John Jackson Story A Selborne, East London woman, Noreen Boltman considers all the hullabaloo about the Springbok emblem is a lot of nonsense as she is rightfully proud of two of her most prized possessions, a Springbok cap and badge dating back over a century. “My father was capped by South Africa in one Test in 1903,” she says. She added that the Springbok cap and badge were awarded to him and other South African internationals from 1891 in retrospect after the 1906 team in the UK had adopted the Springbok as their national emblem. The cap is light brown in colour with an embossed Springbok head in front, but over time the stitching between the peak and cap has frayed somewhat, but the badge has endured over a century very well. Noreen’s father was John “Jack” Jackson, a tough, no-nonsense Western Province forward who played in the second Test at the Kimberley Athletic Club against Mark Morrison’s British Isles team, the third touring team in South Africa, and is number 80 on the official list of capped Springboks. The game was drawn 0-0. During the Anglo Boer War Jackson served in the Cape Town Highlanders on the side of the British. He later became a magistrate and Boltman recalls meeting a host of famous rugby players, friends of her father, including double Springbok (rugby and cricket) Percy Twentyman-Jones, who later became a judge, hence the link with her father, Billy Millar, the 1912 Springbok captain and “Boy” Louw, the tough prop of the 1920s and 1930s. Boltman said her brother, John, loved wearing her father’s cap, especially when he went fishing. He was a good all-round sportsman and played for the Rondebosch High School first XV and represented Western Province at swimming. Sadly, as a fighter pilot he lost his life during the Second World War in 1942 at the tender age of 19. Boltman was a “laat lammetjie” and her father was 54 when she was born in 1932. After the death of her father in 1954 she found among his effects the cap and badge, a 1904 rugby booklet featuring Cape Town club matches as well as a few team photographs featuring her father and some famous Springboks, including Paul Roos, Bob Loubser and Japie Krige and the 1903 Bok captain, B H “Fairy” Heatlie. “I remember when I was about seven Heatlie came to visit my father when we lived in Robertson,” Boltman said. “I was playing in the garden and my father called out, ‘come and say hullo to Fairy Heatlie.’ I had the image of a little fairy in my mind, and I rushed to the gate to greet him and there was this giant of a man standing there. I turned tail and ran away,” Boltman says with a laugh. It was Heatlie who originally suggested that the South African team play in green jerseys and he did much to promote rugby union just over a century ago. “My father was very proud of his Springbok blazer which he would wear to sports functions and I recall going once to a tailor in Worcester where he had the gold braiding repaired,” she recalls. Jackson later served as a magistrate in King William’s Town and Boltman’s mother was a trained nurse who worked at the old Frere Hospital in East London. “Unfortunately my father was not a very communicative man, and as a result I don’t know too much about his rugby career at all,” she says. Boltman enjoys supporting the current Springbok teams and has been married to a doctor for over 50 years and has three children and two grandchildren. http://onsport.co.za/?p=306
