Boer Boy focuses on the ordinary people of Winburg in the Free State during the Anglo-Boer War, giving us an insight into not only the battles and the generals, but everyday life in this period.
Plenty of books have appeared during the past decade about the Anglo-Boer War, not only from South African but also English, Welsh and Canadian authors. What makes this one so productive is that it highlights not only the so-called “big” battles like Magers-fontein, Ladysmith and Paarde-berg, but also the lives of the affected communities.
Charles du Preez is the “Boer boy”. He and his father hid from the British forces, and their exploits before and after their capture form the central part of the story. But as this only happens in January 1902 (near the end of the war), the first eight chapters relate what happened to friends and family.
What makes this unique is the fact that it is the personal narrative of a boy between the ages of eight and ten, written some years after the war and documenting his war experiences on a central Free State farm, as well as in the prisoner-of-war camps at Umbella and Solon in far- distant India.
Young Charles turned eight a month after the outbreak of the war in October 1899. He spent the following two years on the family farm Suid-Wonderkop. At the end of the second year he and his father began to hide from British troops in a mountain on the farm.
When they were caught in January 1902 they were sent to India as prisoners of war in spite of Charles’s evident youth. There they spent time at Umbella camp before they were moved to a camp called Solon, higher in the mountains.
Although there were other youths in this camp, Charles, at 10, was the youngest. At the same time that they were in Solon, his mother and younger brothers and sisters spent time in the concen-tration camp at Winburg in the central Free State. They were re-united after the war.
The experiences of the Du Preez family as written by both Charles and his mother were augmented in 1960 in a recording made by Charles’s daughter talking about his war-time experiences.
All these resources were made available to Chris Schoeman, the author of Boer Boy, who also used the memoirs, extracts from diaries, letters and books on the Anglo Boer War by such sources as Margaret Marquard, wife of the Reverend Marquard of the Dutch Reformed Church in Winburg, and the Rev John Daniel Kestell, who accompanied the commandos of General C de Wet.
There is much information about not only the Du Preez family but also about the Von Maltitz family (their neighbours) and the Wessels family, as well as a number of sharecroppers or “bywoners” that lived on the farm and later acquired their own farms.
An interesting bit of information coming from this book is that Du Preez and son brought back a love for the game of polo from their time in India.
The Du Preez and Von Maltitz families became well known in South African polo circles, and the Hammonia area close to Ficksburg became one of the polo playing areas. At one stage three of the four Springbok polo players came from Hammonia.
Although the book’s name is misleading because it is not for the most part about the young Du Preez (“Boer”) boy, it does give plentiful information about a specified area (between Winburg, Senekal and Marquard) before and during the Anglo Boer War, reflecting so much of what happened in other, similar regions.
Those attracted to this historic period will therefore find that this book is useful reading. – Ampie Muller