I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear about Mark and my sincere condolences go out to Karen and their girls. I first met Mark when we were PhD students together in Liverpool. When I think of Mark from those days I remember an ebullient character, always with a cheeky grin on his face. We all faced some tricky times during our PhDs (when experiments rarely seemed to work) but there was great camaraderie and Mark was a central character in the group. We had a lot of fun during those years, playing 5-a-side football (the basement vs first floor) or nights out ending up in the Club Conti, and those continued at Phys Soc meetings after we first left Liverpool. It is difficult to think of anything to write to Mark’s family at this sad time but they should be reassured that his irrepressible character will be missed greatly by the wider UK Physiology community.