For most of us, going back to school to sit our final exams as an adult is the stuff of nightmares.
But a man in his 30s willingly did just that, posing as a teenager to rejoin his old sixth form for two years.
Brian MacKinnon re-enrolled at Bearsden Academy in Glasgow in 1993, giving himself a new identity as a Canadian called Brandon Lee and putting on an accent to make his story more plausible.
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Brian was 30 when he rejoined and 32 when he gained five top marks in his Highers, the equivalent of A-levels.
He then went to university but his deception was soon rumbled.
Someone told the education authorities and leaked the story to the press.
Brian’s con made international headlines, with many people stunned he had managed to return to his old school without being recognised or asked for a birth certificate when enrolling.
“I was never trying to recreate my original schooldays,” he later recalled.
“I was popular enough the first time and got very good grades but I didn’t really enjoy my last two years at school.
“Work moved slowly and I had been unable to do one of the subjects I wanted to do. When I went back as Brandon Lee I wasn’t trying to be popular.”
But he didn’t exactly spend his whole time lurking in the shadows.
Instead of only focusing on his studies, he also took part in extra-curricular activities. He was in the football team and even had a starring role in the school production of South Pacific.
The remarkable story of how Brian deceived classmates and teachers is told in a documentary film out today.
Featuring Alan Cumming as Brian, My Old School is directed by Jono McLeod, who was a 16-year-old classmate of the imposter – who he still calls Brandon – back in 1993.
Jono recalled that Brian was a bit of a geek when he first joined class 5C at the academy, but that he quickly rose up the social ladder to become a popular student.
Jono said: “A lot of people in the class have their own take on what ‘Brandon’ did but for the most part they have a fondness for him.
“I know that’s not across the board. The film is not a takedown of him but I don’t agree with all the decisions he made back then.”
But why did Brian, who had first been a pupil at the academy between 1974 and 1980, conduct such an elaborate hoax?
He has explained that he had got good enough grades the first time around to win a place at Glasgow University to study medicine. But while there, he failed his exams twice and was made to leave the course in 1983.
Brian claimed his expulsion had been unfair and that he had been ill at the time which, he said, the university had not taken into account, although it denied any wrongdoing.
After his dad died of cancer, Brian decided to have another go at studying.
He renamed himself Brandon and concocted a tragic back story.
He told teachers his opera singer mum was dead and that his dad sent him to live with his gran in Scotland, before dying himself shortly afterwards.
Brian submitted two references to the school, one from Canada and one from London. They were not checked.
He recalled that the first time he walked back through the school gates was “nerve-wracking”. Brian added: “I was aware of the fact that at any moment a question could arise that I couldn’t answer.
“I might be asked for a birth certificate, but I wasn’t.
“I simply kept my head down, looked shy and boyish and that’s all I could do – and it presented no problems at all.”
Brian said he only met one teacher who had been there when he was at the school the first time around, but the teacher didn’t recognise him. Unsurprisingly, Brian looked older than the other pupils, and was taller than most of them. Despite this, and his grown-up preference for carrying a briefcase rather than a rucksack like his classmates, nobody twigged he was almost twice their age.
When the story came out, many people were alarmed by the fact Brian had been studying and spending time out of school with much younger female pupils – although when he appeared on stage in South Pacific he avoided kissing his 16-year-old love interest in the show.
Brian told classmates his older looks were down to premature ageing, although he was once almost rumbled for telling a friend he remembered the day Elvis Presley died in 1977 – the year he was supposed to have been born.
Brian’s form teacher Gwynneth Lightbody said she originally thought he was an adult student.
She added it was a “big mistake” that nobody asked him for documentation and said: “At that time the school used to have a separate class for adult students doing Highers and I thought he was an adult student, so I said to him ‘If you’d just like to wait outside, I’ll just take this quick registration’, but he replied, ‘I’m in your class’.
“I was slightly taken aback but he came in and did the registration. Then I did my Higher class and during the interval one of the science teachers said to me, ‘Have you got that man in your class?’.
“I said ‘yes’ and we were both surprised.
“But he was an excellent student, always sitting in the front of class.
“Sometimes overseas students mature quicker than British students and I just assumed this was the case with Brandon, him being apparently from Canada.”
With a genius IQ of 161, Brian sailed through his Highers, getting five A grades. He was then accepted at Dundee University to study medicine.
But in 1995 he was kicked off the course once his fraudulent activities came to light.
Jono says he interviewed Brian for the documentary and that Alan Cumming, 57, lip-syncs the words because Brian didn’t want to be filmed.
But Brian, who is in his late-50s and reportedly lives as a recluse in a Glasgow tenement, has a different version of events.
He claims he was approached by Jono at a cafe, but declined the invitation to take part in an interview. “I have had nothing to do with this film and I have zero interest in ever wanting to watch any of it,” Brian said earlier this year.
“I have never given an interview with Jono McLeod.
“I don’t recall even being at school with him the second time around.”
Jono has said he didn’t know “Brandon” well at school, partly because he was from a different area of Glasgow.
He added: “He’s much cleverer than me. He was in the science classes. I was in English class, in history class and stuff that he didn’t do. So that was why our paths didn’t really cross.”
The film also features commentary from other Bearsden Academy pupils from the time, as well as teachers. But Brian said that if any of the teachers claimed to recognise him, they were not being truthful.
“They may go on to say they did in this documentary, but they didn’t,” he said.
“Of course they didn’t. When I set out to do something, I do it well.
“It was the same with medicine.
“I was a good student and I was doing very, very well.”
When the story broke in 1995, Brian reportedly turned down a six-figure book deal to tell his side of the story – but then self-published an autobiography two years later.
Now, he prefers to avoid talking about his second school time, saying: “I did what I did. That was then, this is now. I kept my head down and got on with it.”
My Old School is showing in selected cinemas from August 19
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