BORN in 1971 in Buxton, Derbyshire, and then living in Whaley Bridge, to the south of Manchester, Mark recalls being taken to the nearby railway line at a very young age by his paternal grandparents.
“I think it was when I was about two, and they told me that it grew up from there, really,” he says. “I also used to visit my maternal grandparents in South Wales, travelling by train, and my grandfather wouldn’t even allow me to step foot in the house until I’d recited every station from Cardiff Central to Ystrad Rhondda in the correct order.”