My 15 Grandmothers by Genie Milgrom: 2012 149pg.

  A journey of my soul from the Spanish Inquisition to the  present.13/10/24

1955 Born in Miramar or El Vedado neighborhoods of Havana, Cuba under the Batista regime, they were a wealthy merchant family with servants. At the expensive private Catholic school she went to Che Guevara would come to collect his daughter who was in her class. Her paternal grandfather came from Costa Rica and his parents were French, because they were multilingual they had a great advantage in business.

1959 Jan 1st Castro took power. After that the family only spoke English so that the servants would not know what was said. At school the Catholic education was replaced by the Communist manifesto of Marx and Engels.

The new regime took over the family business to and expected the family to stay and the regime would reap the profits. They got 2 Fidel Castro dolls and filled them with gold and jewelers. The peso had now become worthless.

1960 they were one of thousands of Cuban families to arrive in Miami .

Her grandfather immediately started setting up a new business as he knew there was no return to Cuba. Because the Kennedy government had turned their backs on the Cuban people, so Cuban Americans slanted to  vote Republican.

In 1962 they remember the flatbeds taking missiles to Key West on the roads through Florida, and practicing the air raid drills.

She went to school at the finest Catholic Convent and only had English speaking friends forcing her to integrate. Her parents had taught her that to question is to learn. However with the Bible stories and religious dogma she kept asking questions and in 4th grade was taken to the Monsignor. Who told her she must have blind faith in the elders who have knowledge. Her questions remained unanswered and she lost respect for the upper echelons of the Church. They sent her to learn Latin in her break, which helped her language skill to this day. 

At the summer day camp she met Rachel who told her she was Jewish and who brought her own food from home. She said the whole Torah was true because G-d wrote it. For some unexplained reason she connected with Jews she came across.

1962 to 1965 The Vatican 11 council  (Nostra aetate; Latin: “In Our Era”) is a landmark document that rejected the traditional accusation that the Jews killed Christ, recognized the legitimacy of Judaism, and condemned anti-Semitism. The altar, for example, was turned around to face the people. Mass was changed to be in the vernacular, no longer in Latin. Aged only 14 she now felt that Catholicism was less spiritual. Women no longer had to wear veils or cover their hair

Aged 16 she went to collage and decided to study theology. Aged 17 she married a Cuban American man after 3 years of collage she became a full time mom and helped run the family business. Had 2 children 11 years apart. She started reading every book she could find on Judaism and finally took a plunge and went to an Orthodox synagogue. Was helped to study Hebrew and Jewish prayers. Bonny invited her to Friday night dinners and underwent Orthodox conversion. She later met Michael an orthodox Jew  who she married. He took her to Israel to meet his family.

My maternal grandparents came from Fermoselle, Spain on the Duero River border to Portugal. They now lived in Miami and she was close to them. In early December her grandmother always made periquillos. You always swept the room to the centre and away from the door that had a mezuzah. Her grandmother knew she had converted to Judaism. When the grandmother died she had to be buried the next day this was unusual with Catholics. She was left by the grandmother a box with a Hamsa and star of David. This indicated that the family were Converso Jews. She needed to trace her matrilineal line back to the inquisition as Judaism passes to you via you mother.

1545 The Council of Trent decrees on self-reform, helping to revitalize the Roman Catholic Church in the face of Protestant expansion. It  decreed that all Catholic churches must now keep records of all baptisms, marriages and deaths. It was to standardize a non existent system and so she could follow the line of her ancestors Crypto Jews were known to secretly change names to avoid the Inquisition. In records several babies had been baptized at home and not at church by the midwife 

There was a lot of contraband trade between Mogadouro Portugal and Fermoselle Spain. A lot of population moved to Portugal from here.

It was found that in Converso families many married 2nd cousins and this vast number of cousin intermarriage made it difficult to register on the computer. The term Marrano also means pig in Spanish. The Church used the term New Christian for Conversos. Old Christian was the term used referring to people with pure Christian blood and to get government positions . Old Christian families would be vigilant not to intermarry with those who had been Jews.. There were several priests on her family tree so they helped Conversos to avoid rituals that were not acceptable to Judaism and arranged special permission for forbidden marriages of 2nd cousins and helped them fill in documents.. Bnei Anusim is the Hebrew term where people were forced to convert.

Nobody had ever researched the genealogy of conversion from  Fermoselle. In the town Belmonte people had later made their way back to Judaism, but there weren't such records in other villages. Currently most people in the town were old and none of them knew of any Jewish history in it.

There were Inquisition records with a total of 16 Inquisition tribunals in Spain. 

