“This book is a story of success, of the triumph of man over a wilderness; of the triumph of science over disease; of the conversion of a Valley of Death into a paradise. It tells of the shaping of one of the cornerstones of South Africa from a stone which the earlier builders not only rejected, but found an almost insurmountable obstacle. It tells of men and women of all races, principally Boer, Briton and Hollander, toiling against great odds, some for sheer love of adventure, some for wealth or personal advantage, some with a true desire for the common weal; of some who came and shortly went their ways elsewhere; of many who closed their lives here in a twilight of apparently hopeless failure; of some few who lived through the later stages of travail and of hardship to see at last, ‘The stubborn thistle bursting into glossy purples, richer than the most voluptuous garden roses’. Each and all of these men and women of the past did their bit, great or small, consciously or unconsciously, with objects of self or of the common good, towards the shaping of the Stone, but the Great Architect could and did combine those individual efforts to the shaping of the things to come; none could foresee how great would be the eventual victory over the inimical forces of Nature, how great would be the use to which future generations would put the generous gifts of Nature in this Region of ours[: the Lowveld].”—H.S. Webb, first president of the Lowveld Regional Development Association, in his preface to The South-Eastern Transvaal Lowveld published in 1954.

‘Mzee’ is the Swahili word for an ‘old timer’, a respected elder. Mzee Ali Kalikilima was born near the present-day town of Tabora in western Tanzania, probably in the 1870s—there is mention of ‘The Doctor’, Dr David Livingstone—to black Muslim parents of noble birth. Aged 14, Ali led his first slaving safari to the shores of Lake Tanganyika and thence, with his caravan of captured slaves and ivory, through the malaria-, tsetse fly- and lion-infested wilds, to the Arab markets of Dar es Salaam, some 1,200 kilometres away on the Indian Ocean. With the arrival of the German colonizers, Ali joined the German East African forces as an askari. He worked on the railway line that was being laid from Dar es Salaam to Dodoma and finally to Mwanza on the shores of Lake Victoria—a monumental feat. With the outbreak of the First World War, he found himself attached to the forces of the legendary German commander, General von Lettow-Vorbeck. He saw action at the Battle of Salaita Hill near Mombasa and was with the General to the end, fighting a guerrilla campaign through southern Tanganyika, Portuguese East Africa, Nyasaland, Northern Rhodesia and to final surrender. After the war, he joined the British Colonial Service as a game scout.

The past is brought to life in this historical epic about a South African family whose lives collided with the biggest event in history: the First World War. The central theme is the largely forgotten East Africa campaign, but by definition a world war has a wide reach. Five members of one family with deep roots in all four corners of the country, served in three different theatres of war. Their lives on active service are all interwoven and inseparable from the home front. Global events are juxtaposed with everyday life on a farm in the eastern Orange Free State. Appropriately, the author constructs linkages that span generations, uncovering individual experiences of an earlier conflict which had engulfed South Africa barely a decade before the eruption of the 1914–18 war. As the sons of early pioneers, this generation witnessed history in the making before writing their own. Riding into action on horseback or in a flying machine, their paths led from the South West African desert, through disease-infested jungles in East Africa to some of the great battles on the Western Front. Only one of the five came home unscathed although he crash-landed his aircraft behind enemy lines and only made it back through his audacity and brute strength. Another, an intellectual priest, was left for dead at Delville Wood, and his brother was wounded on Messines Ridge. The remaining two suffered from debilitating tropical illnesses. Hazard and hardship lingered on in the form of Spanish influenza, mining strikes and the Great Depression. The war cast a long shadow. Between them, these consciously literate men left substantial documentary legacies. Using extracts of their letters from the front, the story is to a large extent told in the words of those who were there. Context is provided by referencing existing literature, unpublished memoirs and archival material. It could be called a military history or a social history, but it is a truly South African story which contains much new material for historians, while for the general reader it offers an accessible insight into an unparalleled period of history.

Why does the zebra have stripes and the elephant a long trunk? How did the giraffe acquire a long neck and why does a hippopotamus lie in muddy water all day? How does an acacia tree kill grazing wild? Do wild animals speak to each other and do they have feelings?In The Greatest Safari, the reader is taken on an African adventure and told stories about the feelings, senses and communication of the savannah’s many inhabitants. From sausage trees, cycads, termites and ants to lions, hyenas, bats and gorillas.This book deals with the mechanisms that propelled life. We humans have acquired the facility of feeling we are something special, and thus also the feeling that we constitute an evolutionary zenith. In contradiction to this, nature is indifferent and within its boundaries there is only one criterion for success, namely survival. What the brain can produce in terms of poetry and nuclear physics is beneath notice compared with the ability to survive. If we accept the prehistoric people Homo habilis and Homo erectus as the first human beings on Earth, bacteria are still thousands of times older and are currently the most successful organism.

