Mark Speight - Early Life

Early Life

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 (born 1938 in Barton to Leonard George (1904–1992) Speight and Evelyn Ada (1899–1994) West), 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.