 1488 to 1834 that  is 346 years,  the Inquisition officially lasted,  The documents were in old Spanish which was very difficult to read. For generations no body in the family left the village, in fact her grandfather was the first to leave and the first marriage outside the family.  The Church of Santa Colombo  was in another part of town and she discovered that that neighborhood never mixed with mainstream Fermoselle. There was a house here that tradition had it had once been an synagogue

The El Humilladero (to humiliates) a sight that today has a statue to the civil war. People from Mogadouro Portugal  would annually make a pilgrimage to it and leave a pebble on it, in memory of the dead. A typically Jewish custom.

She sent photos of the finding of the synagogues and mikva's as well as the carving on the doors of a church used by conversos that was meant to send a message to others. However she discovered that she was a pioneer in this  unexplored field..

In Portugal the information was digitalized and mostly on internet from the Achieves at Torrro de Tombo dating back to the 9th century. Her hypothesis was that her family had migrated to Portugal and back to Spain.

She discovered that she was related to the family of Luis de Carvajal the governor of the Nuevo Reino de Leon part of Mexico today.  He and his nieces died in the Inquisition  jails in Mexico.  New Christians were not allowed to live in Nuevo Spain or found guilty of reverting to Judaism.

Well known Spanish names like Ramos , Montana or Flores Diez , Guerra , Castro and Serrano are typical Marrano names. The fact that the Spanish kings wanted known for eternity who had been a Jew had allowed her to find actual notarial records from her family 500 years ago.

Abroad in Japan by Chris Broad 2023 298pg Ten years in the land of the Rising Sun.

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program   10/10/24

When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan  to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? Spanning ten years and all forty-seven prefectures, 

 1987 Japan launched an initiative to place native English speakers in schools to improve English language proficiency.  JET became the largest exchange teaching in the world.

When Chris applied he knew not to ask for Tokyo as that would be a mark against him. From Heathrow to Tokyo Narita airport take about 12 hours. Narita is 70 km east of Tokyo He was 22 years old and fresh out of university. He just happened to hear about this program on a plane to France.

37 million people live in greater Tokyo. Here they all did a 3 day course about their duties. He and a few ventured to the Shinjuku gritty red light district. The y were warned to stay away from the Kabukicho gambling as tourist were lured by the local crime syndicates.

He flew an hour to Yamagata the location has a population of 500,000 people and is famous for its high cherry yield, it has the highest snowfall on the planet from December to March when it get a wind from Siberia. 

Of the 11 native teachers he had to work with one had lived abroad linger than 3 months. 3 could not speak or comprehend English. Typical American English was taught in Japan. 

The town was Sakata which meant sake rice field. The area had had a lucrative safflower  plant and the flower were also used for  cloth dye. 

2010 Japans population had peaked at 128 million when he came in 2012 it had already declined by almost a million. Rural Japans biggest problem is rapid depopulation. Sakata's high school had 1200 students and 120 teachers. There are racks to put your shoes and where you keep you slippers as you don't bring in out door shoes.  There were a number of teachers who taught other subjects and could speak English but did not want to show off their skills.

With so few foreigners he was a unwilling celebrity. In this area of 100,000 people there were less the 10 Westerners. In a conservatives area there was an abrasive hentai artwork.

You have to commit to memory everyone names and the don't refer to them as you which is almost rude.

Japan is the most seismically active country on earth, it is a big geothermal wonderland with thousands of registered hot springs. When you go into the public bath you go in naked. First thing master the kanji for male and female so you know which side to go to. Some do have blue for male and red for female.

School classes involved far less debate and discussion as the emphasis is on group dynamics over the individual. Schools churned out model citizens who followed the rules and rarely questioned authority. Some teachers he ended up teaching more than the students as they had written exams and no practical speaking ability .

He had arrived in Japan with an indebted credit card and a mountain of student debt. Most JET teacher just stayed a year.  Roy a New Zealander  had passed the Kanji Kentel by memorizing 3000 kanji characters.

In Japan it is considered almost rude to tip. Undertaking paid side jobs is forbidden  with JET but if he volunteered to teach adults in the local community he was invited to the occasional dinner parties.

English was far more popular with girls than boys and seen as a soft girly subject . Why learn a foreign language, only 40% of students learned it and was regarded and difficult and useless. Many of the adults he taught had travelled frequently abroad. The English textbooks were an atrocity and carried a strong anti war message and had numerous mistakes in them. JET teachers inability to speak Japanese pressured the kids to speak English, this worked in many ways.  Kids were scared to put up hands as they might make as a mistake.. Learning to speak a language need making mistakes. It can take a Japanese student 9 years to master reading their mother tongue.

There was an unspoken rules that JETs were forbidden from dating Japanese teachers. Some teacher saw JET foreigners as a pointless expense, others were not sure how to put them to good  use.

AS a kid of 7 Chris was given a camera to record a wedding that his grandfather couldn't travel to so he had master photography. So he set up making Utubes on Japan. 

If you drink too much you don't get a taxi but a dalkou that drives you home in your own can and he doesn't need a Taxi license so its cheaper.

