Major Mark Adkin was commissioned into The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment in 1956 and served with it and The Royal Anglian Regiment in Germany, Malaya, Mauritius and Aden. On leaving the British Army he joined the Overseas Civil Service and was posted to the Solomon Islands. Transferred to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, he was one of the last British District Officers anywhere in the world.

His final overseas post was as a contract officer for five years with the Barbados Defence Force, and it was as the Caribbean operations staff officer that he participated in the US invasion of Grenada in 1983. He now lives in Bedford.