Mark marched his first show back in September 1974 with 79th St. Timothy Scouts. In January 1975 he was a founder member of the Sheffield Corps of Drums (SCD), one of the first independent marching bands in the North of England. SCD enjoyed great success in the late 70’s and Mark stayed with them for four years culminating with an appearance at the first ever British Youth Band Championships at Wembley.

In 1979 he joined the band of 367 Squadron Air Cadets, which had the nickname Shades of Blue. Starting as a Bb Bugle band, then Eb trumpets before “going G” in 1981. Restricted by being members of the ATC the band/corps enjoyed limited success in the marching band and drum corps circuits.

In 1984 Shades of Blue joined forces with the Vulcan corps (which was the new name for SCD) and Concord was born. Mark was lead soprano – marching alongside the great Roger Edwards, one of my career highs – in 1985 and 1986.

In 1986 another landmark in Mark’s drum corps career – he along with Roger Edwards and Chris Hewitt became the first Concord members to travel to the USA to march with the Boston Crusaders at DCI. An amazing experience which has stayed with Mark to this day.

1987 was Mark’s age-out year (in the days of ageing out at 22 !!) and he spent this year as Drum Major, and it was a very proud moment for him to receive the British Drum Corps Federation Champions trophy on behalf of the corps.
After ageing out Mark went straight onto the visual staff working under caption head and drill designer, Jonathan Cummings and with our American consultant, Chris “Scooter” Jacobson. In 1990 Mark wrote some of the drill for the corps and took over as drill designer for the corps in 1991 after JC left the corps.

1991 was a landmark year for the corps and also for Mark, even though Concord were pipped for the DCUK title by the Blue Eagles, the corps finished the season with High Visual, High General Effect and High Guard all in his first season of designing full-time. He has written for the corps every year since.
As well as working with the corps, Mark has been the designer for the famous Concord Winterguard since 1989. He has also written shows for the Golden Eagles Winterguard and Tallaght Showcorps, both Eire, Mirfield Winterguard and the Pontins Crusaders.

Favourite shows:
Summer
1989 – the most energetic show we’ve ever performed and cool music !
1991 – see above !
1994 – a great comeback year and perhaps a close second to 1989 for energy
1996 – a tough year but the season just kept getting better and better.
2001 – First year as a Cadet corps, far exceeding all expectations
Winter
1990 – Firebird II, this was the start of Concord’s era.
1996 – Bjork, a real blast working on this show
1997 – Five Guys, a fun packed show and a Champion any other year !
2000 – Romeo & Juliet, a very underrated show and criminally underscored at Finals!