In winter the unemployed farmers are enlisted to drive the snow ploughs to keep the roads open.

The British helped the Japanese build the railways and infra structure so you drive on the left.

Japanese society minds it Ps and Qs but once people have had a few drinks together all this bottled up information comes out. In sake drinking you are not supposed to pour your own drink. Karaoke has never taken off in the West like in Japan. In 1961  the song Sukyaki by Sakamoto Kyu topped the Billboard Hot 100 so he was able to sing it in karaoki. Kyu died in 1985 when Japan Airline flight 123 Boeing 747 from Tokyo to Osaka had mechanical failure 520 passengers lost their lives.

When he didn't finish all the rice in his lunch pack he was criticized for wasting food. Either eat it or don't order it. People remember the post war poverty.

In the US 33% of the population is obese, the UK 28% while Japan only 3.3%. In Japan people walk 2000 paces more than Americans and food portions are smaller. Less processed food or snacking.

1982 The Blade Runner by Ridley Scott the 1989 Black Rain put Osaka on the map.

1995 As a result of the sarin gas  attack in Osaka trash bins are not available in the streets but people keep clean never the less.

There are 37,000 Love Hotels for young couples to escape crowded multigeneration homes with paper walls. The soap and shampoo are unscented so as not to give away unfaithful  partners.

When he tried renting a flat, he was turned down as the landlord didn't want a foreigner. Things are changing with the tourist boom.

The school year ends in March and teachers are often moved between school, cities and even regions. The public avoid foreigners. 

Mount Fuji was considered so sacred that until 1868 women were banned from climbing it. It is a stratovolcano in an almost perfect conical shape. At the height of 3776 meter some people experienced altitude sickness. The last time it was active was in 1707.   

It is considered good manners to wear a face mask in public  in Japan. when you are ill. In winter it is a preventative issue. Like earphones it gives a message stay away from me. National Health covers 70% of your health bill its up to you to pay the last 30% so its a bargain. Drips are very popular for a first treatment then you get a prescription.

Dating couples agree early on that they are an item.

Culture Day foreign residents run stands showcasing the culture and food of their home countries. There were Chinese , Korean and Filipino residents but he was the only Brit asked to attend.

In Japan you are asked about your work to determine upfront you position in the relative hierarchy. Age is often a determining factor, the virtue of being older. People in positions of power act humbly in the presents of their elders.

He was approached to take part in an annual public speaking competition of 15 minutes, In his half baked Japanese he spoke half of it,  and forgot the words and had to read the 2nd half. From that failure he resolved to take part again the following year when he won it.

He was approach to teach for a third year by which time he had mastered the language and felt he could now achieve more. You get brownie point in Japan if you get to the office early and leave late.

Bullying is a big problem in Japan and that is the reason kids are not keen to stand out and offer to answer questions you don't want to be a know it all nerd. Avoid standing out. Adhere to group conformity and  collectivism. Join the bullies so as not to go against the grain. The first day of the new year a student jumped out of a 4th floor window. but survived with every bone broken after being a victim of bullies.

Brits came to Japan to learn the art of sword making , build a craft gin distillery and become a sake sommelier.

1974 Kentucky Fried Chicken marketed Christmas in Japan to fill the void and so 3.6 million  Japanese families have this tradition of eating KFC on Christmas day. Commercialization of Christmas.

He had a Japanese girlfriend whose parents were terrified of meeting him, had never met a foreigner before.

After 2 years he had conversational Japanese fluent with a busy schedule was integrating into the local community.

Students had never been incentivized to learn conversational English. His Utube Abroad in Japan was the most watched on learning kanji. 700,000 views. Just 23 % of Japanese have a passport. Buckwheat pillows are one of Japans worst inventions.

Regional favorites Kobe wagyu beef, Hokkaido snow crab and juicy mutton barbeque, Sendal it is cow tongue, this was a cheap item that was made into something in demand.

Japan allows a no foreigner policy causing many foreigners to leave the country.  For 265 years under the Edo there was an Isolationist policy, Soduko had closed Japan off to the world till 1868.

His abroad In Japan with 100,000 was making him about 500 pounds a month. His Mc Donald chocolate fry had become a hit overnight as American TV debated the pros and cons of this dish.

Japan is a Cat Nation its 8.9 million cats overtook that of dogs population.  Cat Cafes are for poor soles who love cats but can't keep one at home. The food he ate there was full of cat hairs. One company allows staff to bring their cats to work mostly women.  

In Japan wild animals include bears, wild boars, giant hornets and mischievous macaques rolling in the snow.

Mobile phones were emitting a terrifying loud alert. . He thought this was earthquake alert. He opened the window and an air raid siren announced North Korea something. In the 70s north Korea had abducted Japanese citizens on a rural beach and taken them to teach Japanese. The North Korean missile passed over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. He recorded himself in bed telling about this on Utube and this was taken up by every media outlet imaginable and 20 million viewers saw it and was the only footage of this. Now in Japan his Utubes began to draw attention for promoting the new J-Alert and was given a prize and Japanese knew his face.

