About Martine
Martine Vik Magnussen decided to do a very quick arrival into the world. At the hospital in Oslo the birth was over within an hour in the middle of the night on February 6th 1985. After the maternity Martine arrived at her home at Nesøya on a cold winter day where her brother Magnus and her grandmother received her with open arms.
Nesøya was a good place to grow up with good playground for activities throughout the year. Here Martine and her friends enjoyed playing in the sandbox, climbing trees, building dollhouses, countless snowmen or swimming at the pier by the water during summer. The kids in the neighborhood could run to each other and had a lot of fun together. Martine was an active child who always liked to be on the move.
The dream of becoming prima ballerina was a driving force in the little kid’s head surrounded by bright curly tresses. When the ballerina dreams seemed unattainable, handball became of great interest to Martine who ended up as the top scorer on her team. Later horses and horseback riding became a great passion.
During summer vacations at her grandparents Martine had some of their happiest moments. During a round-trip with her family in 1998, she got to experience much of the world and its diversity. Her younger sister Mathilde was both a sister and a girlfriend, and a person Martine was very fond of.
After leaving primary school at Nesøya, she began high school at Christian Gymnasium in Oslo as her brother Magnus. After this, some subjects had to be improved to, before entering medical school. In connection with the preparation for this, she worked with older people in a hospital and nursing home nearby. In the autumn of 2006 she was enrolled at the Warsaw Medical University in Poland. She was, however, not quite happy there and decided instead to start studying international business at Regents Business School in London in 2007. Martine enjoyed studying in London and did well both academically and socially.
Martine’s personality was gentle, inclusive and generous. But she could also be determined by and committed. As an ordinary Norwegian girl with likes and dislikes, passions and preferences, she was still a social asset in most contexts. Friends often said that it was so nice when she answered the phone in their house – it was always perceived as a little lift to hear her quick and encouraging voice through the phone. As the family’s midpoint she always had a pleasant remark or joke to offer.
Her ability to see others and put their interests ahead of their own was typical for Martine. She never met his grandfather, but developed a close and warm relationship with her father’s mother, her grandmother. She, however, met with her grandfather and his values through his book ‘We Waited’ – which was the first book that came out after World War II on the Norwegian’s home resistance. In high school she made project work on her grandfather’s book and visited the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen in Germany where her grandfather barely survived as a prisoner of war.
When time she had a spare time job assisting the production of her grandfather ‘casualty sled’ for the NATO forces. A later cleaning job with a friend was eventually replaced by working in a clothing store next to the school she attended. As a child, Martine enjoyed playing cashier and customer service representative, and at the clothing store she eventually could take on her real ‘potential’ in this area.
As a former customer later said; having forgotten my wife’s birthday a couple of years ago I had to run into the women clothing shop of Ginny in Oslo to buy a last minute birthday gift. Downstairs, I was quickly taken care of by a bright and cheerful saleswoman. Fifteen minutes later I left the store enjoying that a rainy and hectic summer day had been transformed into pure sunshine. On the news from London I later realized that the saleswoman that totally transformed my day that summer day was Martine. . .