PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - As part of Freedom Day celebrations next month, the Van Plettenberg Historical Society will highlight a historic underdog story, the Battle of Isandlwana.
Master storyteller and Plettenberg Bay resident Andrew Rattray will be telling the story of this bloody conflict between the invading British forces - armed with rifles and cannons - and Zulu warriors armed only with spears and shields.
The Zulu warriors emerged victorious. The event will be held at the Burnt Orange at the Plettenberg Bay Angling Club on the Keurbooms River on 27 April.
The talk will be followed by a reception with a selection of snacks and a cash bar.
Chairman of the society, Len Swimmer, said the Battle of Isandlwana during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 has been the subject of conjecture and controversy for more than 140 years.
"It is arguably the greatest defeat that the British Empire was ever to suffer in her entire colonial history. In two short hours a modern British army was destroyed. But, was this truly a British defeat?
"Is it explained away by incompetence, failings in supply or overconfidence? Or was it due to the astounding leadership and motivation of the Zulu forces?" Swimmer said.
Calling on the old Zulu stories of the battle to recreate the events of the day, Rattray is expected to explain how this battle was won, give insight into the brave warriors and Zulu chieftains who fought and died defending their king and country – as well as those on the British side, thousands of miles from home.
For Rattray the stories are close to home as he was raised at Fugitive's Drift, on the battlefields of northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Fom a very young age, he listened to his father David telling the epic stories of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift.
He led his first guided tour at age six when his father was called away to fight a fire. It was very that clear the storytelling genes run strong in the family.
He spent the next eight years telling the stories of Isandlwana and Rorke's Drift, as well as other lesser-known battles and skirmishes of the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. He has also told these stories at venues across the world, from theatres in the UK to the Royal Geographic Society in Hong Kong.
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