Not just ghost stories at Talana Museum
McFadden said visitors were known to burst into tears at the sight of soldiers dying before them, near the donga where many soldiers felt the full force of Boer riflemen.
Article submitted by Pam McFadden of Talana Museum
‘Do you believe in ghosts?’
Curator of Talana Museum, Pam McFadden said had she been asked that question 30 years earlier, her answer would have an unequivocal no.
After 31 years managing the museum, her answer is not so certain.
“Too many visitors to this museum have seen, felt or experienced something which cannot be explained. Colonel Gunning, who died going up the donga on the slopes of
Talana hill, walks around near the cemetery and stands under one of the gum trees.”
While McFadden was aware many naysayers did not believe, her proof was the visitors asking who the man was in their photographs, wearing a khaki uniform.
And too many had identified the same person in photographs.
She invited the community to walk with guides at Talana Live, on the anniversary of the Battle of Talana Hill (October 20), the first major clash of the Second Boer War.
McFadden said it was a time when ghosts definitely walked with the living.
“Strange feelings have been identified in certain areas, and I hadn’t told anyone they were passing the original military cemetery. At the gap in the stone wall, Lieutenants Pechell and Taylor can be seen crouching down, taking cover from Boer rifle fire.”
McFadden said visitors were known to burst into tears at the sight of soldiers dying before them, near the donga where many soldiers felt the full force of Boer riflemen.
She is also used to questions about a Boer horseman riding across the battlefield.
“Apparently they come back onto the battlefield to pick up their dead and wounded.”
One evening on the anniversary of the battle a couple of years ago, McFadden said a group of ghost hunters and cynics sat quietly in the dark, on the plateau of Talana hill.
She watched as one person sat up and smelled the air, stating they could smell horses.
Another person burst into tears, exclaiming the horses had just walked past her even though she did not believe and went along the walk for fun alone.
Images seem to corroborate these claims.
“On one of the annual ghost walks, the most amazing images of British soldiers standing among the crowd were captured on camera. I had a British officer standing over my shoulder listening to the tale of the battle in which he died – I do hope I got the story correct and that he wasn’t grading my performance.”
Each year on the anniversary of the Battle of Talana Hill, McFadden and residents laid a wreath in memory of those who died there.
Some were as young as 18.
A total of 56 British soldiers are buried in the museum’s cemetery, with one more British soldier and a Boer soldier still at rest atop Talana hill.
“The British soldier was struck by lightning and died in the middle of 1900. Boer casualties were originally buried on the top of Talana hill but were reinterred under the clock tower of the Dutch Reformed Church in 1929, all except for one whose family wanted his remains undisturbed.”
McFadden said the unquiet souls have walked the battlefield since their deaths 114 years ago, on horseback at sunset, knocking on the doors of homes and wandering the museum grounds.
The community is invited to experience this for themselves on October 20 to 22.
“Maybe you might also feel something which will stir you, to think about those young men who died on the slopes of Talana hill.”
For more details, call McFadden on 034 212 2654, send an email to info@talana.co.za or visit www.talana.co.za.
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