This is the story of the 1820 Settler, Jeremiah Goldswain, in his own words. After thirty-eight years on the eastern boundary of the Cape Colony, he sat down to write his memoirs. It is a close-up view of four decades during a period when the British Empire was expanding in southern Africa, with the borders being pushed ever farther into the hinterland by successive governors. As a result, there was constant conflict between the African tribes and the colonists. Jeremiah was directly involved in three of the nine Frontier Wars that occurred between 1779 and 1879. It is the story of hardship and the struggle for survival of Jeremiah and his family—his wife Eliza and their ten children—on one of the most volatile borders the world has ever seen. Even in peacetime the conflict and violent clash of cultures were constantly present and many settlers were murdered, including members of Jeremiah’s family. Through all this we see a man making his way in a world he could not have imagined while growing up in rural Buckinghamshire. He lived during an important historical time for South Africa, not only observing and fighting the wars, but meeting and serving with some of the most famous names in South African history. He saw, in detail, the effects of the Cattle Killing of 1856, the Boer uprising in the Orange River Sovereignty, as well as several other famous and notorious historical events. The text has been published once only— by the van Riebeeck Society in 1949—and since then has been used by scholars and historians as a primary source. It has not been widely read, because Jeremiah had no education, and although he had an extraordinary ability to describe experience and express his emotions, he was a stranger to the conventions of written language. Now Ralph Goldswain has transcribed the original text into an accessible account of forty years of frontier history.

This is the true story of Irving Tucker, who married an English girl, Yvonne, and left South Africa in 1976 to farm sheep on the Welsh border, growing their own organic vegetables and living a healthy life style. They returned to South Africa every year on holiday. The couple was childlessThe book deals with Irving’s complex personality and his love of practical jokes, and traces the relationship between him and the writer over the period 1961–2011. The death of Yvonne in 2010 is the primary reason why Irving announces to his friends that he is going to kill himself; this despite the fact that he is healthy, relatively young and has recently sold a piece of art for over £1 million. For two years following Yvonne’s death, his friends attempt to dissuade him from committing suicide, never sure whether it is a cry for help, an attempt to get attention, another practical joke or a serious threat. He sponsors an elephant-collaring in the bush and invites a group of friends to join him for this last African adventure. Around the campfire at night, he and his friends openly discuss his plans. The polarized reactions of Tucker’s confidants range from vehement denial to vehement support, as he advises them that his suicide date is rapidly approaching. In January 2011 he returns home to England, his deadline the end of February. Irving Tucker is a complex character with great attributes and glaring faults. This is a story of love, friendship and caring, of laughter, fun, sadness and tragedy. It is the story of a man determined to leave this world at a time of his choosing.

The benefit of teaching life skills is that I also changed. If I can make a difference in the life of just one child, I will be happy’ When we think about Africa, we often recall pictures of a wild countryside, rivers, forests, deserts, buzzing markets and media stories of poverty, devastation and hunger – a prime continent where branches of human justice are still thin and often absent. Those of us who have made Africa our destination are witness to a different experience as we meet people who charter a life of resilience and construct a social world of their own. Extended family ties stretch far and deep and so do family feuds, political turmoil and the many manifestations of poverty – painting a human canvas on which development programmes (including sport-for-development) need to blend in strokes for reciprocal change. The GIZ/YDF programme is possibly one of the most significant programmes in terms of philosophy, methodology and scope that sheds light on development work as it is embraced, transformed and assimilated into real-life experiences. It is at this embedded level of social uptake that the selected 15 stories in the text and the detailed 45 stories on the CD articulate real-life experiences as told by programme participants, peer- educators and YDF partners who took up the responsibility and challenge to change lives for the better. Multiple voices give an expression to the meaning and dynamics of sports-related interventions as they affect individuals within a myriad of social relationships and contexts. The uniqueness of this publication is that it not only captures all these voices to constitute stories from nine African countries, but validates a ripple of impact where context is a prism for seeing and knowing. How do real people see and benefit from a sport-for-development programme? How does the North meet the South in partnership and trust? After reading these stories, you will not merely see young boys or girls kicking a ball and appreciate the novel aesthetics, but you will smell the dust and know it is a family and community at play. You will realise that aspirations and expectations are born from a need for entitlement in a field where the pitch is only the beginning of a journey. May this brief encounter do justice to all who shared their lives with such honesty and hope.

