F E AT U R E
Drawing
on his Past
Renowned artist and straight-talking Teessider Mackenzie
Thorpe talks for the first time about his battle with cancer
WOR D S: DAV E A L L A N
PI C TU R E S: M A RT I N WA L K E R
M
“That’s the way I got through it. I knew about Alastair
ackenzie Thorpe knows he is a lucky man.
and what had happened to him and found myself in the
He counts himself as fortunate to have
same position, but I accepted it. There’s a big chance
been born and raised in Middlesbrough.
you’re going to die but I just said ‘Let’s crack on’. It’s not
He says he is lucky to have a talent that
death I worry about, it’s the people I’d leave behind.”
allows him to make a good living as an artist. But he’s
Now, having undergone gruelling months of
never had reason to feel quite so lucky as he does now,
chemotherapy, he has received the news that allows him
having won a battle with bowel cancer that could so
to look forward once again.
easily have taken his life.
“I got the all-clear on the
He was diagnosed with “the
fourth of September, and, on the
Big C” in April 2015, suffering
fifth I went to Japan. I had a tour
from the same horrible illness
out there but my surgeon had
that would later claim the life of
told me I couldn’t go anywhere
another iconic Teesside figure,
until I’d recovered.”
Voice of the Boro Alastair
And has the experience
Brownlee.
changed his perspective on life?
Outspoken and ebullient on
“I’ve decided to move on in
most issues, Mackenzie has never
– MACKENZIE THORPE
life,” he reflects. “I don’t care
previously spoken about his battle
about things that used to bother
with cancer but now, having been
me. It’s also developed me as an
given the all-clear in September, he
artist. I now understand the trauma of cancer and can
feels ready to talk.
put that down on paper when I draw.”
“I’ve been very lucky,” he nods. “I’d had the pain for
Mackenzie left his Middlesbrough hometown for
months, and it got worse and worse and worse. I only
London four decades ago but the Teesside that the
went to the doctor’s because I couldn’t take the pain and
canvas superstar remembers continues to inspire every
my wife Susan had nagged me enough. I‘d been burying
brushstroke of his work. Not just the images of dark,
my head in the sand.
harsh industrial landscapes he recalls from his childhood
“I went to the doctor on the Thursday, he examined
and the gruelling spells toiling in the shipyards and steel
me and said ‘Right, you’re going to hospital for tests
plants, but in the hard-working community that forged
right now’ and they’ll be operating tomorrow. It was an
his own strong work ethic.
emergency operation. It was very serious.
Mackenzie’s ever-increasing back-catalogue has
“I had the operation on Friday. Four days later I signed
become highly collectable around the world but it is
myself out of hospital early. I had 60-odd clips in my
most instantly recognisable to Teessiders: street scenes
belly but I was on morphine and I just said ‘I’m out of
set against cooling towers, hard labour lit by the glow of
here, I’m going to work’. I went home, I rested for a few
the furnaces, a long-lost Ayresome Park and his beloved
days and on the Monday I went back to work in my
Transporter Bridge.
studio.
“I accepted it. There’s
a big chance you’re
going to die but I just
said ‘Let’s crack on,”
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