Mark R.

My name is Mark Frederick Henry Rose, my middle names are taken from my grandfathers. I am a 43 year old male and I currently live in South Africa, but lets go back to the beginning. I was born in London to an Englishman and a South African. After a year or so my parents moved back to South Africa, where they had initially met. I then grew up in Johannesburg where we lived a good middle class life until my father took his own life in 1990 leaving my mother to care for me (age 10) and my sister (age 7). My mother is my personal hero because she not only did the most amazing job in an incredibly difficult situation but also because her kindness and generosity has been an inspiration to me my whole life, especially when I became and adult and gained a better understanding of the challenges of life. I doubt whether I could perform as well as she did in that situation although it seems unlikely that it will ever be tested as I am single and have no children. Looking back, I had a good childhood but around puberty time, when I started becoming more socially adept, is when the good times started and I began securing my identity. I was introduced to David Icke at the age of 17 and began devouring any non-religious personal development and spiritual books - at that time those books were in the esoteric section and today you would probably find them in the self-help section. My reading topics of choice filled me with an immense confidence in myself which encouraged me to make the most of my British Passport, so I decided to travel the world until it became clear to me what my role in society may be. I fell into a career path relatively quickly in England (my first stop!) in the public sector and this brought a halt to my global back-packing days. In a few years I had a steady job and rented an apartment with my beautiful girlfriend - I was settled. I don't want to give you my whole life story here, I hope that gives you a flavour of my first 20 or so years. Briefly, the next 20 years saw me develop my career from Community Development to Grant Management and Fundraising, in my last role I was working for South Downs National Park in England. Also in development were my personal passions - underlying all of them was this great self-belief that I continued to nurture through spiritual practice. My life-long passion is music and I studied Sound Engineering in my youth as one of my greatest passions is music production - I learnt how to DJ in my 20's and in the last 5 years I have started playing piano and bass guitar. So my personal pleasure is largely derived from music but I also have a very social side and enjoy a beer in the local bar occasionally as well as attending (and DJing at) a local festival. My perspective on life has changed a lot over the last 25 years and I would love to chat to you in more detail about the highs, lows, challenges and rewards that have marked my time. So please get in touch so that we can share thought, ideas and dreams.