 December 2016) It was ass ...

(2001) * ''The Enforcer: Secrets of My Life with the Krays'', with Albert Donoghue,

John Blake Publishing John Blake (born 6 November 1948) is an English publisher and former journalist. ''John Blake Publishing'' was acquired by Bonnier Publishing in May 2016. Blake joined ''Soho Friday'', launched in November 2018, a venture with Richard Johnson an ...

(2002), * ''Blake's Classic True Crime Compendium'', with Drew MacKenzie, John Lightfoot, Tim Brown, Paul Cheston, Ron Farebrother,

(2003), * ''Blake's Classic True Crime Compendium 2'', with Tim Brown, Paul Cheston, Ron Farebrother,

(2004),

References

External links

Martin Short author details
at

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Short, Martin British documentary film producers British writers Freemasonry 1943 births 2020 deaths Burials at Highgate Cemetery