The Irish Boer Woman

Video link to Irish Boer Woman: https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X1dtIFurOY Interview with Neville Herrington 1. What are the topics that most interest you and why? I am strongly drawn to aspects of South Africa’s history, particularly where members of my own family were caught up in major conflicts and significant events. Both my grandfathers fought on opposite sides in that conflict, and my maternal great grandfather was taken prisoner-of-war and sent to Diyatilawa in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). My maternal grandmother, together with her mother and siblings, was incarcerated in a British concentration camp, leaving bitter memories of the thousands of women and children who died in those camps, largely as a result of disease and poor management. During the my formative upbringing, the Boer/Brit conflict remained a simmering and unresolved issue in our household, as was the Catholic/Protestant divide that was personified in the arguments between a devout Catholic mother and a Protestant/Agnostic father. 2. What inspired you to create the character of Brigid O’Meara as the heroine of your trilogy: England Wants Your Gold, The Irish Boer Woman, Dark Night of the Soul? In some ways it was a bringing together of people and places with which I was familiar. Kimberley of the 19th century is where my paternal grandmother comes from, being the first white baby girl born in that diamond mining town. Pretoria is the location for much of my writing, as it is where my family and most of my relatives settled; my paternal grandparents owned valuable property on Church Square in the late 19th century, and a farm just north of the city. Premier Mine, some 40 km outside the city, is another site of significant family interest, where my father grew up and was educated at the local government school. The character of Brigid is largely a product of the creative imagination, but infused with significant influences from people that I had known or read about. 5. What are you writing about in your next book, and how does it link in with the trilogy? In my fourth historical novel, ’Ritchie’s War, ’ Brigid has been dead ten years and I now trace the tortured development of her only son, Ritchie, who, on leaving school, immediately joins the South African imperial forces to fight in the First World War. He and his stepbrother, Kosie, who is also a member of General Smuts’ 1st Division, find themselves in German East Africa.