A tribute to Mark Reynolds

When Mark Reynolds, who died on 6 September aged 48, was forced in 1993 to retire from his impressive career in advertising for medical reasons, and was casting round for ideas as to what he might do, he thought he might try his hand at travel writing.


This was a plucky choice for someone who had muscular dystrophy, but typical of a man whose approach, though he had suffered from the genetic muscle wasting disease all his life, was largely to ignore it and certainly never, ever to complain about it. Mark’s original idea was to write a book about the Mediterranean but he ended up planning from his Buckinghamshire barn a tour of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world to raise money for seven charities.

In the process he found he had something of a talent for fund-raising. He was extraordinarily persuasive and, according to his wife, Jemima, he only ever sent individual letters to people, each one honed to perfection and beautifully written.

In 1999 he became a Trustee of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign. Inspired by his friend and fellow-sufferer, Quentin Crewe, who died in 1998 of muscular dystrophy, Mark had the idea of celebrating his life by raising money in his name for research and therapy for the disease and in a way that was perhaps more personal and a lot merrier than usual fund-raising. To this end, in 2001 he set up The Q Trust and, with a series of imaginative and unstuffy events, raised nearly £500,000 in an astonishingly short space of time.

Mark was born in London on 3 September 1957 and went to Berkhamsted and Merton College, Oxford, where he read History and met Jemima who was instantly taken with his astonishing charisma, his extreme lust for life, his lovely smile and open manner. He was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at an early age. Neither of his parents were sufferers. It appeared spontaneously in him and his younger brother Adam, the sculptor, who died just three weeks before him, also of cardiac failure prompted by the disease. At first doctors believed Mark had a strain which would have meant he would have not lived into adulthood. As he grew older they changed their minds and told him he could have children, believing he wouldn’t pass it on. But it is a disease all the more cruel for being so arbitrary. Mark’s two children, Charles, 17, and Emily, 15, both have it. Adam’s two young daughters do not.

There is little treatment and no cure. Mark’s parents regularly took him to see Dr Gordon Latto, the famous Scottish physician and naturopath. He put him on a strict, raw, vegetarian diet. It certainly increased his strength. At Oxford, whenever he succumbed to the odd hamburger, he definitely felt worse. Throughout his life Mark had difficulty walking - the joints stiffen along with the crumbling muscles. He took to using a thumb stick and during his working life managed a ghastly commute on buses and trains alone. Only when he retired did he resort to a wheelchair. He wasn’t too proud to accept help but he did try to retain his independence as much as possible. Muscular dystrophy did not cause him pain, exactly, but a weekly massage and hydrotherapy certainly made him more comfortable.

With such a disability, Mark’s achievements were all the more remarkable. His career in advertising was successful - he was the youngest director in the history of the agency, Collett Dickinson and Pearce and his clients included Hamlet Cigars and Eurotunnel - but he was particularly renowned for his moral leadership and sense of fair play, his intelligence and total disregard for his physical disability. For eight years he was a governor and Vice Chairman of the Byam Shaw School of Art and instrumental in its merger with Central St Martins in 2004.

Mark’s energy and vivacity were extraordinary. He is survived by Jemima and his two children, his parents, and an unbelievable amount of friends and admirers.

This obituary also appeared in The Independent on Friday 23 September 2005.