Having attended a top English public school, Mark spent a year in the gutter with the commoners, scouring pots and pans and learning how the other half live.  He then took up a Bachelor of Arts degree in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham, before joining a band of minstrels and travelling with them to London to seek his fortune.
​
After many years of concert performances and gramophone recording (including some of the soundtrack to Ewan McGregor's celebrated motorcycle adventure series Long Way Round), he found employment as a designer of posters for West End theatrical productions.
​
He is also a degenerate gambler who has made and lost a small fortune at the poker tables of some of London's seedier late night establishments.