Emotions after visiting AZW Battle Sites.

Billy Blanco you stated in the Battle Section of the forum (Rorkes Drift)

"HI all

It's well worth the trip i would love to go again and there's always something that gives you that lump in
the throte and a tear in the eye"
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Billy Blanco
What was it that made you feel like this on your visit to Rorkes Drift. Was it the fact that you stood at the spot where one of Britain’s most famous battles took place 130 years ago. Or was it for those that fell on both sides.

You see I have spoken to quite a few friends that have been to Rorkes Drift and Isandlwana, and they all say they were overcome by a strong emotion as you described.

However one very close friend who toured Isandlwana said that he could hear voices. He says the voices were asking to be taken home. Back to England

He was in-fact very disturbed but this for months after and as promised never to return. I am completely open minded about emotional feelings but I have known this friend all my life and I believe him.

This thread is not meant to be about ghosts, and all that nonsense. Its about feelings felt by those that have experienced emotion of some sort while visiting AZW Sites in S/A.

Anyone else heard stories of emotions felt after visting AZW sites.

I recall reading Rider Haggard’s account of how he felt after his visit to Isandlwana, bearing in mind he knew a lot of the officers that died there. Personally. I will try and remember where I saw it. It was a moving account.

HI Chelmsford the scapegoat
My emotions were for Both sides as Both sides fought just as Bravely at both Battles I could Picture the Men Holding a Defence and men Shunning the Bayonet while charging a heavy volley.
I did get strange feelings at Isandlwana it was like someone watching you every step of the way and in certain areas the hairs on my neck stood up.
I believe your friend as Battle ground's on that scale where men die so horrific something is bound to linger.
i DO HOPE FOR YEARS TO COME PEOPLE LIKE US WILL KEEP GOING THERE TO LET THEM KNOW THEY ARE NOT FORGOTEN

hi all,

i have seen a post from jaimie who has the best site i have seen on the A.Z.W, i have posted this link on here before,
not sure where !!. he posted on the RDVC FORUM , he was alone at isandlwana one day , taking his photos when he felt as if someone grabbed him by the shoulder or arm . i"M not sure which one he said. he quickly turned around and to his surprise, NOBODY was there !!.. i think he said he started to walk away very quickly and then started to run, why , he didnt know, he felt very uneasy for quite a while after. i'm sure pete { admin} would have seen the post.
cheers 90th.

hi all,

found jaimies posts , not what i thought he wrote in regards to my previous post on this subject. here they are.

" a very spooky thing indeed happened to me a couple of days previously to this walk in the MANZIMYAMA . decided to walk down the stream bed from the dirt road crossing where the zulu right horn appeared on that day.wont go into detail but i saw somethong that i just cannot explain".

" to put it simply, a man appeared from nowhere right behind me as i turned to look back up the stream towards the crossing, then, simply disapeared into thin air. scared the cr-p out of me. made record time up the trail. can laugh now, but not funny when i saw " it" whatever it / he was.

Do you think the same emotions would be the same if someone interested in the AZW as we are, went to one of the battlefields in France. WW1 & WW2. I think not. Each and everyone who is interested in the AWZ as established a connection to one of the Soldiers of that day. For Instance Durnford The Scapegoat as an oblivious connection with Durnford. I myself find myself connected to Curling why I don’t know. I have read his book which contains the letters he wrote during the campaign. These letters were personal and gives us a true insight in to his personal thoughts.
Can it be because we never met these people in person. I mean how good would it have been to sit in the local pub at Ruddington in Nottingham and have a beer with the three defenders who live there.

24th at your request.

Standing on the nek Haggard looked out over the battlefield and visualised the events of 22 January 1879. "Few relics are left of the struggle now after the lapse of 35 years, some broken medicine bottles, a good many fragments of bully-beef tins, pieces of the bones of men and animals, that is all. Also we picked up the remnants of two Martini cartridges; the one I found on the nek had not been fired, probably it came from the pouch of some slain soldier, a slate pencil and such sundries." (That night when the party stayed at the store of Charles Evelyn Parr, close to the battlefield, Haggard was given a "number of cartridge cases and the head of one of Durnford's rockets." )

"It was sad for me to stand by the piles of stones which cover all that is left of so many whom I once knew; Durnford and Pulleine and many other officers of the 24th, George Shepstone and the rest. Coghill I knew also very well but he died with Melville by the river bank ... We walked back towards the store past the little graveyard where I see that Hitchcock, the first husband of Osborn's daughter is buried with a few others whom it was possible to identify, and across the dongas and the rough ground about them." 104

"When I had gone some way I turned and looked back at this lonesome, formidable hill standing there, a fit monument for the multitude of dead; immemorially ancient, stern and grand. The twilight was closing in, the sky was red, fading into grey. Over that savage crest trembled one star: Heaven's own ornament. Near to it gleamed the faint but luminous bow of the new-born moon, that same young moon which once hung above the slain upon this forsaken field of blood. I walked awhile, picking my way over the stony ridge and dongas where the last stand was made against a roaring flood of foes, and again looked back. Now the stark mount had become very black and solemn, the trembling star had sunk or vanished and of the following crescent of the young moon but one horn appeared above the hill. It looked like a plume of faint, unearthly fire burning upon Isandhlwana's rocky brow. This must be a quiet place for man's eternal sleep. But the scene which went before that sleep!"

Was this based on fiction or true account.