Michael McStay

Mike McStay, Mac, as he was known in his school days attended Leyton County High School, Leyton East. His family home was in Chingford. He excelled as an actor in a succession of ambitious productions of the school dramatic society. The school had a long established tradition for drama, thanks to a series of outstanding English masters who took on the role of director of the annual school play. The first of them was David Brown, followed by David Newton, Martial Rose and Basil Brown. Mac's first appearance was in two roles in Hamlet at the school in 1948 followed by Brutus in Julius Caesarin 1949. Later that year he received wider notice in the lead role in Richard of Bordeaux (Gordon Daviot) and a succession of leads followed in a varied selection of plays including Othello, The Government Inspector, Androcles and the Lion and as MacDuff in Macbeth. In the latter he toured with the school drama group under Martial Rose's leadership in West Germany in August 1952. Mac was also a sound goal-keeper for the school's first XI and played inter-school basketball. He was a popular contributor of witty articles to the school magazine, ranging from nonsense poetry to acrid riffs of films and plays. A dominating personality with a strong sense of humor, his clowning did not go down well with everyone. He gained much respect by bravely debating the Chairman of the local Education Committee, Cllr J.J. Walsh, a left-wing figure who wasn't always positive towards the educational system. Mac was interested in sports, jazz, theater, cinema and contemporary literature and was splendid conversationalist. He left Leyton, where he was School Captain in his final year, to go up to Bristol University, having won a scholarship to read English and Drama. And although he appeared in many TV shows in Britain, he's probably best recognized as one of the bandits in the cult classic Robbery directed by Peter Yates.