| Natural Born Poets: a parable of serial creativity. |
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(or Here's One I Made Earlier.) by Gloria Vana
'The urge to destruction can be a creative urge' Bakunin (i) '90% of what humans have wrought upon this earth needs to be destroyed right now, that's what this CD made me think about.' Duane Zarakov (iii) 'Most people' think that 'creativity' is 'good'. They would perhaps do well to study the works of Patrick Mackay (1952-?), English serial killer, and William Cowper (1731-1800), English serial poet. |
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There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuels's veins, And sinners plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see |
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 Surliest of his kind |
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William Cowper was born in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, 'a child of delicate constitution [who] at a very early period shewed symptoms of that morbidly shy and melancholy disposition which was the root of the troubles that afflicted him in after life.' (v) He trained as a solicitor, but had to abandon his profession when he had the misfortune to go mad. He was taken in by the Reverend John Unwin, a kindly vicar, and regained his sanity by taming hares and writing poetry about everything. After the Reverend Unwin died Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, an old woman 'rapidly breaking down in body and mind' fell under the sway of the Reverend John Newton, who had, by his own admission 'a name... for preaching people mad', but was 'unquestionably animated in all his conduct by the purest motives.' Whatever his motives, his effect on William Cowper was predictable, his old trouble returned, necessitating another rigorous bout of hare raising.
'That noble hymn, God moves in a mysterious way, was composed on the very eve of his renewed madness. A curious feature marked the approach of his second attack. He conceived a great dislike to his friend Mr. Newton.' 'As his health improved, he began to addict himself still more to reading and writing' denouncing 'the slave trade [see 'Pity for poor Africans' which
expresses misgivings about the slave trade, but points out that if we didn't buy the slaves the Portuguese would, which would be worse all round.], gin-drinking, fox-hunting, balls, theatres, card playing, church-hirelings, the luxurious habits of the rich, the rude vices of the poor, the profligacy of the cities, the swagger, the swearing and the drunkenness of sailors - quite in the style of an eloquent platform-lecturer.' 'Cowper soon became as cheerful as he had once been melancholy. This projected change in his mode of life, however, gave great umbrage to the Rev. John Newton.' Cowper's poems now appear to have fallen into disuse, but not before being inflicted on several generations of schoolchildren.
'Father Antony Crean floated and sank in the bathwater stained with his own blood. He was alive but totally unable to control the movements of his own body. All he could manage was the occasional groan or gurgling sound. A young man sat on the edge of the bath staring at the priest's horribly mutilated face and head broken open by repeated blows with an axe. He trailed his left hand in the water. He was a well-built young man, over six feet tall, with handsome, clearly defined features and unruly black hair. But his face was tense and nervous, his eyes distant and remote. Every so often he put a finger to the sensual thick lips that betrayed mixed blood. somewhere in his ancestry. He wanted to bite his fingernails but they were already down to the quick. He stared at Father Crean; at the Roman Catholic clerical collar that he wore; at the gardening clothes and single gumboot; at the walls around the bath, splashed and spotted with blood. He sat there for an unbroken hour, wide-eyed at this grisly handiwork. 'I feel terrible about what happened...' Patrick Mackay -3 October, 1975. (vii) Patrick Mackay had the childhood usually expected of a psychopath, with unpleasant parents, few friends, a fascination with Nazism (he even 'made himself a rudimentary Nazi uniform') (viii), the ubiquitous cruelty to animals and a few idiosyncratic touches, such as large scale theft of garden gnomes (he was, perhaps, to serial killers, what John Major was to prime ministers). He was by no means a Jack the Ripper, 'clever, mysterious, well-dressed' (ix), nor even a Peter Sutcliffe, an oafish ideologue, 'cleaning up the streets.' (x) He simply bludgeoned a few people to death in sudden violent rages, killings that even he could not remember (xi) let alone explain. He exhibited behaviour that the police described as 'manifestly manic'. (xii) His killings were neither difficult nor planned. One typical victim was an eighty four year old woman, truly 'broken down in body and mind' after Mackay's visit After murdering her he sat in her front room, drank a bottle of whisky (Johnny Walker Red Label was his favourite), listened to Edward Heath talking about the Common Market Referendum on the radio and 'tidied up a bit, filling the sink with crockery and - oddly - shoes, as well as water.' 'She was not a bad soul, and why I killed her I feel I may never know' (xiii) In Mackay's opinion 'a man who has killed cannot really say much more than the basics from his point of view as he remembers' (xiv) |
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| 26 27 28 and 29:Patrick Mackay in a coin-operated photographic booth, shortly before his arrest. | ||
| Although he had few friends (apart from the Cowdreys, a couple in Stockwell who treated Mackay like a son, i.e. they threw him out of their house on a regular basis), Mackay, like Cowper had his share of kindly vicars taking him in. The first of these was Father Antony Crean, who had spent 'some time in Spain during the Civil War'. He befriended Mackay by buying him drinks, and 'for a time their friendship blossomed, and they met regularly, normally in pubs.' Crean was Mackay's first true friend, he was even introduced to Mackay's mother, but Mackay broke into Crean's house and stole his money. Crean contacted the police, he later tried to drop the charges but the prosecution went ahead. Crean attempted to repair the friendship, but when Mackay neglected to pay back the money as ordered the priest took umbrage after all. Mackay also made the acquaintance of an Anglican curate, the Reverend Tom Black '(not his real name but we have agreed to conceal his identity)' (xv) who took Mackay in as a lodger, although he had misgivings about him. After some minor run ins with the law, a court eventually released Mackay into the care of the Reverend Black, although the Reverend was by no means keen on this arrangement. He too lost patience with Mackay, eventually refusing to help him out by paying five pounds bail. Their relationship finally deteriorated in a furious argument. Mackay killed Father Cream (see above), because he was 'very upset and frustrated about how things had turned out', (xvi) but the Reverend Black lived long enough to request anonymity. Mackay trained no hares, but during his calmer days he made models of German WWII planes and horror movie monsters. He usually burned out their eyes (the monsters, not the planes) before putting them 'on display' to anyone who might come into his bedroom. As these two cases show, poets and serial killers are neither interesting nor useful (indeed I can hardly be bothered writing about them). In fact they are irritating, depressing and potentially harmful. They must be stopped.
(i) Popular saying. |
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