ABSTRACT
The official history of the Natal Mounted Rifles contains an obituary for William Alfred (‘Wac’) Campbell, uncle to the well-known South African poet Roy Campbell, in which it is stated, almost apologetically, that despite the fact that he was educated at Hilton College and Cambridge, and spent most of his life as Managing Director of Natal Estates Limited he was, ‘nevertheless, essentially an out-of-doors man’ (my emphasis).2 This essay seeks to examine the meaning of that qualifying phrase.
