Remember all the soldiers who made it home, who struggle in silence, who are mostly misunderstood, who carry those unseen battle scars for life, holding their heads up high to the unsuspecting eye, which cannot see their fears and their nightmares.
Captain Ritchie Francis Henry Moffett was born on March 31, 1899 in Ladybrand in the Free State, and was baptised in Bloemfontein.
He was the son of John Ritchie Moffett, a storekeeper and the co-owner of Loewenstein & Moffett General Dealer Store in Ladybrand, who was born at Sowerby Bridge in England in 1865.
Ritchie’s mother was Elizabeth Moffett neè Louw, born somewhere in the Free State in around the year 1870.
Ritchie had two sisters and a brother, all also born in Ladybrand: Nora Elizabeth Aikman neè Moffett, born in 1893 – who married trader and farmer, Robert Blackie Aikman of the farm Auchineden/ Conovium, near Clocolan; Doris Kathleen Jackson neè Moffett, born in 1896, of the farm Baghdad near Springfontein in the Free State – who married Walter Neville Jackson; and Rupert Glynne Bamford Moffett, born 1901, who was married to June Ellen Newberry.
Between her divorce from Rupert in 1950 and Rupert’s self–inflicted death in 1955, June Ellen was married to Alexander David Boddam–Whetham in 1952.
Alexander was a nephew of Edward Tudor Boddam–Whetham, and in 1948 left England to join his nephew, who owned the farm Van Niekerk’s Rus or Kirklington, between Clocolan and Ficksburg.
Until this day, Kirklington farm is renowned across the world for its beautiful gardens and organic farming.
The Moffett family has strong historical ties with Kirklington Farm and Prynnsberg Farm, where Rupert’s son, John and his two brothers grew up.
Not much is known about the schooling and younger years of Ritchie Moffett, but he did matriculate in 1916, probably at Ladybrand.
Ritchie worked as a bank clerk before joining up for service in WWI, and from September 1916 to February 1917, he served as a ‘trooper’ in the South African 1st Mounted Brigade in East Africa, and from July 1918 to May 1919, served in the Royal Air Force (RAF) with the rank of a 2nd Lieutenant, in England and in Europe.
Moffett enrolled as a pupil pilot in the RAF in 1918, but the war was soon over which meant he was unable to earn his wings.
In September 1919, an engagement was announced between Ritchie and Hilda Pauline Yerbury, of Milton Road in Acton, London. It is not known if he actually married Yerbury, or if he later became a widower or divorcee. Ritchie completed a veterinary course in 1920, and worked as a Senior Stock Inspector in Kenya from 1920 to 1923.
On 17 February, 1925, Ritchie married Marjorie Francis Harcourt–Vernon, in what is now the 112-year-old St. Michael and All Angels Chapel, which is situated on the farm Keble Estate, near Clocolan in the eastern Free State.
Marjorie, who was born on 27 January, 1894, was the youngest of the five children of the Reverend Algernon Hardolph Harcourt–Vernon, from his two marriages.
Reverend Harcourt–Vernon was educated at Oxford University in England, and when he purchased a farm, built a large sandstone house on it in the Colonial/Victorian style, near Clocolan in about 1872. He named the farm Keble Estate, after Keble College at Oxford, where he had studied divinity.
Keble Estate is a 310–hectare farm, known for being the first ever commercial jersey cow stud in the Free State, and was also home to a well–known race horse stud for many years. The current owners of this picturesque and historic farm, for the past 20-plus years, are Peter and Sarah Mann.
Ritchie farmed on his brother–in–law’s farm Conovium from 1923 to 1939, and was employed in the Sales Department of a farming implements firm from 1939 to 1940.
With the outbreak of World War II, Ritchie joined the Union Defence Force on 11 November 1940, with the commissioned rank of Lieutenant. He was promoted to the rank of Captain on 7 April, 1942.
At the time when Moffett joined up, his home address was at Winkelspruit on the Natal south coast.
During his military service in the force, Ritchie did service at SAAF Youngsfield in Cape Town, 45 Air School in Oudtshoorn, 47 Air School in Queenstown and also at Waterkloof and Voortrekkerhoogte near Pretoria.
Ritchie’s services outside the force were mostly as an Armaments Officer with the SAAF, being deployed to Nairobi in Kenya, and with 11 and 15 Squadrons in Abyssinia, Eritrea and Egypt and 12 Squadron in the Western Desert. For his services in the military, Ritchie was awarded the General Service Medal, Victory Medal, 1939–1945 Star, Africa Star, The War Medal (1939–1945) and the Africa Service Medal.
At the end of the war, he was released from the military on October 1947, and settled at Golden Valley near Vryheid, where he farmed with maize, wattle trees and a bit of livestock.
The Moffetts never had any children of their own, and John said when the cruelty of war caught up with Ritchie at times, he would find his solace in ‘fire water’.
Vryheid Gazette, 1 February, 1957:
“Moffett – Captain Ritchie Francis Henry, beloved husband of Marjorie, passed peacefully to rest 18th January, 1957, at the Vryheid Hospital.”
He was laid to rest in the Vryheid Cemetery. Marjorie died in Pietermaritzburg in the late 1960s, and her ashes were scattered on the farm in the Free State where she grew up – Keble Estate.
Lest we forget.
Also read: ‘Lest we forget’ Willie Minott and Sons – The brave soldier who fought against tyranny
Also read: Michiel Brummer – a military pilot lost to the sea
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