Marina Augusta Pepper (née Baker; born 8 December 1967[inconsistent]) is an English Liberal Democrat local politician, journalist, children's book author and former model and actress.
Born in Windsor, Berkshire, and originally from Taplow, Buckinghamshire, she and her older brother Martin "moved around a lot" until they reached Norfolk.
There was this enormous chrome caravan with those sort of lacy doily things in the window, and my birthday party in a tent, playing pass the parcel in the pouring rain.
[1] Baker travelled widely as a teenager spending three years visiting France, Corsica, Italy, Greece and Switzerland, before ending up on Cape Clear, an island off the southern tip of Ireland, "because there was a ferry leaving to go there".
[1] She trained as a dancer at Bush Davies ballet school and left with six O-levels, but later abandoned A-levels in Drama, English and History at Norwich City Tech for London.
[1] To supplement her modest income, Baker began glamour modeling as a Page 3 girl at age 17 before she was discovered by noted erotic photographer Byron Newman.
She also acted in the musical Forever Elvis (in the role of Priscilla Beaulieu Presley), and played Nina in a stage production of Chekov's The Seagull.
Back home, she decided to further her education and completed a BA (Hons) in journalism from the London College of Printing and an MA in dramatic writing from the University of Sussex.
During the 1990s, Baker worked extensively as a journalist, most often for The Independent, The Telegraph and The Guardian newspapers, as well as Punch, and Junior Magazine in the United Kingdom.
She has also served as the mayoress of Telscombe and at the 2005 general election she stood for Parliament in the Brighton Kemptown constituency as a Liberal Democrat, but was unsuccessful.
She has also set up a community recycling scheme for a local preschool and ran eco-fairs to help promote understanding of sustainable living.