2011 March a 9.1 earthquake unleashed destruction across the country. On the coast Tsunami sirens screeched in Miyagi and Fukushima to tell people to move to higher ground. hitting 250km of coast. The nuclear plant was damaged when it water pumps stopped causing the biggest nuclear accident since Chernobyl. 19,759  dead. On Utube he documented this. 300,000 had to be evacuated as a result of radiation. Rice field could no longer be used and were converted into solar energy farms.

He documented his bicycle ride of 46 days and 2000kilometers across Japan building a Utube travel channel. Journey across Japan went on to be the most watched Japanese travel series.

Japan is changing in 2000 , 4 million tourist came to Japan. By 2016 31 million arrived. This resulted in restriction on where you could smoke cigarettes.

2019 the successful Rugby World Cup was in Japan and in 2020 Japan closed to deal with Covid, There is no country better equipped to handle this as they have the worlds lowest obesity , wear masks and Covid related deaths were a third of the US figure.

In the Edo 1603 - 1868 period property was taxed according to the street frontage so homes were extended backwards.  These old home are not comfortable by todays standards and what was left after WW2 are disappearing.

Japans Meteorological agency developed an earthquake alarm just moments before the main event. Standard procedure during an earthquake is to get under a table or in a doorway.

There is always one more wild discovery waiting for you in the land of the Rising Sun.

Pumpkin flowers by Matti Friedman: A soldiers story of a forgotten Lebanon war. 2017 272pg

 

5/10/24 Reading this exactly at the time we had to run down to our air raid shelter in central Israel because the Israeli Airforce wiped out Nasrallah and most of the Hezbollah leadership. Iran sent 180 rockets into Israel  on 2/10/24 but nobody was hurt. 2 of our  window panes were shattered.

The hill, in Lebanon, was called the Pumpkin; flowers was the military code word for “casualties.” foreshadow the unwinnable conflicts the United States would soon confront in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Oleander are the code for dead soldiers. Pumpkin was 3 miles north of Beaufort a Crusader castle turned into an army base.

 The group he was in was called the Fighting Pioneer Youth who understood combat was necessary but not concepts of "death before dishonor" or " no surrender" but rather "Lets get through with this "

Basic training  is like marriage, inside its unforgiving intimacy and you can't hide who you are for long. Friendship is created in a platoon under great pressure,  armies plan it this way knowing that this bond will keep men together is the lawless underworld of war, and will not run from enemy fire but go into it. Sargent's had them 18 hours on their feet and 6 hours in sleeping bag and again the next day. It was 1994 in the bushes of Lebanon  but he armies clock was still 1973.

  1977 and 1979 the Shah of Iran was overthrown and Kumauni brought the Islamic Revolution.

1980 to 1988 Iran / Iraq war.

1992 Nasrallah take over running Hezbollah in Lebanon, after Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by an Israeli airstrike in 1992.

June 1982 Israel fought a misguided war to support the Lebanese Christians and successfully drove  the PLO out of Lebanon hoping to set up a friendly government. However the local Shiites set themselves up as the Party of God. Israel with drew to a buffer zone in Lebanon to protect her northern border.  

1994 the Pumpkin Incident, Hezbollah terrorist ambushed and killed   Israeli soldiers and had a cameraman filming it. The first of the "jihadi selfies" in this buffer zone. This took place at the same time as the Israel PM visited the Moroccan King.

1996 The Falcon Incident this is an unrecorded event at Pumpkin in which his friend died.  The term Improvised Explosive Devises started here against conveys bringing and returning soldiers to their bases. The result was that they started flying them there at night by Helicopter. 

1997 2 helicopters over Kibbutz Dafna  soon after taking off, crashed killing 73  Israeli crew and  soldiers. The soldiers in the unit that had been in the Falcon incident and the Helicopter crash had lost a third of number in 9 months and now knew this was a real war.  

In Jerusalem on the mount of Olives is covered with graves of 150,000Jews buried over the millennia to be close to the Temple Mount . In a Jerusalem suburb is a mass grave of surrounded by rosemary bushes of Indian soldiers including fighter from Hong Kong and Singapore who died while fighting for the British against the Turks.

 The kibbutz Ashdod Ya'akov had been one of the most successful agricultural communes before the 1950s but then there was a feud between the Stalinist and the moderate socialist and this tore the society apart and into split into 2 with a fence between them. Years later the next generation never understood what the feud was about.

Bruria from here was one of 4 mothers who protested to get the soldiers out of Lebanon. The subject of the buffer zone had never been debated, but once the loss of the 2 helicopters and 73 boys the price was too high. If nobody could make a decision Bruria would end the war. The war had never even been given a name. 

