The Defence of Mafeking 1899

Jack Newman wanted adventure…

Defence of Mafeking by A Sutherland. Image: The Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection, Brown University

My great uncle Jack was a loveable man with a handle-bar moustache and centrally parted, heavily brilliantined, dark hair. He smelled of Sunlight Soap, and Wills’ Gold Flake cigarettes, which he smoked incessantly, as did his younger brother, my grandfather Harry, as would Harry’s son, my father Roland.