The Cornflake Kid

Mark Riddell spent his adolescence in local authority care in Scotland. Born into a Scottish tenement flat and forced with the rest of his family to leave his father and watch the slow death of his mother. For the remainder of his early years, his life is characterised by care from half committed relatives, occasional returns to his drunken fathers care and eventually taken into the Scottish care system. Only the memory of his mother provides Mark with any lodestone to direct his life. Being in care brings further separation and rejection from his brothers and the onset of glue sniffing, but also the discovery of an inner strength, which provides his salvation. Not all is despair and the glue-induced hallucinations and his love for music gives him the escape he so badly needed. Mark survives the care system. On the path of self-discovery he finds the real Mark Riddell. He ends up as an extra on Rambo III and becomes a drinking companion of Sylvester Stallone.