Mark Johnson was brought up in Kidderminster, living mainly on the streets to escape his home where his father was violent and his mother a fervent Jehovah's Witness. He took refuge from his this unloving place on the streets, and from the age of eight he was habitually drunk and gas-sniffing, and by eleven he had tried heroin. After acts of extreme violence by his father, he left home at age sixteen for art college but within a year of starting his course he was jailed for violent crime.
By this time, he had tried most drugs available. In borstal, after a riot, he was subjected to treatment of a shockingly inhumane nature. Raves and drugs Once back in the community, Mark immersed himself in the social scene of the late 1980s. Ecstasy and raves now replaced speed and alcohol as the drug of choice and he became closely involved in DIY, one of the anarchic music movements of this time.
He attended
DIY free parties all over Britain and elsewhere and when he wasn't partying,
he lived with his prostitute crackhead girlfriend and soon became addicted
to crack himself.
After a nervous breakdown, he moved to his mother’s home in the Lake District, where he met his partner, a heroin-addicted traveller. He and his partner funded their habits by travelling all over the country drug dealing After the birth of his son, he gained a place on a prestigious photography course in Blackpool but stopped studying when his relationship with his partner degenerated into drug-fuelled fury. He left the course in order to be official photographer to DIY’s tour of America. It was a total disaster for him, and he soon sold his camera for cocaine. In the Forest Back in Britain, now hopelessly addicted to heroin and having used practically every drug known, and in industrial quantities, he returned to the Lake District and tried to father his much-loved toddler son – unsuccessfully.
 | | The forest was a magical setting |
When he was taken on by a forestry company as a trainee tree surgeon he attempted to manage his habit along with his work. This was an impossibility but, remarkably, he was able to complete his training. He moved down to London where he could obtain drugs in the quantities he now needed them. Weakened by lack of food and excessive drug use, he worked as a tree surgeon pruning trees at 11, Downing Street and St Paul’s before he was sacked because he was no longer strong enough to work.
For almost a year, he was homeless in London’s West End, sleeping rough in doorways and parks. He funded his by now immense crack/heroin addiction (it cost more than £300 a day, or over £100,000 a year) through crime and guile. He was near death, weighing only seven and a half stone, covered in track marks, his socks welded by blood to his blisters, when someone from his DIY days passed him sleeping in a doorway. This man now worked for the charity Turning Point and persuaded Mark into a detox centre. But he was kicked out, and returned to the streets where he discovered a cache of drugs worth many thousands of pounds. He stole them and injected them all. Road to recovery He was now a wanted man by the dealers he had stolen from, so he escaped by going back into detox, from where he progressed to a primary treatment centre on the south coast in July 2000. His recovery, supported by counsellors, psychotherapists and fellow addicts was slow and remarkable. For almost seven years now, he has not taken a drink or a drug. With help and a loan from The Prince’s Trust, he set up his own tree surgery business, and formed a policy of employing other recovering addicts as he believed that working hard together was the only way to give offenders and addicts the support they need to return to society. His business was so successful that in 2005 he was made Young Achiever of the Year by The Prince’s Trust. He went on to receive the Daily Mirror’s Pride of Britain Award at a glittering televised ceremony. His association with The Prince’s Trust did not end there. He is currently piloting a new scheme which involves the mentoring of young offenders by ex-offenders. In addition, Mark is the first ex-offender on the board of the National Probation Service and he is also working for that service as an adviser, and again the first ex-offender to do so. His tree business continues but he is now much in demand in other spheres: for the wisdom he gained from the mayhem of his earlier life, for his creative approach and the highly articulate analysis he brings to the problems faced by drug addicts and young offenders. | 
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