In the winter of 1975, Erich Rautenbach’s life took a serious turn for the worse when he was bust for selling weed by gun-toting undercover cops. He’d been selling the dope to raise money to leave South Africa in a bid to escape his army call-up and resist having to shoot people in the name of apartheid. But instead he found himself in the infamous John Vorster Square, at the mercy of drug squad policemen who seemed convinced that he was part of some notorious drug ring. This wild memoir recreates the Cape Town of the 1960s and ’70s, where Erich hung out with people from District Six and the Bo-Kaap and jammed with fellow musicians at The Office on Long Street. He describes his travels around the country, to Durban, Johannesburg, the Zulu village where he bought Durban Poison, and all the places in between, and recounts his experiences at John Vorster Square, The Fort and Sterkfontein Sanatorium, where events quickly spiralled out of control. Written in an electric and hilarious style, The Unexploded Boer is destined to become a cult classic.

The Boer War took place between 1899 and 1902, just 15 years before the start of the First World War. Some 180,00 Britons , mainly volunteers , traveled 6,000 miles to fight and die in boiling conditions on the veld and atop ‘kopjes’. Of the over 20,000 who died more than half suffered enteric, an illness consequent on insanitary water. This book will act as an informative research guide for those seeking to discover and uncover the stories of the men who fought and the families they left behind. It will look in particular at the kind of support the men received if they were war injured and that offered to the families of the bereaved. Some pensions were available to regular soldiers and the Patriotic Fund, a charitable organization , had been resurrected at the beginning of the conflict. However for those who did not fit these categories the Poor Law was the only support available at the time. The book will explore a variety of research materials such as: contemporary national and local newspapers; military records via websites and directly through regimental archives; census, electoral, marriage and death records; records at the National Archives including the Book of Wounds from the Boer War, the Transvaal Widows’ Fund and others.

War broke out in 1899 between the British and South African settlers of Dutch descent, the Boers, or Afrikaners as they are usually called today. Despite previous clashes, the British seriously underestimated their opponents. Although dressed in battered civilian clothes and made up entirely of volunteers, Boer troops were all mounted on horses and had very up-to-date German rifles. An even more unpleasant surprise than the mounted riflemen were the Boer artillery units. They were the only Boer troops to wear uniforms, were organized on a full-time basis, and were equipped with excellent German field pieces. The British artillery soon found itself out-gunned and out-ranged. Some British officers, however, were capable of adapting to the new conditions in South Africa. Royal Naval vessels anchored off the Cape had powerful, long-range cannons. It was decided to try bringing these guns ashore and mounting them on improvised carriages for field use. Naval infantry brigades had served in some previous campaigns, and proved capable of accompanying the army as gun crews, their straw hats and naval leggings identifiable in many wartime photographs. Although they were depicted in many wartime drawings and photographs, no serious study of the naval artillery has ever been done. Tony Bridgland has spent many years researching the topic and has produced a study of the technical problems involved in this unique operation, as well as a colourful narrative of naval personnel pressed into hazardous service far from the sea.

Robert Loraine was born in a niche of time when technology exploded into a world whose keyword was Progress. Both he and his life-long friend George Bernard Shaw believed they were in an evolutionary period of humanity. Born into a theatrical family, he understood its clashes of temperament and competition for the attention of the audience. He was fortunate to be playing in London by age twenty-one, and securing lead roles two years later. Thus, it was incomprehensible to his peers when he volunteered to fight in the Boer War. After his year of service, he heeded his father’s advice; first conquer London, and then America He accepted a contract from Daniel Frohman in New York. Four years of dusty old plots led him to yearn for something new, which he found in Shaw’s Man and Superman. A two year tour in the role of John Tanner led him to professional and financial success. This lust for something new led him beyond the perimeters of the stage into pioneer aviation. Visualizing the aeroplane’s unlimited potential, he challenged the theory that flight could only take place in calm weather by flying through a raging thunderstorm. Ever of a military mind, he also demonstrated the machine’s capacity for scouting at military maneuvers. With political storm clouds closing in again in 1914, Robert volunteered six days before his country declared war on Germany. Dispatched to the Royal Flying Corps, he served all four years of the war, rose to the highest rank of any civilian, and was gravely wounded twice. Robert married at age forty-five, but the compromises of domesticity did not come easily to him. His young wife, Winifred, suffered through the downward spiral of an aging actor. The thirties brought the great depression and he returned to the United States, attempting to make money on Broadway or in Hollywood. Finally able to return to England in November, 1935, he died two days before Christmas.

In 1973, a young South African named Robert Fridjhon stole a yacht in Hawaii and set out to cross the Pacific solo during hurricane season. He had become involved with Russian gangsters in Los Angeles and witnessed a crime, putting his life in danger and forcing him to flee. In Caterpillar Seas, Fridjhon tells his dramatic story for the first time. He describes the perils that he faced at sea: caught in violent storms, trapped in the doldrums with dwindling supplies, losing his mainmast and running aground on a reef, as well as contracting scurvy and fever. He recalls the months of solitude and despair, and describes his encounters with remote Pacific islanders and his return to civilisation in Fiji, where the consequences of his crime would catch up with him. Compelling, entertaining and written with the insight of an experienced sailor, Caterpillar Seas is an astonishing tale of adventure, endurance and courage.