Marky Mark
Story Highlight
All about Captain Marky Mark
I grew up near Doncaster smack in the middle of the South Yorkshire coalfield. Having started down the pit himself at the tender age of fourteen, Dad said he didn’t mind what I did as long as I didn’t go underground which rather put the mockers on my ambition to be a tube train driver. Looking round for alternative careers I decided that dentistry was right up my street and to this day I have absolutely no idea why.
Fortunately fate stepped in and made sure my A level success was conspicuous by its absence thereby saving the population of the UK from oral catastrophe. In sheer desperation I washed up at Bradford University where after 4 years of playing rugby, drinking beer and eating curries (it should have been 3 years but I was booted out for a year after continually failing one of my exams) I somehow ended up with a degree in psychology.
Not having a clue what to do next but having paid for a private pilot’s licence through holiday jobs I joined the RAF for pilot training. However, due to a propensity to chuck my guts up whenever I did aerobatics, her Majesty the Queen decided not to trust me with a £20 million fighter but instead sent me to fly Search & Rescue helicopters, first in the wilds of Scotland and then at Boulmer in Northumberland.
After 12 years serving Queen and Country and several tours to the Falkland Islands (nice penguins shame about the rest of it) it was time for a change. Before coming to Metro I flew everything from police helicopters, pipeline surveys and filming for ITV and the BBC to VIP transport. Passengers included Alan Shearer, Bobby Robson, Kevin Keegan, the Sugar Babes and Baldrick from Blackadder (ok I’m scraping the barrel now).
I now do the traffic reports in the morning and afternoon, and after Alan Robson I am the longest continuously serving presenter on Metro. I have lived in the North East for over 20 years and have no desire to live or work anywhere else. I love the area and the people and consider it the best place to be in the whole of the UK, (praise indeed coming from a Yorkshireman). I now live in Corbridge with my wife Jayne, daughter Jessica, two cats and three goldfish.
