TOPIC:

I am writing a book about a person who served as an officer's personal servant or batman in the Boer War.
Does anyone have any information about batman? What they did? Real stories of these people and experiences they had.
The officer concerned was Captain Francis Lane Fox, Imperial Yeomanry, 57th Company, 15th Battalion.

Henred
Welcome to the Forum.
Essentially, a batman/servant looked after his officer's comfort and efficiency; keeping his kit clean and ready for use and, in the field, arranging basic accommodation and messing (or often collaborating with other officers' servants in arranging messing). A good officer's servant would have been a real asset on active service and could be relied upon to deal with the myriad small tasks so that his officer could concentrate on what was important.
Officer's servants also also unofficially heard a lot in the course of their job and were often regarded by the rank-and-file as a valuable source of the latest rumours and possibly future movements of their unit.
Later I will post a couple of paragraphs from Erskine Childers' "In the Ranks of the CIV" ; describing (slightly with tongue-in-cheek) the spreading of rumours.
Regards
IL.

Henred
Here are the two cuts from "In the Ranks of the CIV" I mentioned earlier:


If you wish to read further, Childers' book can be read on-line by going to the Books section of this site.|
Regards
IL.

Here is a Batman from Strathcona's Horse......

In one of his letters home he states that he likes to exercise his officers horse in the British lines as they think he is an officer......

www.angloboerwar.com/forum/5-medals-and-...d-strathcona-s-horse

Mike