On your Marks... ‘Mr Nice’ to bring speaking tour to pub

Howard Marks, also known as Mr Nice, the title of his autobiography, will appear at The Beaver pub on Wednesday, June 29.

Landlord David Price said: “An audience with ‘Mr Nice’ promises to be very interesting as he is an extremely entertaining speaker and Howard will also take to the decks to spin a few tunes with our other featured DJs later in the evening.

“The live tour wouldn’t usually stop in a small town and we are delighted to be hosting an event for around 200 guests.”

Marks graduated with a degree in nuclear physics and post-graduate qualifications in philosophy.

His criminal activities included smuggling consignments of cannabis in the equipment of touring rock bands – which caught up with him in 1988 when he was apprehended by the US Drug Enforcement Agency and detained at the Terre Haute federal penitentiary in Indiana.

Marks was released after serving seven years of a 25-year sentence.

His best-selling autobiography was published in 1996 and updated in 2010 to coincide with the cinema release of a film based on the book.

Mr Nice has been translated into several languages and was the best-selling non-fiction book of 1997.

Marks wrote a monthly column for the magazine Loaded and has contributed articles to several leading newspapers and magazines.

Tickets cost £10 and are available from the pub.