by Albert Grundlingh and Bill Nasson (Tafelberg)
The recent cold spell left even Durban residents scurrying to their cupboards to seek out winter woolies and boots.
Paging through The War At Home Women and Families in the Anglo-Boer War, I notice pictures of an Aliwal North concentration camp under a couple of centimetres of snow.
Some children have built a tower from the stuff, but aside from the novelty of snowtowers, I can’t imagine it would have been much fun living in canvas tents in such extreme conditions. The pathos of the Boer women and children’s situation is echoed over and over in this fascinating book. There are photographs of homes being plundered, heirlooms being thrown on bonfires, homesteads going up in flames or being bombed by the English.
Women “the fiercest advocates of war to the bitter end”, stand their ground and attempt to fight the British soldiers with rifles, clothes are patched by hand as they wear out, food and unsanitary conditions lead to high death tolls, yet the Boer families endure beyond endurance and pull off small acts of defiance against the English as their men fight a guerrilla war away from home.
The business of life continues in the camps, with births and deaths a common feature, but for many, life there is dominated by boredom as they wait for the war to end.
To keep busy, they undertake tasks such as mending worn out clothes, play music, if lucky enough to have musical instruments, and sing. Many Boer women also entered into training as nurse’s assistants.
The harsh conditions meant such skills were in demand, yet doctors criticised the hygiene and caregiving of the Boers when children began dying of measles, typhoid and dysentery, which spread like wildfire under the cramped confines of the camps.
There is a chapter specifically concerning Nonnie de la Rey, the no-nonsense wife of fabled General Koos de la Rey.