About

My name is Martin Lee and I live in Tynemouth in the North East of England with my wife, Jen, and our two children, Orla and Noah.

I wasn’t born in the North East and didn’t grow up here but moved for work in 2012 and have fallen in love with the region.

I grew up in the South of England and went to university in Wales where I studied medicine. I have always lived close to the sea and started sea kayaking when I was at school. When I was 16, I was fortunate enough to join a group of young explorers with the British Schools Exploring Society on a kayaking trip to Vancouver Island, Canada.

After qualifying, I did a lot of my medical post-graduate training in Cornwall, Devon and South West England and further fell in love with sea kayaking. I have always been interested in rheumatology and, in particular, rheumatoid arthritis. People living with rheumatoid arthritis are close to my heart and my auntie Maureen has had rheumatoid arthritis from a young age. My wife also has rheumatoid arthritis.

In 2012, after qualifying as a consultant rheumatologist, I took a sabbatical from work and decided to raise money for the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society by completing a solo kayak circumnavigation of the UK mainland in my ocean kayak (and grow a beard in the process)!

This was a particularly gruelling challenge that, at the time and as far as I aware, only a couple of other people had ever successfully completed. In the end it paddled 2,600 miles (equating to 100 marathons) in 97 days!

I have always been a keen sportsman and, at school, competed at county level in rugby and football until I suffered a stress fracture to my back playing rugby when I was 18.

However, this was surgically repaired, and I played football at a decent level throughout university and afterwards. Between 2006 and 2011, I played for, and captained, the British Medical Football Team at medical world-cups in Germany, Australia and Lithuania.

I qualified as a consultant rheumatologist in 2011 and worked as a locum consultant in Bath before moving to Newcastle in 2012. I met my wife, Jen, in 2012 and we married in 2014.

In 2016 our daughter, Orla, was born and she was followed by our son, Noah, three years later. In 2019 we moved to Dubai for work. Whilst in Dubai I took up rugby again (foolishly) and managed to damage my shoulder playing in the Dubai Seven’s tournament in 2023. I had shoulder surgery in 2024 to repair the damage done and won’t be playing rugby anymore!

Jen and our kids moved back to North East England in
2024 and I am joining them back ‘home’ in April 2026, once I have completed my current contract.

I have always enjoyed reading and love reading to our children. I wrote my first children’s book, Lambley the Last Lamb in 2019. However, it took me 6 years to get around to getting it published! My inspiration for the Collingwood Farm series of books comes from living in the North East and I have a number of ideas for further series in the future and am also currently writing my first novel. Watch this space!

Orla was diagnosed with autism in 2023 when she was 6 years old. She loves me reading to her EVERY night and won’t allow me to miss a bedtime (even if I have to read to her remotely)! Despite her difficulties, she is a wonderful and caring little girl and we all love her to bits. She is the inspiration behind my third book in the Collingwood Farm series, Pegswood the Peculiar Pig.

As a consultant rheumatologist working in Newcastle, I developed a specialist interest in young adult and adolescent care. My observations in clinic led to me start researching and writing about the potential negative effects of smartphone use in children and young adults and ‘Smartphone Overuse Syndrome’ (SOS).

In 2017, I set up my company ‘No Phone Zone’ aimed at encouraging families to create phone free zones in their home.