As skipper of a 100ft barge on the Humber in the 1970s, transporting bags of butter-beans and boxes of tinned peaches that were regularly bartered for beer at riverside pubs, he had a mishap with a bridge. He urgently needed to "disappear", so a friend forged him a new identity as David McKenzie. Conveniently dropping 10 or more difficult-to-account-for-years from his CV, he presented a reference supposedly from Karlheinz Stockhausen, thus reinventing himself as an engineer at the electronic music department at Glasgow University.go and read the whole thing written by his friend Frances Holliss
Friday, November 14, 2008
Experimental film-maker.. and bank robber
Splendid obituary in today's Guardian of Dave McKenzie:
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3 comments:
But you've missed the rather remarkable tale of Dave McKenzie the con. Google his obit in the Glasgow Herald and you will find a contradictory tale. Or is it not remarkable that Dave convinced many of his closest friends that he was only 60 years old, rather than the actual late 70s. And that his name was not Dave McKenzie at all, but instead stolen from a tombstone.
And I must amend my original post. You *did* indeed mention aspects of the story, but go to the Glasgow Herald to see the first obit, which suggests that McKenzie's age was a mere 60, rather than 78. Imagine reducing your age by 18 years, and carrying it off!
Thanks for this pointer - and here's a link to the Glasgow Herald obit with more curious nuggets from his life.
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