Saturday, October 25, 2014

The Idler, Monday, October 27, 2014

The York and Lancasters

IN France last week 15 British solders were reburied at Bois-Grenier, 100 years after 

they died in World War I. Their bodies had been found buried in a nearby field five 

years ago, and astonishingly advanced DNA methods made it possible to positively 

identify 11 of them.

All were members of the York and Lancaster Regiment and some of their 

descendants were there to honour them at the poignant ceremony - a firing party, the 

Last Post, all the military honours.

The York and Lancasters had strong links with KwaZulu-Natal. They were the last 

British regiment to be stationed at Fort Napier, in Maritzburg. They left soon after 

Union in 1910, at which the new South Africa took responsibility for its own defence. 

That would have been not long before the Great War broke out in 1914.

The York and Lancasters had been very much part of the sports and social fabric of 

Natal in the colonial era. They played rugby against the local clubs and, just before 

leaving, presented the York and Lancaster Cup, for which the Maritzburg clubs still 

compete.

They also presented their tortoise mascot to the Victoria Club. The tortoise was 

named Orlando, after a man who won the marathon at the Olympics back in those 

days, details of the presentation inscribed on a silver plate screwed on to his shell.

The Victoria Club has moved from the Maritzburg CBD to Montrose, out of town, 

where it has attached itself to the Country Club, though it maintains its identity and 

still flies the Union Jack. Presumably Orlando is still boss.

It's surely quite possible that at least some of those York and Lancaster fellows who 

were reburied last week had been part of the Maritzburg sports and social scene just a 

couple of years before they fell. Fifteen men – a rugby team. Tantalising thought.

World War I – the war to end all wars – was a century ago. The commemorations 

are a melancholy reminder of that carnage; of what little progress has been made in 

eliminating conflict. Some of the issues in the Middle East today are directly traceable 

to World War I.

And the reminders of the human beings who were butchered for no good reason – like 

those York and Lancaster men who had played rugby and socialised in our part of the 

world – are just too sad to dwell upon.

Black Horse

THE York and Lancasters, and other regiments before them, used to patronise the 

Black Horse, a pub near Fort Napier that had become virtually a museum of military 

memorabilia from all corners of the British Empire – badges, medals, bits and pieces 

of weaponry,

The Black Horse was presided over in my time by one Barney Froomberg, a man with 

a taste for erotic humour. The walls were festooned with explicit artwork and ribald 

verse. The hat rack consisted of carved wooden phalluses (It was, of course, a men 

only place). The Black Horse was an institution.

Among the military memorabilia was a bayonet hanging on the wall near the bar. The 

bar counter had in it a deep groove into which the bayonet fitted perfectly.

The story went that one night a drunken sergeant ran an officer through with the 

bayonet, pinning him to the bar counter.

One never knows how true such stories are, but that's how it went. Then, next 

morning, the sergeant was court-martialled at the fort and executed by firing squad.

A heck of a way to cure a hangover .

Fort Napier is today a mental hospital. The Black Horse is no more – the building is a 

radio repair shop or something of the sort. But they still play rugby for the York and 

Lancaster Cup. Not quite everything has disappeared.

Tailpiece

AN 82-year-old has his annual medical check-up. A few days later the doctor spots 

him walking down the street. He has on his arm a glamorous young woman.

A couple of days later, the doctor again encounters his patient, this time on his own.

"Hey, you're doing really well, aren't you?"

"Doin' just what you said, Doc. 'Get a hot momma, be carefree!'"

"I actually said: 'You've got a heart murmur. Be careful.'"

Last word

The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky. 

Solomon Short

 

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