A Boer family in captivity
It was October 1899, shortly after the declaration of war. The inhabitants of Heidelberg, 50km south-east of Johannesburg, could hear the distant but frightening rumble of artillery from the direction of Greylingstad. The town’s population at this stage consisted mostly of women, children, the elderly and the infirm, and the sound was a grim reminder that their husbands, fathers and brothers were out trying to stem the tide of the advancing British.
Maggie Jooste, who would go on to recall her experiences of these events decades later, was the eldest daughter of Jacobus and Anna Jooste. The family lived in a large house on Heidelberg’s main road, close to Jacobus’s farrier and
