History Forum / General / British History / February 2007

When you're on an RAF station in the middle of the wilds up there (can't
remember its name now) Wick was a beacon of conviviality.

Surreyman

Adam, that was an excellent description. Your posts had become a bit
pedestrian since you moved to Howardland. I'm happy to see you're back
in form...

                          Turlough

<G>

Nicely done.

One of the most skillful put-downs we have seen here in ages.

I too have Huguenot Ancestors.

Mine went to Virginia, rather than South Africa, about the same time yours
did, after the Revocation of Henry IV's Edict of Nantes [1598] by Louis
XIV's Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Nantes>

DSH

Something practiced by many small boys -- of various advanced ages -- on
USENET.

DSH

Like you Graham ancestors who settled in South Africa? And by the way,
the Grahams were originally an English Border family, not Scots.

As far as we Scots are concerned, the world is ours to roam and settle
in at will. Canada was heavily settled by Highlanders, some of whom
still speak Gaelic and has thus always been a favoured destination for
Gaels.

As a matter of interest why did your Anglistani ancestors choose to
live in South Africa? The chance to lord it over someone else?

My mother, a member of the Red Cross, was arrested in Johannesburg for
taking the President of the Nigerian Red Cross to her room to discuss
business as the hotel she was staying in would not serve the "Kaffir"
in the bar. She was charged with having sexual relations with a
coloured man; a trumped-up charge, needless to say.

Thanks to our family's friendship with Harry Oppenheimer - my uncle
and his best friend met him when they were playing for the British
Lions on the 1955 rugby tour and the friend (Gordon Waddell, so you'll
know I'm telling the truth) ultimately married Oppenheimer's daughter
and became a director of De Beers (Anglo-American?) retaining the post
because of his abilities, despite the fact that they were divorced
some years later.

Opperheimer managed to get my mother and the Nigerian out after she
persuaded the police to let her call him by mentioning his name
repeatedly, which unnerved them, especially once they examined her
papers and found out that she was a high-ranking official in the Red
Cross. Oppenheimer drove them straight to the airport before the
police came to and realized that Oppenheimer had no authority to
remove them from custody. My mother was no one to screw around with;
she personally stalked and killed three terrorists who murdered her
bodyguard in the Borneo jungle.

As a result, my taste for South Africans, jaapies or otherwise, has
always been extremely limited. As for South Africa under apartheid, it
was the Third Reich in Africa as far as any thinking person was
concerned. Despite the new regime, I noted from a report a year or so
ago that in terms of percentage of criminal acts, the South African
police and the native criminals were still running neck and neck.

I hope that helps. Are polical prisoners still managing to commit
suicide by throwing themselves from the Jan Vorster Building's 11th
floor after freeing themselves from their shackles and ripping the
bars from the windows?

Here's a wee tune to remind you of those glory days!

http://tinyurl.com/27lm2z

I'm sure you'll recognize some of the names mentioned in the song.

Ngibonga kakhulu - Uhambe kahle, Baas!

 

The Highlander

Faodaidh nach ionann na beachdan anns
an post seo agus beachdan a' Ghàidheil.
The views expressed in this post are  
not necessarily those of The Highlander.