Living in Pumpkin the author say he never knew any other surrounding so well where day or night they never took their boots off and it s view remains imprinted on the retinas of his eyes years later. They looked at the town Nabatieh with the monastery of St Antony the Cal-Tex gas station the al Ghoudour hospital and mosques and abandoned homes . The population was both Shiite and Christian.

In the army no matter where you were the  religious soldiers would risk their lives to come  to make the place Kosher for Pessach. Matza and other Pessach food would arrive and a seder was help with dinner for those not on guard duty.

1998 The most important event then was the World Cup in France and the few who like him were unfamiliar with the game took guard while the other watched the favorite team which was Brazil. Even Nabatieh was draped with flags of the teams playing. When Zidane a non practicing Muslim from Algeria scored they celebrated.  

The outpost Red Pepper was manned by the South Lebanon Army a Christian militia allied with Israel. They had Soviet bloc material seized from the PLO fighters in the 1982 invasion. They allied themselves to Israel for protection against the Palestinians but by the nineties some lower ranks  were Druze and Shiites who did it  for the salary Israel paid in US dollars.

1999 A new left wing government promised to make peace with Palestinians and Syrians and to get out of Lebanon, even right supporters wanted this. The mothers protesting didn't talk of soldiers but children. Everyones children. A soldiers death is considered more tragic than that of a civilian. The army Education Corp warned that you must not let your political beliefs interfere with  your duty.

Everyone knew the 4 mother by now and Hezbollah could fire rockets over the out post from deeper in Lebanon to hit Israel. The Palestinians had long gone but Hezbollah was supported by Iran and Syria. Iran wanted us inside Lebanon where they could hit us with their pawns. On the hill was a very  wholesome life with not serious drinking or drug taking. There was a guitar and free books passed around. Instead of soldiers in trenches looking out you had TV screen with joysticks. 

Trucks arrived bringing hundreds of disc mines that were safe until live detonators were  added. They saw around them outposts Basil and Beaufort blow up. Hezbollah started firing at Pumpkin which was empty by now, tried to make a last  effort against us before Pumpkin blew up.

The finger of the Galilee was clogged with armored vehicles coming south out of the security zone. Christian militiamen and their families were escaping to Israel.

2007 The movie Beaufort was made by Joseph Cedar on the abandoning of a outpost, unlike what  the movie portrayal they functioned till the end. 

He was thinking about travel after his discharge India and the far East where most Israeli  youngster go after their 3 years in the army. Instead he studied at the Jerusalem University. Middle East and Arabic studies. He met others from the other outpost and they came to the conclusion that this was an error  a decade of chronic pain that shaped us all.  He now was not  interested in politics but progressing in his own life

Israel then had a period of suicide bombing which was eventually dealt with and brought under control. Hezbollah wrote that what happened in Lebanon could happen in Palestine. This was when Iran started pouring money, weapons and advise to her proxies in the middle East. Any ideas of a compromise were shattered and amongst the Israel politicians.

2001   you had 9/11 and the American were at war in Afghanistan.

A Canadian friend visited him after a tour of Lebanon. With a clean Canadian passport he flew from Toronto  to Beirut and was waved in with not problem. Beirut is a cosmopolitan city.  He went to see the areas that he could view from Pumpkin and was driven around by friendly taxi drivers.

 He enters into Lebanon as a Canadian tourist and had to hide throughout his visit 1) his Jewish identity; 2) his Israeli citizenship; and 3) his service to the IDF. The most powerful part is when he was on his way to the Pumpkin (the outpost where he was stationed in the 90s) in southern Lebanon, and remarks that he "had traveled 12,000 miles (from Toronto) to arrive 20 miles from" where his family's home was.

50 Flippen Brilliant South Africans by Alexander Parker 2012 269pg

With cartoons by  Zapiro  (Jonathan Shapiro)25/9/24

This is a strange collections of people connected to South African, so well known others never heard of .

Chris Barnard 1922 to 2004  he was the first to do a heart transplant at Groot Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.  The first patient Blaaiberg only lasted 5 days after the  transplant. The second Washkansky survived 3 weeks but died of pneumonia . These were people who knew that they would die without surgery. Suddenly Barnard became the most famous surgeon in the world , the team did not realize the enormity of their achievement. A later patient lived 23 years after the drug  immunosuppressant Cyclosporine was brought into use. This did not have the side effects of the earlier medicines to stop rejection. Barnard later divorced his wife with 2 children and had 2 more marriages each with 2 children.

Chris Hani 1946 to 1977 He set up the black consciousness movement got got the world black substituted for native,  bantu etc. He was the only black leader around when Mandela and others were in jail or exile. He was a well educated academic and the police basically decided to kill him. 20 years later 5 police at the Truth and Reconciliation  admitted this. Helen Zilla exposed the coverup and Donald Woods wrote the book Biko which became the move Cry Freedom. Donald Woods had to go into exile.