Ronnie Selley, a South African from rural Natal, joined the RAF on a short-service commission in 1937, considered the Golden Age of aviation. During these glory years of Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart few guessed at the brewing storm and dark days to come. After completing his training on antiquated First World War aircraft, Selley was posted to 220 Squadron Coastal Command, the RAF’s under-staffed and under-equipped poor relation to the more prestigious Fighter and Bomber Commands. Tasked with reconnaissance, convoy patrols and submarine-hunting the pilots of Coastal Command chalked up more flying hours than any other RAF Command. It was not uncommon for pilots to be in the air, searching the waters of the North Atlantic, for up to sixteen hours a day, in aircraft that were neither capable of such ranges nor, initially, adequately armed to defend their charges. From the outbreak of war until after its cessation Coastal Command had aircraft in the air twenty-four hours a day, every single day. The toll this took on the men of Coastal Command was unthinkable. The first RAF pilot to sink a German U-boat, Selley went on the win the DFC for his actions during the Dunkirk evacuation. He won high praise and newspaper headlines such as “Plane fights 13 German warships”, “One RAF man bombs 3 ships, routs Nazis” and “One against eight” were not uncommon. Selley subsequently suffered acute battle fatigue and spent time convalescing at the Dunblane Hydro. Thereafter, he was posted by the Air Ministry as Air Vice-Marshal Breese’s personal pilot. On 5 March 1941 Ronnie Selley, Air Vice-Marshal Breese and the entire crew of the fully armed Lockheed Hudson they was flying experienced engine problems, lost speed, stalled and exploded on impact at Wick in northern Scotland.

Battles of the Anglo-Boer War series provides an accessible guide to some of the major campaigns, battles and battlefields of this historic conflict in KwaZulu-Natal. The books are written for the general reader as well as for historians seeking fresh insights into the events leading up to, during and after the battles. The text is supported by contemporary accounts and photographs, some of which have never previously been published. Maps show in detail the routes and dispositions of the opposing forces for each battle.With Ladysmith weakening daily, Buller made a third attempt to relieve the beleaguered town. Inspired by his optimism, the British soldiers made an unusually feint attack on the weakly held Boer position. Although achieving partial success, Buller failed to capitalise on it and ultimately abandoned Vaalkrans.

"Gold mined at Tati was identified with the dynasty of the Queen of Sheba and the ancient rulers of biblical Ophir. David’s book records how this notion, mentioned in Milton’s Paradise Lost, was discarded as being romantic fiction. But romance there is here a-plenty. ” —John Gordon Davis, best-selling author of Hold My Hand I’m Dying.The concession to mine gold at Tati was granted to a British baronet, Sir John Swinburne, by Lobengula, last king of the Matabele. Although called by colonial imperialists as a “savage king” and a “native despot”, Lobengula was “exceedingly well-made (in height about 6 ft 10 inches), corpulent, with a commanding presence and, when in a good temper, having a kind heart and a full appreciation of humour”. The gold at Tati, which was discovered by the geologist Carl Mauch, was actually on the site of pre-historic diggings that had been mined there 400 years previously by the Makalanga people. Tati lay on the missionary road to the north, used by Livingstone and Moffat, and it was part of Cecil Rhodes’s dream of a continuous tract of British imperialism from Cape to Cairo. The annexation of Bechuanaland was a direct result of the conflicts between the tribes within the area and the threats from President Kruger and from Germany which had recently colonised Angra Pequena. Gold from the early diggings here found its way to Great Zimbabwe and the famous golden rhinocerous from Mapungubwe was probably fashioned from gold mined at Tati. This forgotten corner of the sub-continent encapsulates a chapter of our history involving five countries, powerful men, much subterfuge, a botched invasion, a rebellion, land annexation, prospectors, hunters, traders and adventurers. It is a story begging to be told. her historical projects.

Using archival sources and private documents recently unearthed, Come Back to Portofino chronicles the journey taken by volunteers in the 6th South African Armoured Division. From training camps in Egypt through to the blissful summer of 1945 the ‘Div’ left its mark on towns and villages across Italy. From Monte Cassino to the outskirts of Venice and the River Po, the campaign lasted exactly twelve months. During the advance through Rome up to Florence, it was a case of constant movement and violent contact with the enemy. Experiences which left an enduring impression on returned soldiers included the periods of rest at Siena and Lucca as well as the four miserable winter months in the northern Apennines. Overall, the casualty rate was surprisingly low considering the ideal ambush country and mountain defences which had to be overcome. In the rifle companies however, the rate of attrition was high and replacements were few. Among the South Africans who are buried in Italy, there are those who died in vehicle accidents, from drowning and falling out of windows or from suicide. For the ordinary soldier the most important part of everyday life was contact with home or foraging for food and wine, and even enjoying the company of signorine when operations permitted. Nevertheless, it was not one long happy camping trip as was often portrayed in the press. The cast is made up of the famous regiments and ordinary South Africans who participated in these epic events. About the AuthorJames Bourhill is a property valuer but his passion has always been history and travel. Currently these two interests are combined in his research for a D.Phil in history.

