I had the honour of travelling up to Pietermaritzburg with my Moth friend Skippy Michell of Better ‘Ole Shellhole, with his wife Lana and a friend Marlene, to attend the 100th Anniversary Remembrance Parade of Delville Wood at the Delville Wood Remembrance Garden, just diagonally over the road from the Allan Wilson Shellhole. We arrived at Allan Wilson early in the afternoon as I wanted to get some photographs of the Remembrance Garden whilst there was still plenty of light as the Parade was to commence at 17hr30 on Saturday 16th July 2016.

How’s that for 100 years to the day !

It really was a magnificent evening, despite that there were some dark clouds over head, and thank goodness it did not rain.
I guess that there would have been about 100 MOTH on Parade, with 4 Banner bearers, Atomic, Pillbox, Hamba Kahle and the host Shellhole Allan Wilson and about 75to 100 visitors.

The Old Bill of Allan Wilson, Johan ‘Dup’ Plessis ran a very moving ceremony, but sadly because of the bark cloud clover, Dup ran out of light. Thanks for the Sgt Maj Clive Holland with a torch light from a cell phone, Dup was able to finish his talk on the War of Delville Wood. Very emotional (for me) Dup was ably supported by his to Guard of Honour of Brian McGarry and Dereck Smith. And the Padre, Craig Houson also had a moving service.

The Remembrance Parade was over just after 18hr10 and thanks to the P A system done by the Allan Wilson Paybill Adrian Visser and most of the people retired to Allan Wilson for excellent snacks and refreshments.

Thank you Allan Wilson – The “War Correspondent”