Mark Perkins was born in 1951 and has lived in Dorset for most of his life. He completed a graphic design course at Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design, with diplomas in graphic design, and then qualified as a teacher in Yorkshire with the University of Leeds.Working life began with a Bournemouth advertising agency/art studio. Shortly after joining, he became creative director and remained with the company for 20 years. Whilst at the art studio, he was elected to be a member of the Chartered Society of Designers. He then pursued a career teaching art to secondary age students.In 1998, he with his wife, Avril, began breeding pedigree Burmilla cats.They became his models for an illustrated A–Z children’s book of cats.Subsequently, and with a growing family of grandchildren, he began to find he was accumulating teddy bears (as grandparents do). These became the subject of AlphaBetaBears, an A–Z of teddy bears, which led on to his writing individual stories about the 26 teddy bears from that book.