Mark Ellen

Mark Ellen is a English magazine editor, journalist and broadcaster who lives in West London.
Whilst at Oxford University in the 1970s, he briefly played bass alongside Tony Blair in Ugly Rumours, a band that according to Ellen was created primarily to meet women.
After graduating, he wrote for Record Mirror, NME and Time Out before signing up as Features Editor of Smash Hits in 1981, where he became the editor in 1983. He was the launch editor of Q, the re-launch editor of Select, and the launch managing editor of Mojo. He later became the editor-in-chief of EMAP Metro overseeing 14 consumer magazines but he left Emap after 16 years to join the independent publishing company Development Hell in 2002.
He also has a long broadcasting career which includes contributions to BBC Radio One in the early 80's as stand-ins for Kid Jensen and John Peel. He presented the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test from 1982 to 1987. He also co-presented the Live Aid TV broadcast in 1985.
Ellen was the editor of The Word, a UK music magazine which he started with long-time colleague, business partner and Whistle Test co-presenter David Hepworth. The first issue was published in February 2003 and the magazine celebrated its 50th issue in March 2007. The closure of the magazine was announced in June 2012.
In May 2014, Ellen released an autobiography, 'Rock Stars Stole My Life!'
== Links To Peel ==
In the early chapters of his memoir "Rock Stars Stole My Life", Mark Ellen described his youth in the hippy era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He mentioned how he and his friends, keen listeners to Peel's shows on Radio 1, were influenced by the DJ's musical tastes and admired his laid-back, self-deprecating presentation style. Ellen also recounts his experiences at some of the open-air rock festivals of the period, where Peel was present either as compere or audience member.
Around a decade later, Ellen stood in for Peel on 'holiday cover' for two weeks in 1982, and for one week in 1983 and 1984. In a short Radio Times feature on his first stand-in (see pic., right), he used the "resentful Belgians" expression when referring to Peel's musical tastes. "I prefer things I can hum in the bath - and frequently do", added Ellen.Peel had first used the term "sulky Belgians" on Top of the Pops, 04 February 1982
In an interview with the Liverpool Echo in 2014, Mark Ellen described how Peel was paranoid about him taking over his show for two weeks while he was on holiday:
“I sat in his chair rather nervously with a quarter of a million people listening and I looked through the glass and there was John Peel who’d come in to check out the competition and who’d made no attempt to disguise the fact at all. He was very, very paranoid about being replaced at Radio 1. I think he felt he was older than most of the other DJs and all the others who’d been signed up in 1967 had been got rid of or left. He said (holiday cover) is like ‘letting somebody borrow your toothbrush or letting somebody sleep with your wife’.” 
Indeed during John's first show after Mark's first stint in 1982, he admitted that he hadn't listened to any of Mark Ellen's shows, nor indeed open his large mailbag, just in case he found out he'd been terrific
Their rather odd first meeting blossomed into friendship, and Mark stayed at John’s home (which was covered in pictures of Liverpool FC players) not long before his death in 2004:
“We stayed up until three o’clock in the morning playing records, just the two of us, drinking red wine, and he burst into tears when he played old Lonnie Donegan records.” 
The December 2004 issue of Word magazine contains Mark Ellen's personal tribute to Peel, while the November 2005 issue includes a feature called "The Real Peel" - "one year on, his wife and "family" (Clive Selwood, Andy Kershaw, Sheila Ravenscroft and Mark Ellen himself) raise a glass".
== Shows ==
Mark Ellen sat in for Peel on the following occasions:
;1982
*14 June 1982
*15 June 1982
*16 June 1982
*17 June 1982
*21 June 1982
*22 June 1982
*23 June 1982
*24 June 1982
;1983
*23 May 1983
*24 May 1983
*25 May 1983
*26 May 1983
;1984
*26 March 1984
*27 March 1984
*28 March 1984
*29 March 1984
== See Also ==
*Books
== External Links ==
*Wikipedia
*Tumblr
*Twitter
== Notes ==
Category:People