A Moment in Wales - By Gillian Rattray

There are little white cottages on the green hillsides, white with gray slate roofs. Their walls are of stone from the Welsh quarries. All else is green and gray. Wales, I think to myself, is green and gray, yet the cottages are white. Even in the villages, where some of the walls of the houses are coloured, there is a look of gray. The small fields on the hillsides are enclosed by dark green hedges. There is nothing pretentious about the farms or the villages. I read somewhere that a person from Wales is not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but with music in his blood and poetry in his soul.
I have come to Wales, to the village of Brecon, for a short ceremony to be held to honour my son David. It will be commemorated by the Royal Welsh Regiment together with the Regimental Museum on the second anniversary of his death. I have come for just one day, for the ceremony.
The Commanding Officer of the regiment has sent his car and driver to Heathrow Airport to fetch me, so I travel in splendour along the curvy roads, through villages with names such as Pontypool and Abergavenny, names made familiar to me from the stories David told of the battles of Isandhlwana and Rorke’s Drift. The soldiers of that far-off Zulu war in 1879 came from farms in these valleys, from these villages. With names such as Jones and Williams. Most, it seemed, were called Jones. I think of those young lads taking Queen Victoria’s shilling, leaving their humble white-walled cottages for the vastness and strangeness of Africa, meeting, most of them, death at the hand of Zulu warriors. I think of the farewells, and their walk over the hills to the village of Brecon to join the regiment. I think of their mothers. I think of the heartbreak when so many did not return.
In Brecon we find the seventeenth century house, now a B & B, where I am to stay. It has thick walls, dark stout beams, creaking stairs and floors, and a Welsh name which I find unpronounceable.
In the beautifully appointed interior of the old house, in my quaint bedroom, I am made to feel at home. After a quick shower and a cup of tea, I walk to Brecon Cathedral, wherein are housed some relics which are very special to our family. In a side chapel of the beautiful building, where God has been worshiped for more than ten centuries, there hangs the Queen’s Colour of the regiment. Fugitives from the battle died, trying to save this relic. The bodies of the two men are buried on our farm in Zululand. The Colour was found, a month or so later, in the Buffalo River, also on our farm. The Queen later placed a circle of immortelles on the Standard of the Colour when it was presented to her after the war—the only time such an honour was granted by Her Majesty.
I am alone in the cathedral building so there is nothing to disturb me as I gaze at the relics. I ponder on the lives of so many men whose blood was spilled on a summer’s day in far-off Zululand.
It is cold when I awake the next morning: January the 26th—the second anniversary of David’s death. Grey clouds hang low over the town.
At noon I am fetched by a different driver—yesterday’s man is scheduled for exercises on Salisbury Plain. In the Officers Mess, part of the enormous and impressive brick building of the regimental barracks, we are given a buffet lunch and meet together with sixty or more of David’s friends, who have come from every part of Britain to witness and share in this celebration. There is more than a sprinkling of officers, smart in their uniforms, together with dignitaries from the town.
After lunch, we move to the garden of the Regimental Museum. The museum is enclosed by high and beautiful ancient gray brick walls; the memorial plaque is on one of these walls. At present it lies hidden behind a pair of green curtains, which my daughter-in-law will draw when the plaque is unveiled. To one side of the curtains stands Shenken, the goat, the regimental mascot, snow-white hair newly combed, resplendent in his green and gold coat, his much be-medalled sergeant ‘guardian’ at attention beside him. There is a simple basket of white flowers beneath the curtains.
Our little group gathers. My two grandsons stand tall and proud (in new dark coats, I observe), together with their mother, Brigadier Aitken and the Commanding Officer of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Wales.
The assembly is greeted by the brigadier, followed by words from the Commanding Officer. They speak so kindly of my son, and talk of how he inspired reconciliation between the British and the Zulus. We all say together “They shall grow not old as we that are left, grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.”
And then the bugler lifts his shiny bugle to his lips and plays the Last Post. Silence—and then the Reveille is played. The world seems to have come to an end. People from the village have gathered quietly outside the museum gate. They stand with heads bowed. The sun must have emerged from the gray clouds, as I feel its warmth drying the tears on my face.
Nicky then steps forward and unveils the plaque. How thrilled I am that it is fashioned of slate from the Welsh hills! For ever there will be a piece of Wales that is David’s. The words on the plaque are boldly carved:

IN PROUD MEMORY
OF
Dr. DAVID GREY RATTRAY1958-2007
FUGITIVES DRIFT LODGE
SOUTH AFRICA
ZULU WAR HISTORIAN
AND
REGIMENTAL FRIEND

While I , myself, feel a connection to each Welsh mother who lost a son at the hand of Zulus in far-off Africa, my heart is warmed by the recognition of this famous regiment of Wales to one of South Africa’s sons.