Mackenzie Thorpe For the thrill of it

Mackenzie Thorpe lived a life of real freedom by making his passion his profession, writes Julian Schmechel

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire/ I served my master truly for nearly seven odd year/ Till I took up to poaching, as you shall quickly hear/ Oh, ’tis my delight on a shining night in the season of the year.”

So goes the famous folk song The Lincolnshire Poacher, for this county has produced its share of such men, none more famous than Mackenzie (Kenzie) Thorpe of Sutton Bridge.

Born of Romany stock in 1908, Mackenzie Thorpe demonstrated the instincts of a hunter from an early age. His father told a story about Kenzie once being lost, only to be discovered safe and well down a rabbit hole.

School held little attraction. Truanting often, he was drawn to the woods and fields around Sutton Bridge and Long Sutton. Kenzie’s schoolroom was the flat open fenland close by The Wash, where he learned the habits of grey partridge, pheasant, plover and curlew. This rich farmland, with its spider’s web of droves, dykes and drains, was the crucible that formed one of England’s greatest poachers. With formal education at an end by the age of 12, Kenzie went to work on local farms; the perfect occupation for a lad with a desire to poach.

Temptation

The early 1900s was an innocent age, one where firearm security was almost unheard of. Rural shotguns were left propped up in barns or kept on shelves in unlocked tool sheds, often right next to a box of Eley cartridges. Such temptation was more than young Kenzie could resist. He pinched a shotgun from a local farmer’s shed and set about his gunning career, although, as Kenzie put it, the gun was “as full of rust as hell is full of devils”. Undeterred by the condition of the weapon, he set out into the nocturnal countryside in search of game.

Pheasants, woodpigeons and even rooks were shot from their roosts, with the birds all finding their way to his mother’s kitchen. The stolen gun was carefully hidden away in a tumbledown pigsty.

When Kenzie’s father asked how he had come by the birds, he said he had killed them with a stick. When Thorpe senior bit down on a piece of lead shot while eating one of the pheasants, he commented that it must have been a damned funny stick.

Undeterred

Kenzie’s possession of this particular gun was short-lived as its owner reported its theft to the police. They were asking difficult questions. Growing nervous, Kenzie took the gun to the River Nene and threw it in.

Undeterred, young Mackenzie soon purchased his own legal shotgun in the form of a single-barrelled hammer .410. Too small for formal game shooting or wildfowling, it was ideal for a pot hunter. When used on a windy night, the gun’s report was hardly discernible and unlikely to wake sleeping gamekeepers.

The spur that drove most men into poaching was poverty or want of food. Some have poached for the little money they made from selling game, but a few have poached for the sheer thrill of it. Mackenzie was one of the latter, for he simply loved the sport. As time went on, Kenzie added a 12-bore to his armoury and learned to call hares expertly, as had his Romany ancestors. By sucking and blowing with pursed lips against the back of his hand, Kenzie could draw hares across a field of winter wheat as though bewitched. On one occasion, he called and shot 18 hares from the same position on a fenland drain. All were destined for the kitchen or the game dealer.

Kenzie was a talented runner, an attribute much employed when escaping keepers and county constabulary. As with many gypsy men, he was also a skilled boxer and became middleweight boxing champion of Lincolnshire.

Kenzie began to take the pursuit of wildfowl seriously, for the saltings of The Wash were black with duck during the winter, and shooting below the high-water mark was available to all. The fields around Holbeach and Terrington were also frequented by good numbers of geese. The fact he didn’t have permission to shoot there was not going to stand in Kenzie’s

way. The marginal

Below: fields along the sea wall were alive with pheasants and hares. Kenzie, his friends and brothers would walk them up and drive them, as if on a formal shoot. Mass poaching, in other words.

On one occasion, part way through a successful drive, Kenzie noticed gamekeepers hurrying towards him. Alerting his companions, they turned, shouldered weighty game bags, and made their way with speed toward a deep tidal creek. Kenzie knew that this artery could only be crossed by way of an old punt fixed to a rope-and-pulley system. With the keepers bearing down on them, the party pulled themselves across to the other side, where on Kenzie shot two holes through the bottom of the punt, ensuring that they could

“He could draw hares across a field of winter wheat as though bewitched”

not be followed. Oaths were shouted from the far bank, but the incorrigible poacher cared not, as he calmly started to walk-up the cover on his side of the creek.

This is not to infer that Kenzie was never apprehended, for he was on many occasions. Clerks at Holbeach magistrates court knew Thorpe by sight, and many were the fines he paid and guns he had confiscated. He only received one prison sentence, however, and this was an experience that affected him deeply.

Despite his boxing prowess,

Kenzie was not one to resort to violence ordinarily, but one foggy morning in December 1945, he did just that. While out poaching pheasants with a partner in crime, two men approached and demanded to know what they were doing. One identified himself as gamekeeper Sellers, who informed Kenzie that he was going to report him for poaching. With this Kenzie unloaded and put down his gun, and then struck the keeper three straight lefts, leaving him unconscious. He then fled.

Arrest swiftly followed, as did a court case, with Kenzie found guilty of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to three months imprisonment in Lincoln gaol. This was a thing of dread for a man used to wide, open Fenland skies and black soil beneath his boots. As he lay in his cell, Kenzie imagined the call of the geese on The Wash, and once, two whooper swans flew low over the prison yard, causing Kenzie to shout and dance with joy.

Sentence served, the old poacher returned to his former haunts and habits, but also began to operate with success as a wildfowling guide. So great was his fame in this field that Kenzie guided many well-known names, including Sir Peter Scott and actor James Robertson Justice. A man of many talents, Kenzie also took up the painting of wildfowl and marshland scenes. He even received a visit from The Prince of Wales. Poacher, artist and professional guide, Mackenzie Thorpe was that rare thing; a man who knew real freedom and who made his passion his profession.

A man of many talents, Mackenzie Thorpe took up painting and his accomplishments as artist (and poacher) were recognised by royalty

A portrait of Kenzie, often fondly referred to as Kenzie, the wild goose man