One person excited about the prospect of a Boer War Day ceremony is local councillor John McGregor, whose father served in the Boer War and whose experiences were detailed in entertaining fashion in a Friday, September 4 edition of The Young Chronicle.
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While the bulk of his wartime experiences are enough to fill an entire page of The Witness, excerpts of the article are detailed below.
Mr H.H McGregor (or Harvey as he was known to a host of friends) saw in his 17th birthday camped at Sydney Cricket Ground before embarking on the British Princess for the South African War.
The steamer touched at Capetown and disembarked the troops at Durban after which he took part in Paardeburg, Elandsfontein and some of the greatest battles of the war, one of his proudest possessions today being the South African Medal with the three bars denoting service in the Travsvaal, Natal and Cape Colony.
His most interesting experience during the campaign was his capture by the Boers.
“Four of us rode from our camp after firewood to a farmhouse three or four miles away,” he related, “and we collected some doors and attached them to our saddles. Our own common sense should have told us to be more careful, but we mounted and were about to ride away when about 200 Boers came over the kopje at us. We dug in our spurs and I thought we would get away, but a bullet brought my horse down. A chap named Spedding, from Lismore, also had his horse shot from under him and the Boers were on us in a minute. ‘Hands up, I skid’ (shoot) they shouted, and he had no hesitation in complying with their request. The other two men got away but we were compelled to march beside the convoy for four days, being repeatedly but unsuccessfully questioned by the Commondant Van Der Merwe. In the end they stripped us and told us to clear out and we managed to get back to camp - probably the first to develop the nudist cult in South Africa, although our action in that direction was compulsory.”
Mr McGregor was camped on the Pretoria racecourse when the Australian Harry Morant was shot by the authorities for alleged atrocities against the Boers.
Morant was ‘a lover of women, wine and song’ - a man who a couple of hundred years ago would have been a buccaneer.
“I was haivng a chat with Lieut Thomas at the Grand Hotel and he told be that Morant was to be shot at 9 o’clock that night,” said Mr McGregor, “so a few of us went and stood outside the grey stone walls surrounding the prison till we heard the shots which we knew had signalised the end of a hectic career.”
Mr McGregor returned home to Australia in July 1902.
He served with the 12th Light Horse in the Second World War first in Egypt then in campaigns at Gallipoli, the Suez Canal, Palestine, Flanders fields, the Battle of Bersheeba and Tripoli.
When he eventually settled in Young , he operated a stock and station agency.
At the time of this article, 1939, he stated to The Chronicle he would not need any urging to take part in another war if Hitler decided to jump over the deep end.
At 56 years of age, in the best of health and physical fitness, he considered himself good for several more wars should they eventuate.
HH “Harvey” McGregor lived to the ripe old age of 80.
