THE NEXT TWO MEETINGS TAKE PLACE AS DETAILED BELOW, IN THE DU TOIT ROOM OF THE ATHENAEUM, NEWLANDS, COMMENCING AT 8P.M.
THURSDAY 11TH AUGUST:
"MELTON PRIOR, LAST OF THE GREAT WAR ARTISTS", a slide-illustrated talk by DR. RYNO GREENWALL, who will concentrate on his activities during the Anglo-Boer War which broke out in 1899.
Melton Prior, last of the great war artists, commenced his climb to fame in 1873 at the age of 26 when the top British paper, the Illustrated London News, sent him to cover his first war, in Ashanti, West Africa. Many more wars followed, throughout the world. By the end of the century he had acquired a formidable reputation, and an array of war medals and other decorations which few soldiers could match. Eccentric, but unafraid and honest, he shunned untrue sensationalism unlike some others, and his signature on a drawing guaranteed its truthfullness and historical accuracy.
In 1878 he arrived in King Williams Town to cover the Ninth Frontier War. Later, in Zululand, he visited Isandlwana 4 months after the great British defeat there by Cetshawayo's[sic] warriors, where the dead soldiers lay unburied and rotting and the full story still remained to be told.
In 1895 he had a break from the wars when, after meeting Barney Barnato and Wolf and Jack Joel, he returned to South Africa to sketch mining activities; he dined with Cecil Rhodes at Groote Schuur before going back to Britain. The outbreak of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899 saw him back once more. He ensured that he remained in the thick of things, so much so that, shot at and bombarded, and besieged at Ladysmith, he became a hero to the readers of the Illustrated London News, which said of him: "Our veteran correspondent has been under fire so often and in such a long succession of campaigns, that he seems to regard bullets and shells with the same indifference that he would display to a summer shower!"
His death in 1904 of illness, not wounds, during the Sino-Japanese War, seemed a disappointing anti-climax.
VIDEO DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMME. (a) The activities of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight (consisting of a Spitfire & Hurricane fighter and a Lancaster Bomber): (b) The restoration, maintenance and active display flying of vintage World War Two fighters, bombers and transport aircraft. (Videos by kind courtesy of the S.A. Air Force Museum, Ysterplaat Air Force Base, via its Chairman, Mr. Ron Bussio).
VISITORS ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND.
Telephone nnnnnnn after hours. PAUL LANGE CHAIRMAN
VICE-CHAIRMAN: Major Antony Gordon (telephone mmmmmmm after hours).