NEWSLETTER - JANUARY 2021

"Poetry written by South Africans during the Great War" by Kathie Satchwell.

This Zoom lecture, hosted by Johannesburg Branch, was given from her home in Johannesburg on 17 December 2020.

As with all of Judge Satchwell's research, it cast far and wide in its reach. Drawing from local newspapers, school yearbooks, social and soldiers' magazines of the times, she unearthed a large number of poems which covered the change in emotions of white and black South African participants affected by the multi-year conflict.

Poetry subjects were so varied that she was able to identify several themes and divided the poetry accordingly, i.e. "sites of memory"; "the South African experience"; "motherland"; "the colonials";"the inferno";"Delville Wood"; "comradeship","the enemy"; "grousing"; "rescue"; "German East Africa"; "imbongi"; "S.S, Mendi"; "duty .. honour .. glory";" death"; "Golgotha"; "memorials"; and "afterwards"."

Since most, if not all, of the writers were soldiers rather than poets her emphasis was on cultural history rather than literary form.

Together with the poetry, the talk was illustrated by no fewer than 98 paintings and artworks depicting the actions and consequences of the war. The artworks alone are worth a second viewing - the entire presentation is accessible from the ZOOM library on the Society's web-site.

The four venues which used to host our monthly lectures - ROOMeetings - have as yet been unable to accommodate the Society due to Covid-19 restrictions. The dates for the Ditsong Museum auditorium have been provisionally reserved for 2021 but there is no indication as to when this might start.

Members with an interesting presentation on any aspect of military history are sought for ZOOMEETINGS. A nominal 30 minute lecture supported by Power Point or similar slides, but not video, is required.

Material in the form of articles and/or news snippets are still welcome for the nominal December 2020 Military History Journal which is under construction.

It may surprise members to discover that not all war graves - from the Anglo-Boer War South African War of 1899-1902 to both World Wars and even later - have been identified.

Dr Anne Samson - well known to our members from in-person and ZOOM lectures - writes that there are several organisations which would be interested in any 'unknown' or 'missing' graves they've come across - for WW1 there's the 'In From the Cold' or 'War Graves Project' which feeds into CWGC in SA and the UK. CWGC is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission which also has an agreement with the SA Government to look after British graves from the ABW.

Anne is the go-to person for German East Africa and is well into compiling data base(s) about participants in conflicts there in both World Wars.

As mentioned in the December newsletter, The Second Watercourse History Festival in Plettenberg Bay is scheduled to take place on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th February 2021

Since there is a real possibility of lock-down interfering with this event, please Whatsapp Mike Kantey at 072 628 5131. He is also the contact person for booking - limitations on audience size at the venue indicate it would be an idea to contact him soon.

Subscriptions for 2021 will remain as R265 for single and R285 for family memberships.

Branch

Cape Town details contact Carl Burger 082 333 2706 c.burger@bissets.com

Eastern Cape details contact Malcolm Kinghorn 041-373-4469 culturev@lantic.net

Gauteng details contact Joan Marsh 010-237-0676 joan@rfidradar.com

KwaZulu-Natal details contact Roy Bowman 031-564-4669 bowman.roy93@gmail.com