This pictorial is a compilation of images obtained by the author while working on his first book, an oral history of pre-1994 South African Defence Force national service. It was illegal to take photos; however, there were inevitably those conscripts who ignored the rules, aiming their cheap, disposable cameras at whatever they could, but usually among comrades or when it was considered safe to do so. Inevitably certain images are poor in quality, often blurred and off-centre, but that is the reality; hastily-taken amateur snapshots. Even so, many are remarkably clear, serving to illustrate a period when over 600,000 white South African males, between 1951 and 1993, were ordered to join the South African Defence Force for service mainly ‘on the border’, or the ‘Operational Area’; South West Africa (Namibia) and Angola. It is of note that all the photos, apart from Operation Protea, were taken by non-professional soldiers; young men some would call boys. Some patriotically embraced their call-ups as an opportunity to serve their country, while most stoically accepted their unsought-for lot; the law, and a war to protect South Africa from the spread of communism, the Red Tide. About the AuthorCameron Blake was born in 1969 in Johannesburg where he grew up. He graduated from the University of Cape Town in 1991, with a Diploma in Graphic Design. In 1992, still liable for compulsory national service, he cleared in at Voortrekkerhoogte. After doing his basic training in the Technical Services Corps, he transferred to the Ordnance Services Corps in Cape Town. After a decade of varying careers in creative media fields, he finally opened a small shop in Cape Town, specialising in coins, medals and surplus militaria, his true passions, and it was here that he began networking with veterans and collecting their stories. His first book, Troepie: From Call-up to Camps, was published in 2009, and the sequel, From Soldier to Civvy, in 2010.

The Cheetah is the regimental association magazine for the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI). It was last published in hard-copy format in 1980 at the disbandment of the RLI following the cessation of the bush war in the embryonic republic of Zimbabwe. Prior to this, the magazine, renowned for its witty and informed content, was a much sought-after and eagerly-awaited publication for civilians and servicemen alike, being sold commercially through the Southern African book trade. Today, original copies change hands for ridiculously high prices, being regarded as collectables.With the revival of the RLI Regimental Association (RLIRA) in 2007, the magazine has been published on a quarterly basis since then, in electronic format. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the RLI on 1 February 1961, and 30 years after the disbandment of the regiment, the RLIRA have decided to bring out this hard-copy commemorative glossy edition that takes a nostalgic journey back in time, as well as highlighting the association’s efforts of today in keeping the regimental esprit de corps alive.About the EditorChris Cocks was born in Salisbury, Rhodesia, in 1957 and served three years as a combat NCO with 3 Commando, the Rhodesian Light Infantry from 1976 to 1979. He spent the last 14 months of the bush war as a PATU (Police Anti-Terrorist Unit) stick leader and avoiding the Military Police. He moved to Johannesburg in 1996 and started his publishing career, specialising in southern African military history.

“Once in a lifetime comes a book which must force a total shift in the thinking person’s perception of an epoch, and of all the prominent characters who featured in it… This is the best informed book that has yet been produced on Zimbabwe.”— Michael Hartnack, SpectatorGiven the headlong rush of the Macmillan government in Britain in 1959 to be rid of its colonies, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) should have been the first African colony in line for independence. Rhodesia was self-governing, and possessed most powers, including the right of self-defence. Being in the condition of New Zealand before the grant of dominion status, it seemed logical that Rhodesia would become a dominion. However, many obstacles hindered this political progression.So Far and No Further! chronicles the British attempts to force white-ruled Rhodesia to accept the inevitability of majority rule, and to deny her independence on any other basis. Majority rule was something that Rhodesia’s whites understood was inevitable, but they also knew that, until democratic practices were well grounded, it would be disastrous.About the AuthorDr Richard Wood, born in Bulawayo, is a Commonwealth Scholar, Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a graduate of Rhodes and Edinburgh universities. He has enjoyed sole access to the hitherto closed papers of Ian Smith to write this book. So Far and No Further! complements his definitive The Welensky Papers: A History of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland: 1953–1963 and is the second book in the series, the third of which is A Matter of Weeks Rather than Months: The Impasse between Harold Wilson and Ian Smith: Sanctions, Aborted Settlements and War: 1965–1969. He is also the author of Counter-Strike from the Sky, about the Rhodesian “Fireforce” concept.