A former weekly journalist who helped launch a newspaper has had his first novel published.

Former MK News journalist Mark Stillman has written Stalker, Bunny, Saucepan, which he describes as a raunchy, disturbing, supernatural psychological thriller and dark comedy.

Mark helped co-launch Milton Keynes on Sunday, a predecessor to the MK News, in 1997 and continued working on MK News from when it was founded in 2002 until 2006.

Roles he held included news editor, sports editor and writer of the controversial Stillman on Sunday and World of Stillman columns.

Mark told the MK News: “It’s funnier than Bleak House, darker than Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway and with more sex than The Sound of Music.

“It’s about people who never understand nor accept the words: ‘It’s over.'”

Mark, who now lives in Hull, has also spent time as a professional stand-up comedian.

As a journalist, Mark broke the worldwide exclusive in 1997 that Wimbledon FC were setting up in Milton Keynes, seven years before MK Dons played their first game in the town.

His then editor David Gale once sent him to a local bar dressed only in boots and a cap to cover his modesty to test the pub’s new hat ban.

Mark also raised hundreds of pounds for Willen Hospice by losing three stone in three months.

His book is available from Keep Human Books.