Dilly-dallying meant Isandlwana re-enactment was a non-start

Sir
We, the Dundee Diehards, are aware of the Isandlwana date being the January 22 and at the beginning of January we tried to contact the organisers to confirm this date.
In the past years the day has been arranged for the Saturday nearest the 22nd and we have been able to attend and re-enact the Battle with the Zulu regiments. There have been times when the day was set during the week, and as most of our members are working people we have not been able to attend the function.
After struggling to contact the office of the Department of Arts & Culture, I finally received an e-mail from Mr. Buyani Mhlongo, from the Isandlwana Museum, to say that the date was set for the 22nd. By return of email, I informed Mr. Mhlongo that we would not be able to attend due to work pressure. On January 19, we received another email to say that the date had been changed to the 24th to enable the working people to also take part.
This gave us four days to inform the members, arrange transport and obtain blanks for the re-enactment.
We had all the arrangements in place, with 18 men on standby, and on January 20 we received another email from Mr. Mhlongo, to say that the date was set back to the 22nd.
Well! Under these conditions we were unable to attend and I sent an email back expressing our disappointment and offering our assistance in organising the next event. I also made the suggestion that the date should be set now for Saturday, January 23, 2016. If this date is set now, we can inform British Army units about the day and I am sure that a number of these men would attend the function. They will lay wreaths to the fallen and I am sure that they would also honour the Zulu Regiments who fought in the battle. Secondly, they will bring out pounds with them and the local people could make some extra money selling trinkets and carvings.
In conclusion, I wish to state that we would have been at the Commemoration and given a worthy performance if the dates had been set for the weekend. We are not responsible for the inefficient way that the organisers arranged the day.
However I wish to thank the lady who phoned me from the Department of Arts & Culture, to apologise for the manner in which we were messed around.
Vincent Nixon,
Team leader Dundee Diehards