MAD VET REMEMBERED

Trev Edwards

On 22 August 2006 the world ASL community lost one of its brethren. Iain Gordon McKay died aged 44 and left two children aged 7 and 13. There are a lot of his friends who will never forget him.

Iain was a fiercely proud Australian, he knew his bloodline right back to before his family arrived in Oz, but found love and a career as a veterinarian here in the UK. Aside from his ASL, he was a keen musician (he was an accomplished clarinet player and had a great singing voice) which he used to the full in his life in the church community and amateur dramatic musicals.

To my dismay I can't recall my first meeting with "The Mad Vet", as he always liked to be known. It seems he was there from the moment I joined the wider British scene after the first INTENSIVE FIRE all those years ago. I can't recall him not being there. Iain's having settled in the NW of England meant we were able to see each other every few months over the past few years. I'll never forget him showing me around his house in Cheshire:

"It's got two dunnys!" he proudly announced.

His ASL playing style was at once laid back but the result of intense concentration on the task at hand. He never overlooked an opportunity to try something even if he was unsure about the particular rule. Playing him made me a better player for sure. However playing the Vet wasn't like playing anyone else, even amongst a community which is generally a friendly bunch. He was such a decent, funny and apparently cheerful fellow that any chance to play him was seized upon.

Since being asked by your editor to write this obituary I've tried to remember specific instances of his bonhomie and the one that springs to mind was the spontaneous rendition of the Soviet National Anthem while sitting around a Red Barricades scenario in the basement of the Kiwi Hotel at INTENSIVE FIRE one year. I was humming it under my breath but Iain picked it up and belted it out with his powerful voice. Of course his fluency in Russian meant he was also singing the words. Brought whole the room to a halt, what a moment.

Iain used to have the perfect response to my lame puns that wind their way across the table - he'd roll an NMC for himself and a Wound roll if he failed. He referred to most of the modules with the word "budgie" substituted (Pegasus Budgie, Red Budgiecages, Kampfgruppe Budgie and so on).

I had known Iain wasn't well with depression for some years. He had some sort of depression caused by a chemical imbalance in the hormones of the brain. Behind the cheerful exterior there was a man in a sort of pain most of us will never know. I had hoped he was over the worst of it and, after he had survived a winter in his cottage in North Wales, where he was plying his trade, I never thought he was going to self harm again. The last game I played with him was in the late spring in Llanrwst, it was 'OA8 A Parting Blow'. I got a jolly card from him in Perth in Oz in the summer and looked forward to our next meeting when he'd tell me what his daughters thought of the place. Within a month of his writing the card, Iain succumbed to that bastard illness and ended his own life.

Even in the depths of his illness ASL remained a passion, perhaps second only to his family. I was asked to sell Iain's ASL gear, which I did on eBay in February. As Shaun and I catalogued it, we found pictures of his girls stuck inside the rulebook. A hard thing to cope with.

Aside from a sense of loss that I know I share with anyone else who knew him, Iain's friendships has enhanced my love of the game and of the players. I'm never going to be able to play the game without some event reminding me of him. You'll only have to mention his name at a British ASL event and someone will have a story that will make us smile. In the meantime, the next time you do get to play someone, especially a good friend, pause and relish the passing moment because you never know.