'I've dug a few graves in my time. But I have never made a man dig his own grave. There's no need to go that far – it would be plain bad manners.'
Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read grew up hungry for revenge. He ended up cleaning the streets as an underworld standover man and executioner. He was released from Pentridge Prison in 1991 and became a bestselling author with his autobiography Chopper: From the Inside. Chopper's adventures, however, were far from over.
The smart money said that Chopper would be the first to go in any underworld war but the smart money was wrong. He vowed to outlive his enemies and write their epitaphs and he did so, predicting who would be killed long before the assassins' gunswere loaded.
Only Chopper would live to tell the tale, with Last Man Standing the final instalment of his series of morbidly funny and often brutal memoirs. Mark Brandon Read remains one of Australia's most controversial public figures. An ex-convict, author and celebrity, he was also a recording and performance artist. He died after a long battle with liver cancer in 2013.