Margaret Calvert   1936 born in Durban  and moved to England aged 14. First in Britain an later all over the world her standard signage  took over, she worked with Jock Kineir . The typeface called Calvert was used and signs for roads , railways airports all used her standard. The pictures of children crossing the road or men at work. 

Winston Churchill 1864 to 1965 The book mentions that his SA Boer War experience made him. The people who organized his escape saw the sentre and remained behind. He was due to be released in any case as he was not a combatant but he never mentioned that.

Johnny Clegg 1953 to 2019 Created black music that became known world wide he saw himself as a white Zulu. singer-songwriter, dancer, anthropologist and anti-apartheid activist. He had a Jewish mother and lived in Yoeville where he got a black worker to teach him their music.

JM Coetzee 1940 Won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003. His novel Disgrace is the most important book on post apartheid SA.

Alan Cormack1924 to1988 Inventor of the CAT scan.

Basil d Olivier1931to 2011 SA top cricket player who had to live in Britain because he was colored and became an embarrassment to the apartheid government.

Ernie Else 1969 Top Golf player and philanthropist.

Brenda Fassie 1964 to 2004 Queen of  Kwela and Madonna of the township African top class singer entertainer.

Mahatma Gandhi 1869 to 1948 He learned his craft of passive resistance to colonialism in 19 years in S. Africa.                    

Herschelle Gibbs1974 Top SA cricketer.

John Heschel 1792 to 1871 In the Cape set up the SA Astronomical Observatory and documented the southern sky from there.

Waddy Jones 1974  Singer , entertainer.

Nishingwayo Khuza 1810 to 1883  He beat Lord Chelmsford at the Battle of Islandwana 1879 at the very beginning of the Zulu wars.

Simeon Khambula 1800s  Xhosa fighter who helped the British in the Battle of Roukes Drift

Chad le Clos 1962 Gold medal Olympic swimmer in 2812

Albert Luthuli 1898 to1967 He tried to peacefully bring about a normal South Africa, Led the ANC and received Nobel peace prize.

Winnie Mandela 1936 to 2018 Wife of Mandela. While he was in jail she was powerful and represented him but afterwards she was a trouble maker and he divorced her in 1996.

Miriam Makeba 1932 to  2008 She reach the top of the world music scene as the voice of African music but lived in exile most of her working career.

Sailor Malan 1910 to 1963 Leading pilot and legend in Second World War in Britain. 

Nelson Mandela 1918 to 2013 Died aged 95  First President of post apartheid South Africa between 1994 to 1999.

Thaba Mbeki 1942 President that followed Mandela 1999 to 2008. He is also in the 50 people who stuffed up South Africa.

Eric Merrifield 1914to 1982 and Aubrey Kruger 1935 They were harbour engineers that deisigned the dolos a large  concrete shape that you drops a few hundred togehter and they act as a wave break, now used worldwide.

King Moshoeshoe 1 1822 to 1870 He build up the Sotho Nation by giving shelter to all who fled the Shaka or other tribes and  the Boers  to the mountains of Thaba Bosiga. Then asked the British to make it a protectorate of Basutoland.

Elon Musk 1971 High tech billionaire was born in S. Africa

Mama Nthatisi 1781 to1836 Founded  the Tlokwa tribe in the Caledon lands of the OFS but were know as the Manthtisi .

François Pienaar 1967 The Captain of the Springbok Rugby team who Mandela gave full encouragement to win the  World Cup Rugby when it took place in South Africa in 1995. Mandela saw this as a means to unite all the races in South Africa.

Oscar Pistorius 1986 The blade runner. He was a successful legless sportman but became notorious as he murdered his wife. Known as the blade runner.

Sol Plaatje 1876 to 1932 Polyglot and founder of the ANC and wrote the Nkisi sekelele Africa.

Ian Player  and Magqubu Ntombela

Lucas Radebe 1969 Leading soccer player for S.A. and also played in Leeds United.

Cyril Ramaphosa 1952 President of  SA since 2018

Sixto Rodriguez 1942 to 2023 Unknown American pop singer who sold in South Africa and so finally  became famous 30 years later. Set the music of the SA protest movement.

Ampie Roux 1914  to 1985 South Africa's leading physicist. 

Ryan Sandes 1982 Sports runner of marathons' 

Jody Scheckter 1950 Formula One  Ferrari winner and businessman

Caster Semenya 1991 She won 800 meter race in Athletics world Championship 

 Shaka1789 to  1828 unified tribes into the Zulu nation. He was known as the Black Napoleon and conquered all the tribes around him.

Mark Shuttleworth 1973 the youngest billionaire and paid $ 20 million to go into space.

