The Famous Faces of Clan Mackay

Australian rower Mike McKay is a four-time world champion, four-time Olympic medallist, and a Commonwealth Games gold medal winner. He was a member of the Oarsome Foursome from 1990 to 1998, who a coxless four crew who won multiple medals from 1990 to 2012. He won Olympic gold at the Barcelona 1992 and the Atlanta 1996 summer games, silver at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and bronze at the 2004 Athens games. He was awarded the Order of Australia in 1993 and inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2007.

Born in 1889 in Jamaica, Festus Claudius “Claude” McKay went on to become a prominent writer and poet who was a key member of the Harlem Renaissance, a revival of African American art and literature in the 1920s, which was centred in the Harlem neighbourhood of Manhattan. He was the author of five novels including Home to Harlem (1928), which was a best-seller and the recipient of the esteemed Harmon Gold Award for Literature. McKay was awarded the Order of Jamaica in 1977 for his services to literature.

Lady Elsie Mackay, born in around 1893 in Simla, India, was an actress (under her stage name Poppy Wyndham), interior decorator and pioneering aviator. She gained her pilot’s licence at the De Havilland Flying School in 1923, and was one of the first women in the UK to get her Royal Aero Club pilot’s licence. She purchased a Stinson Detroiter plane with the intention of becoming the first woman to fly over the Atlantic Ocean. She took off from RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire at 8.35am on 13th March 1928, along with Captain Walter G R Hinchcliffe. Both lost their lives when the plane went down at some point on their journey, although it’s not known where or when.

Heather Pamela McKay is a retired squash player, thought by many to be best female squash player ever. She was born in Queanbeyan, Australia, in 1941, and was highly prominent in the squash world during the 1960s and 1970s. She lost just two matches during the entirety of her career (one in 1960 to Yvonne West, and the other in 1962, losing to Fran Marshall). Between 1962 and 1977, McKay won 16 consecutive British Open titles, and she won the first-ever women’s World Open title in 1976.

Every day, the One O’Clock Gun is fired from Edinburgh Castle at precisely 1pm, and Staff Sargeant Thomas McKay MBE was responsible for firing it from 1979 until 2005, making him the longest-serving holder of the post. This role meant he was also known as Tam the Gun. He was awarded the MBE by the Queen in 1999 for his services to the Territorial Army.

Andrew Mackay, born in Cornwall in 1946, is a musician. He’s best known as one of the founding members of Roxy Music in 1970 after he answered an advert from Bryan Ferry in Melody Maker magazine. He played oboe and saxophone in the band as well as writing songs including some of their biggest hits, “Love is the Drug” and “Angel Eyes”.

One of New Zealand’s most famous food writers, Katrine Mackay was best-known for her social columns and the bestselling book, Practical Home Cookery Chats and Recipes which was published in 1929. She the first female journalist on the staff of the Auckland Weekly News and later worked for The New Zealand Times as the “lady editor”.

American director and comedian Adam McKay is responsible for directing some of Will Ferrell’s best-known films. He is the director of Anchorman and its sequel Anchorman 2, as well as Talladega Nights, Step Brothers and The Other Guys, all of he co-wrote with Will Ferrell, and which star Ferrell as the lead actor. McKay was also the head writer for Saturday Night Live for two seasons, and is the co-founder of the improv and sketch comedy group Upright Citizens Brigade. The Big Short was the first film he directed without Will Ferrell, and he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. His 2018 film Vice, a biopic of former US Vice President Dick Cheney was also nominated for Best Director at the Academy Awards.