Scouting

[BC Numismatics]

Wayne,
  Did you get to actually meet former Governor-General Sir William Deane? He was the last titled Aussie Governor-General.It is very good that he has retained an involvement in the Scout movement.My own involvement ended upon my retirement as a Six Leader in Cubs at the end of November 1988.

You can see a postal order from Bophuthatswana that was issued at Mafikeng (Mafeking) here; http://www.banknotebank.com/?collection=BCNumismatics .

Please let me know what you think.

Aidan.

[AussieBoy]

Yes I got to meet Sir William Deane. Very nice gentleman and as Governor-General of Australia, one the whole country could be proud of. He signed my Scouting PNC along with the coin designer and the RAM CEO.

I saw the postal order, nice. My great uncle was named Edward Mafeking Christie as he was born on the day the Australians "liberated" Mafeking or whatever in the Boer War. He fought in both World Wars, putting his age up for the 1st and age down for the 2nd, was captured when Singapore fell and passed away in 1975.

[translateltd]

I saw the postal order, nice. My great uncle was named Edward Mafeking Christie as he was born on the day the Australians "liberated" Mafeking or whatever in the Boer War. He fought in both World Wars, putting his age up for the 1st and age down for the 2nd, was captured when Singapore fell and passed away in 1975.

My grandmother was Anne Tugela Foster, born 27 February 1900.  I see the Battle of Tugela Heights ran from 21 to 27 February 1900, so either communications were pretty quick or they waited a while to name her :-)  Since she was orphaned and brought up by relatives, I wonder if her father was killed in that battle - a topic for some future genealogical work for me ...

Martin
NZ

[BC Numismatics]

My grandmother was Anne Tugela Foster, born 27 February 1900.  I see the Battle of Tugela Heights ran from 21 to 27 February 1900, so either communications were pretty quick or they waited a while to name her :-)  Since she was orphaned and brought up by relatives, I wonder if her father was killed in that battle - a topic for some future genealogical work for me ...

Martin
NZ

Martin,
  In due course,I will be posting up my Bulawayo banknote,my Mafeking Siege 1/-,& my Green Point Track Internment Camp banknotes.Of course,I do have a few Orange Free State cash postal notes,which are rarer if issued and cashed within the Orange Free State.The currency issue postal notes have no datestamps,& O.F.S. postal notes are known with counterfoils,but these are unissued remainders were looted from the post offices along with the cashed postal notes,including ones that came in from the Cape of Good Hope,Natal,& the South African Republic.

The 1 Pond denomination is the hardest one to find.

Aidan.

[Figleaf]

The Boer war and the role of Baden Powell are quite controversial. Seen with today's mores, they'd be globally condemned and even at the time, newspaper reporting brought home to the British that the truth was lamentable and not to their advantage. For starters, the British were agressors in a colonial war that was all about grabbing rich gold and diamond mines from people who had fled the British colonial administration in the first place. For another, civil casualties among the Boer population were abhorrant, especially in what later became known as the world's first concentration camps.

Today, using child soldiers has become known as one of the most deplorable war crimes. The abused children are not only morally incapable of knowing what (not) to do (which is why they're minors in the first place), they also acquire lifetime mental scars of what they have seen and done. Yet, what Colonel Baden-Powell did at the siege of Mafeking was exactly that: enlisting boy-soldiers to help him fight a war. While the official story was that they acted as messengers, they were in fact expected to go through Boer lines to exchange dispatches with outlying strongholds. What contemporaries saw as bravery was in fact innocence and naiveté, which is normal in boys aged 12-15.

Peter

[AussieBoy]

Thanks Peter for the above. Yes the Boer War like most wars was about power and greed on the part of governments and/or the already wealthy end of society and business.

Like with the Iraq War at present, we condemn the war and the motives of governments but on the whole support our troops. They are just following orders, yes, though I for one know that is a very simplistic statement.

Scouting like many other boys and youth organisations have had to severely tighten their belts as many groups were found to be gardens for the picking by paedophiles within their ranks and others out to exploit the skills and toil of young people to their own advantage. For the many that have wonderful memories of their involvement in such organisations there are some that continue to have nighmares.

Wayne (I went to the YMCA, and fortunately never abused)