Walter1912to2003 and Albertina Sisula1918 to 2011 She was a nurse and he had a white father. The shared the freedom struggle together. She works for women's rights. She mothered her own children and those of Mandela's first marriage whle their husbands were in jail. The were considered  South Africa's greatest love story.

Jordy Smith1988 Surfing king.

Jan Smuts 1870 to 1950  Prime Minister of  the Union of South Africa between 1919 and 1924 and between 1939 and 1948, before apartheid.

 Irma Stern 1894 to 1966 An S. African artist whose painting fetch the highest prices on world market. Leading portrait painter.

Max Theiler 1899 to 1972 a medical man who discovered the cause of  malaria.

Charlize Theron 1972  Afrikaans speaker who became a leading Hollywood actress. She mastered an American accent.

Desmond Tutu 1931 to 2021  Became secretary of the SA Council of Churches in 1973 Awarded Nobel prize in 1984. After the association of Chris Hani in 1993 helped keep the calm when he talked about the Rainbow nation of Africa. Mandela appointed him to head the Truth and Conciliation Commission.

Pieter Dirk Uys.1945   Entertainer.

 

The Precipice by Robert Harris 2024, 441pg

 The Story of PM Herbert Asquith and his relationship to Venetia Stanley his mistress.30/9/24

1914 In London there were up to 12 mail deliveries a day. Besides aristocrats you had Nancy Cunard the shipping heiress only 18. Constantine Beckandork "the Cossack" was the son of the Russian ambassador who had organized this river ship outing which the accident took place. This was a story of a drunken wager very embarrassing if it became public.

In 1914, British prime minister H.H. Asquith, a 61-year-old married man, carries on an affair with 26-year-old Venetia Stanley.  DS Paul Deemer investigates the accidental drowning of Asquith’s son. He afterwards is in a police dept. that arrests saboteurs, spies when the war begins. Since Venetia was on the guest as a witness, he questions her. Were the guests drunk - all the bottles were thrown over the side.  femme fatale - using female charms of beauty and sexual allure

Herbert Asquith1852 to 1928 his first wife Helen Mellend died in 1898(Who left him 5 children). Then he married Margot Tennant. You can never have 2 so dissimilar wives.

Home Rule of Ireland was a big issue and he had to offer it to keep votes.

Venetia's cousin is Clemmie Churchill, and Winston arranges for Venetia to go flying. Her parents were trying to get Venetia away so she wouldn't see Asquith but the war intervened. 

The German Ambassador was Prince Lichnowsky. Before the war they all mixed in the same circles.

With War Sir John French was appointed Inspector General of the army.

Edwin Montague Financial Secretary of the Treasury, had twice proposed marriage to Venetia but because he was a Jew this was problematic for her inheritance. The French were selling their British bonds to get money for the war and Rothschild was worried if tis would rock the market.

People would have objected to women in a "petticoat government "

Richard Haldane  had studied in Germany, spoke German and understand the war issues but was not wanted in the government.

Deemer had to look after his younger brother after his parents died, he was an unstable person till Deemer forced him to go into the army at a time that Britain had been at peace and didn't think he one day might have to fight. There is nothing like war to make men see the true value of things. 

Britain would not make a bargain with Germany to keep neutral at Frances expense. This would tarnish Britain's status in her Empire.

In Whitechapel you could hear Polish, Russian, German ,Yiddish , French spoken.

George V was gruff unsubtle non intellectual. The bank of England suspended the exchange of gold for paper currency and interest rates on the pound double from 4 to 8 %.

When Venetia travelled alone she always travelled 3rd class. 

The Germans had issued an ultimatum to the Belgium government demanding a free passage through their territory. Asquith had managed to keep the government together over this crises. 1914 Britain declared war on 4th August at 11pm.

Asquith managed to stop Kitchener from returning to his post in Egypt and got the Field Marshall to be in charge of the war. Kitchener said that to defeat the Germans will take till 1917 as they need to raise an army of 2 million men and to recruit and train them would take 3 years. Casualties will be enormous.

MO 5 had arrested  22 suspected spies. The First Sea Lord Louis Mountbatten was born in Austria. There was also spy mania with people reporting suspects.

A grisly war is on, to which politicians and generals send young men to die by the tens of thousands, The nature of Herbert Asquith and Venetia Stanley’s affair has long been a well known subject of speculation and debate. The war will be the end of the aristocrats and their way of life. There will be taxation as somebody has to pay for the war.

Carbon copies or 'flimsies' were found all over the place and arrived at Scotland yard and they discovered the PM has just dumped them. Aristocrats believed themselves above the  rules of ordinary people. The PMs car Napier Type 23,  number plate A3141 could be looked up and traced as details of number plates were kept from 1903.

The Stanley's lived at Penrhos House, Holyhead , Anglesey, Wales. Deemer got a job as a gardener here for 3 pence and hour, to be able to find out about the PMs letter going to Venetia.   Now Deemer was given an office in the London Mount Pleasant mail sorting office and was able to get all her letters first. 

