A couple of days prior to the re-enactment commemorating the 125th anniversary of the battle of Isandhlwana on 22 January 2004 Pat Lundgren guided four members of the 80th Regiment of Foot - Staffordshire Volunteers Living History Group to Ntombe.

Obviously with a Regimental history like the 80th's potential volunteers are wary, but the Regiment lives on - just!

Jim Buckle, Pete Webb, Phil Joynson and Pete Wooldridge went to pay homage to their forebears. As is normal during the rainy season, it usually fails to rain when it's expected to and does when it isn't. However, grab a bunch of Pom tourists, slap on the sun tan lotion and get out the cricket gear, and it's bound to come down in buckets!

And so it was on the day. misty, cold, with intermittant squalls once again turning the red clay soil into glue. Our doughty warriors though were mad of sterner stuff and piled out of cars, dressed in the appropriate gear and went off to inspect the monument.

First erected by the South Staffordshires in 1921 it is now sadly in dire need of repair, especially the fences surrounding it, which have gone no doubt to assist a local housing project.

The elements not withstanding, though, the visit was an emotional one, albeit looked at with great amusement by the local Zulu schoolchildren who were breaking up for the day.

Mad dogs and Englishmen................

Then on to Luneburg to the immaculately kept German cemetary to view Surgeon Cobbin's and Capt. Moriarty's gravestones. Phil got himself covered in mud, but vowed never to wash his uniform again as it was, he explained 'Ntombe mud'.

The lads have decided to attempt to raise funds to resurrect the monument and its fencing and to spruce up the area in general.

In a remote area, far away from most civilized trappings, that would indeed be a fitting tribute to those who died so terribly long ago.