No Outspan

No Outspan begins with Deneys Reitz’s return from the First World War, during which he commanded a Scottish regiment. One might think that Reitz would be happy to settle for a quiet life after fighting through two terrible wars, but nothing could be further from the truth. Immediately on his return by ship to Table Bay Harbour, he agreed to stand as a Member of Parliament in the forthcoming election.

The South African Party under Botha and Smuts won the election, and Deneys Reitz became a Cabinet Minister. This enabled him to lead a life of great adventure when not constrained by Parliament or the drudgery of Pretorian office duties.

No Outspan is a fascinating account of life in South Africa from the early 1920s until the early 1940s, when the author was Deputy Prime Minister of South Africa. Deneys Reitz played an important role in the creation of the Kruger National Park and was appointed as one of the founding trustees despite being an opposition Member of Parliament at the time. His involvement with wild life and various game reserves he helped establish while in office is a theme that runs throughout the book.

An intensely interesting episode in the book is the fall of Hertzog as leader of a coalition government over the issue of South Africa’s stand in the Second World War. As a Cabinet Minister in the coalition government, Deneys Reitz had a front row seat in all of this – and he tells the story as no one else could.

Jan Smuts said after Reitz’s death in 1944: ‘His loss is a national one and will be mourned all over this country which he knew and loved as no other’.

Also available in Afrikaans as Geen Uitspan.

About the author: 

Deneys Reitz was a Boer soldier who fought in the Second Boer War for the South African Republic against the British Empire. After a period of exile in French Madagascar, he returned to South Africa, where he became a lawyer and served as the Deputy Prime Minister.