The Times published that the British were running out of shells (how did that get through the censors)

Casualties were called The Role of Honour you found the names of officers of the killed in lists in the press. Not the ordinary soldiers as there were too many to print.

If a man was careful not to get his girlfriend pregnant it was "leaving the church before the sermon" was the euphemism. 

The Belgium government abandoned Antwerp and moved to Ostend, causing the loss of this important port, the naval commission escaped during the night and went to Ostend. The British General Staff bred obsolete tactics of 25 years ago.

"To be or not to be"-  duty versus love, convention versus passion death as a welcome release from a life not worth living. This was all in the poetry by Robert Browning the Asquith and  she discussed. Venetia felt it was a patriotic duty to keep the "Prime" happy.

Venetia realized that her life was on the wrong track and to extricate herself from Asquith paid 13 guineas to do a 3 month course to become a nurse at the Whitechapel Hospital in the poverty of the East End. This hospital had 500 poor and 500 wounded soldiers. She had never had a job in her life and the more she saw the horrors the more she determined she became. Later this became a soldiers hospital only. She saw , trench foot , gangrene amputated arms and legs, shattered Jaws and skull fractures and gaping shrapnel wounds. Hard work and hospital food had caused her to lose weight. The hospital staff were aware of her relationship with the Prime Minister. Margot had told her that her husband Asquith always needed young women around him but her relationship had gone too far.

At the Ypres they lost 13000 men in 2 weeks. Oc Asquith had a new friend Rupert Brook (a best membered " trench poet") and his sister Violet was keen on him.

Zeppelin's dropped bombs over Dover and the Thames estuary.

The whole of London society knew that the navy was heading towards the Dardanelles - an element of surprise? 

1769 to 1822 Castlereagh has slashed his throat in with a scissors in 1822 when he was foreign secretary. The offensive on the western front  Neuve Chapelle had to be halted as they ran out of shells.- men I can replace but artillery's shells not.

Edwin Montagu never bored her while she had reached a point where Asquith did. He however was not attracted to going to bed with Montagu. She was not moved by any church service and could convert to Judaism like crossing a road. She enjoyed being with Montagu on a weekend of birdwatching. Montagu said he loved her for her mans mind and women's body. Marrying was a way to escape Asquith.

1908 Asquith had gone to Biarritz in France to kiss Edward VII hand to be made Prime Minister. The King was on holiday in France.

Lloyd George was planning a temperance campaign. At the ammunitions' factory in Newcastle Asquith said that there was plenty of munitions despite having a telegram that there was only enough for a weeks supply at the front. Workers here were working 68 hours a week average and women were also being employed at the Armstrong factory.

1915 The German torpedoing of the Lusitania caused the loss of 1200 and over a hundred of them were Americans. The Germans had also started using poison gas on the Western front.

Deemer on a visit to his boss saw him talking to Lord Northcliffe (1825 to 1922) The owner of the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror and realized that Deemer had been kept in this illegal operation for purely political reasons.

Herbert Asquith had the last Liberal Government in the UK. Venetia sailed to France to take up her nursing duties and the coalition cabinet now had 6 Liberals the PMs Grey, Lloyd George , Crewe, Mc Kenna and Simon. 6 Unionists Bonar Law , Balfour, Lord Curzon , Carson, Austen Chamberlain. a Labour member Arthur Henderson and Kitchener was non party.

Churchill left to join his regiment in France. The Dardanelles was abandoned as a failure in Jan 1916.  The dead here amounted to  over 110,000- 34,000 British 10,000 French, 10,000 Australians and 56,000 Turks. Churchill lost his reputation for years as a result of this.

1916 Lord Kitchener died on a warship on a mission to Russia that hit a mine off Scotland. Raymond Asquith killed  on the Somme.

1917 Oc Asquith wounded and his leg was amputated. Bob Asquith remained in the army till the end of the war. Violet married Maurice Bonham Carter. She had loved Rupert Brook.

1916 After 9 years in power Asquith was ousted by Lloyd George.

1915 Venetia married Edwin Montagu  who became Secretary of State for India (He was a passionate anti Zionist) who opposed the Balfour Declaration and died in 1924 aged 45. She was not physically attracted to him and his being Jewish was a problem but she liked his company. (He had, had a gay relationship to Maynard Keynes the well known economist at Cambridge.) This also got her away from Asquith. He had told Venetia she had a women's body and a mans head. Venetia gave birth to Judith in 1923 DNA tests later proved that the Earl of Dudley was the father. She also had affairs with Lord Beaverbrook. She died in 1948 aged 60

560 letters from Asquith to Venetia are held at the Bodleian Library. Roy Jenkins( PM from 1974 to 1976) used them when he published  a biography of Asquith in 1964. Violet, Asquith's daughter was shocked to learn of their existence.