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Boer War diaries

Still Jogging Along. By J. N. Clarke. Edited by Brian Connor. Military Publications, Dunedin, 1989. 30 pp. Illustrations. $8.95.

When a New Zealand Army rugby team played Johannesburg on May 7, 1902, the New Zealanders won by 120 points to 3. But a month later, when a New Zealand team played soccer against the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the British team won, 3-1.

These two curiosities from the last months of the Boer War are included in the diary of 18-year-old Private J. N. Clarke who went to South Africa from Dunedin with the 9th Contingent of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles. Clarke saw little action, but his diaries and letters offer a vigorous view of an old war, and of how it affected young soldiers. Clarke was one of more than 6000 New Zealanders who volunteered to fight for Britain in South Africa, in New Zealand’s first foreign war. Clarke, born in Milton in 1884, later lived in Christchurch from 1913 until his death in 1972. In the 1940 s he was deputy mayor of Christchurch for a time and was prominent in many sporting activities including rugby and trotting administration. (The booklet is available from the Otago Military Museum, P.O. Box 6095, Dunedin.)

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19890722.2.104.3

Bibliographic details

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 23

Word Count
206

Boer War diaries Press, 22 July 1989, Page 23

Boer War diaries Press, 22 July 1989, Page 23