Martin turned the negatives into a positively classic film

MARTIN Scarffe has probably seen more of acclaimed counterculture flick ‘Easy Rider’ than anybody else on earth.
But he only actually watched the full feature film on television from his front room in England.
At the beginning of the 1960s Martin was working at Cammell Laird shipyards in Birkenhead, following his discharge from the Navy.

But as unemployment grew and a sense of depression began to set in, he and his wife decided the time had come to try their luck overseas.
Their first thought was New Zealand, but then Martin remembered his cousins in California and through their sponsorship a visa was secured.
An electrician by trade, he found the unions of his chosen profession operating a closed shop, so he looked to the giant film studios for work.
Whether MGM or Warner Bros, Martin would be there sorting the electrical rigging and connecting the stage lighting.

Martin, now 72 and a grandfather-of-two, said: “At one stage I worked three days solid without a break.
“The studios were so big at that time that as soon as we’d finished one, they’d ask us back to rig another.
“This went on for three days – my wife must have thought something had happened to me – but I made more money in those three days than I did in a month.�
Life in California was good, and soon the Scarffes left their Hollywood Boulevard home and moved to Beverly Hills, where walking past the likes of Frank Sinatra and Roger Moore was a common occurrence.
Martin, from Philip Drive, Southport, said: “It became second nature.
“I’d go to the studios in the morning and walk past and walk in with famous movie actors and actresses and just take it all for granted.�
The success continued when Martin found secure employment with Consolidated Film Industries (CFI), a firm responsible for turning the negatives from film reels into prints suitable for cinematic consumption.
And one of the biggest flicks Martin worked on was Easy Rider, the 1969 biker classic starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson.

He said: “I hadn’t really watched it because I’d printed it so many times I’d become sick to death of it.
“I only saw it years later in England and it was then I realised it was such a good one.
“If you see it on TV today, it’ll be from the prints I produced.