them decided to leave the extensive grounds of the old public school and return to their previous lives.
With varying degrees of success, most of them managed to do so. Even before the humiliations still to come, there was much anger to learn how to manage and to this end some sought professional therapy.
Most of those who had chosen to remain in the compound eventually left when, on 2 January in the year 2000, the world inexplicably failed to end.
The departure of the final few dozen acolytes made the final item on that evening’s news.
The scattering of the faithful left the grounds accompanied by the clicking of cameras and the flashing of bulbs and the bellowed questions of jubilant reporters.
Henry Lincoln, humiliated, wore a knitted ski mask over his face to hide his shame from the congregated lenses.
At the end of January 2000, a BBC television news reporter received in the post what claimed to be a letter from Rex Dryden, of whom there had been no trace since he vanished at Christmas.
In the interim, Dryden had become a byword for the comical medievalism which was discerned to have infected the popular mind in the run-up to what proved to be a rather unexceptional New Year’s Eve and the beginning of a third millennium which so far was largely indistinguishable from the second. This was exactly as those who were in a position to know assured us they had always known it would be.
Since the note was handwritten, its authenticity was easily corroborated. It requested that on 24 February a specific BBC Television news reporter, accompanied by two cameramen and a single sound technician, should set up their equipment in a suite in the Edinburgh Waverly hotel. The suite had been booked in the name of Singh and their arrival was expected.
When the news crew had done as requested, there was a twenty-minute wait before Dryden entered the room. He was accompanied by a handsome, aquiline Sikh in grey three-piece and good brogues.
As they prepared him for interview, clipping a small microphone to his lapel and feeding the cable under his jacket, Dryden appeared sprightly and undiminished. He addressed the representatives of the BBC as ‘gentlemen’.
He became serious only when the cameras were running, adopting a severe facial cast. He and Singh sat alongside one another in formal chairs, against a neutral screen that had been brought along for the occasion by the BBC.
Off camera, the reporter’s voice: ‘Mr Dryden, I believe you wish to make a statement.’
‘I do.’ Looking briefly to his companion: ‘The gentleman to my left is Ranbir Singh. Mr Singh has been my friend and solicitor for nearly twenty years. Mr Singh will read my statement.’
Singh removed from his pocket and unfolded what appeared to be a legal document on creamy yellow A4. His voice was clipped and somewhat officious.
‘I read from a statement dictated and signed in the presence of witnesses by Rex Dryden on 25 February 1994. The statement reads as follows:
“I, Rex Dryden, previously known as David Kubler, wish to make the following statement.
“Two days ago, on 23 February 1994, I witnessed on the BBC Television news the conflagration at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, which killed David Koresh and an as yet unconfirmed number of his disciples.
“As an artist, I am outraged and inspired by these events and hereby announce my intention to use them as the framework on which I will create the greatest conceptual artwork of the late twentieth century.
“The piece will be called Illumination. It will consist of my appropriation of a messianic identity. The work will commence without financial capital or a cohesive, original theology. Using only borrowed materials, the work will culminate on or around Christmas Day, 1999, when I will encourage what followers I have gathered voluntarily to kill themselves in the name of the lies I have told them.
“Assuming the brand continues to exist on the date specified, the
With varying degrees of success, most of them managed to do so. Even before the humiliations still to come, there was much anger to learn how to manage and to this end some sought professional therapy.
Most of those who had chosen to remain in the compound eventually left when, on 2 January in the year 2000, the world inexplicably failed to end.
The departure of the final few dozen acolytes made the final item on that evening’s news.
The scattering of the faithful left the grounds accompanied by the clicking of cameras and the flashing of bulbs and the bellowed questions of jubilant reporters.
Henry Lincoln, humiliated, wore a knitted ski mask over his face to hide his shame from the congregated lenses.
At the end of January 2000, a BBC television news reporter received in the post what claimed to be a letter from Rex Dryden, of whom there had been no trace since he vanished at Christmas.
In the interim, Dryden had become a byword for the comical medievalism which was discerned to have infected the popular mind in the run-up to what proved to be a rather unexceptional New Year’s Eve and the beginning of a third millennium which so far was largely indistinguishable from the second. This was exactly as those who were in a position to know assured us they had always known it would be.
Since the note was handwritten, its authenticity was easily corroborated. It requested that on 24 February a specific BBC Television news reporter, accompanied by two cameramen and a single sound technician, should set up their equipment in a suite in the Edinburgh Waverly hotel. The suite had been booked in the name of Singh and their arrival was expected.
When the news crew had done as requested, there was a twenty-minute wait before Dryden entered the room. He was accompanied by a handsome, aquiline Sikh in grey three-piece and good brogues.
As they prepared him for interview, clipping a small microphone to his lapel and feeding the cable under his jacket, Dryden appeared sprightly and undiminished. He addressed the representatives of the BBC as ‘gentlemen’.
He became serious only when the cameras were running, adopting a severe facial cast. He and Singh sat alongside one another in formal chairs, against a neutral screen that had been brought along for the occasion by the BBC.
Off camera, the reporter’s voice: ‘Mr Dryden, I believe you wish to make a statement.’
‘I do.’ Looking briefly to his companion: ‘The gentleman to my left is Ranbir Singh. Mr Singh has been my friend and solicitor for nearly twenty years. Mr Singh will read my statement.’
Singh removed from his pocket and unfolded what appeared to be a legal document on creamy yellow A4. His voice was clipped and somewhat officious.
‘I read from a statement dictated and signed in the presence of witnesses by Rex Dryden on 25 February 1994. The statement reads as follows:
“I, Rex Dryden, previously known as David Kubler, wish to make the following statement.
“Two days ago, on 23 February 1994, I witnessed on the BBC Television news the conflagration at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, which killed David Koresh and an as yet unconfirmed number of his disciples.
“As an artist, I am outraged and inspired by these events and hereby announce my intention to use them as the framework on which I will create the greatest conceptual artwork of the late twentieth century.
“The piece will be called Illumination. It will consist of my appropriation of a messianic identity. The work will commence without financial capital or a cohesive, original theology. Using only borrowed materials, the work will culminate on or around Christmas Day, 1999, when I will encourage what followers I have gathered voluntarily to kill themselves in the name of the lies I have told them.
“Assuming the brand continues to exist on the date specified, the
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