Vinnicombes Trek

Tom Vinnicombe's life was an exciting one for he lived in stirring times. He spent his childhood in Pietermaritzburg and after the Anglo-Zulu War and Majuba he trekked over the Drakensberg. With his wife, Rachel, and his growing family he went to the gold-fields, but later moved from growing town to growing town building Gothic churches for the Dutch Reformed congregations of the Highveld. His disgust at the Jameson Raid made him become a burgher of the Transvaal. But, the Anglo-Boer War divided his loyalties and he struggled to remain neutral rather than take up arms against his former country. Eventually, he had to leave the Republic and joined the Natal guides with bullers' advancing forces. He risked being executed for treason by taking food to his family, but his Boer neighbours helped him to escape. This adventure, like many of the happenings of his eventful and colourful life, is recorded in robust verse.