Dear all,
Thanks so much to everyone here for the help in shedding more light on this mystery. Apologies for the long delay in getting back; I have had quite a lot of work at uni at the moment so slightly paused researching. A few concluding thoughts:
- It does absolutely seem like the man who died in '56 is our man. I shall definitely buy the probate record and compare signatures, which would hopefully verify this
- I wonder where the whole SA thread might have come from; my suspicion is this was something told as a 'cover story' for what seems to be an unofficial divorce and cohabitation arrangement between our man and Genene, who seems never to have divorced William Buckley and chaned her name. Maybe the Dutch surname played a role here too
-Anyone got any suggestions as to where I could go further with this; would there be anywhere i could look to trace his journalistic career?
-I will compile everything here to send to my godfather, for whom I am doing this research (EG Mackenzie was his grandfather)
Once again, warmest thanks for helping me out with this  

FG