Making his mark

It may surprise some viewers that the geographically-self-defining GB News bases its current prime-time schedule round a host based in Woodsville, New Hampshire. 

Canadian-born author and part-time crooner Mark Steyn (pron: Stine) has set up home there. His father was Irish, his mother was Belgian, and they moved to Toronto where Mark was born in 1959, though he was educated in the UK, at King Edward's Birmingham. No sign of university beyond sixth form; he next surfaces as a weekend dj at Beacon 303 in 1982, with "Beacon Classics", "Beautiful Music" and "Well Did You Evah ?".  In 1986, he was 'musicals' critic for the Independent, having carved out slots on BBC Radio 2's Starsound Extra and Radio 3's Music Weekly discussing Jerome Kern, etc during 1985.  By 1987, he was part of the Kaleidoscope roster of presenters on Radio 4.  He expanded in the the more radical elements of the network, on Loose Ends and Quote, Unquote; in 1993, he persuaded producers to let him host Postcard from Gotham in the BBC's New York studios.  

He met proofreader Karol Sheinin at the Independent, and they married in 1988. Karol says she was born in Soviet Union and brought up in Brooklyn. She worked for a time as a publicist in New York, and blogged at alarmingnews.com. They have three children.