Mark Speight
| Mark Speight | |
|---|---|
Speight in 2007.
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|
| Born |
Mark Warwick Fordham Speight 6 August 1965 Seisdon, Staffordshire, England |
| Died | 7 April 2008 (aged 42) Paddington, City of Westminster, London, England |
| Cause of death | Suicide by hanging |
| Education |
Tettenhall College Regis School |
| Occupation | Broadcaster |
| Years active | 1994–2008 |
| Employer | BBC |
| Television |
SMart See It Saw It |
| Partner(s) | Natasha Collins (2005–2008) (her death) |
| Parent(s) | Oliver and Jacqueline Speight |
Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (6 August 1965 – 7 April 2008) was an English television presenter, best known as the host of children's art programme SMart. Speight grew up in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, and left school at 16 to become a cartoonist. He took a degree in commercial and graphic art and, while working in television set construction, heard of auditions for a new children's art programme. Speight was successful in his audition and became one of the first presenters of SMart, working on it for 14 years.
Speight was also a presenter on See It Saw It, where he met his future fiancée, actress and model Natasha Collins. He took part in live events, such as Rolf on Art and his own Speight of the Art workshops for children. He was involved in charity work; he became the president of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition, and was a spokesperson for ChildLine.
In January 2008, Speight found Collins's body in the bath of their shared London flat. He was arrested on suspicion of her murder, but not charged with any offence. An inquest later determined that Collins had died of a drug overdose and severe burns from hot water. In April that year, Speight was reported missing and was later discovered to have taken his own life by hanging himself near Paddington station. Two suicide notes were discovered, describing how he could no longer live without Collins.
Speight was born in Seisdon, Staffordshire, and grew up in Tettenhall, Wolverhampton. Speight had two siblings, Tina-Louise Richmond (née Speight), and Jason Speight. His father, Oliver Warwick Speight, is a property developer, and his mother, Jacqueline Fordham Speight (née Parker), was an art teacher. Jacqueline died on 5 September 2008, aged 62, from a stroke allegedly brought on by the stress of her son's death. Speight attended the independent school Tettenhall College for a year, before moving to state comprehensive Regis School, now known as King's C.E. School, also in Tettenhall, at the age of 12. Speight stated in an interview he was a slow learner at school, with a short attention span, and art was a way for him to communicate. He said he did "very badly" because he was a victim of bullying, and the "daily ordeal for two years" forced him to become the "class joker". Speight left aged 16 and went on to attend Bilston Art School, where he took a degree in commercial and graphic art.
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