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disappeared, and a huge pit, 60 metres long and 25 deep, appeared in the ground. Hundreds of
surrounding homes and buildings were damaged or destroyed; some 200 people were injured,
and at least 62 were killed.
One of them was the grandmother of Ernie Lawless's wife. She was at home at the time. Her
five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter (Mrs Lawless's mother) were away with their
father, visiting, when the explosion occurred. The grandmother, Mrs Lena Defrey, was killed.
Jack was probably in Johannesburg during the Christmas holiday in 1896. Perhaps he met up
with his brothers, Tom and Dick. And on Christmas Eve, together with those miners and other
workers with a Cornish ancestry, they may have gathered outside the Grand National Hotel, on
the corner of Rissik and Pritchard Streets, to hear the Cornish Choir sing seasonal English songs
and carols on a first-floor balcony. All those in the street below would have joined in the singing,
remembering times past and places in that cold green faraway land, and yearning for the
company of absent families and friends.
Among them might not the three Honeycombe brothers have stood and sung? For had not their
grandfather, William, been born in Cornwall, at Calstock? And did they not still consider
England and Cornwall, though never seen by them, as home?
They were surely among the crowds that heard Fanny Moody-Manners sing a few weeks later.
Dubbed the Cornish Nightingale, she had been specially invited to sail to South Africa to
entertain her countrymen and women. Born in Redruth and now aged 30, she toured various
towns and isolated mining communities, reaching Johannesburg, with her husband, in January
1897. Her diary tells the story of one of the greatest days in her life.
'When we arrived at the Park Station a perfect mob of people appeared to be waiting for us.
They gave a hearty cheer when they saw me, and they also presented me with an illuminated
address of welcome. Amongst the people there were many who I had known in my Redruth
days, or who had at least known some member of my family. Indeed, it seemed as if every
Rand man who had hailed from the rocky moorland, every Jack from Camborne or Redruth,
every fisherman from Mount's Bay, and every reefman who claims the Duchy as his native
heath, had made it his business to be on the platform that morning. Then we got into the carriage
that was waiting for us and the horses were unyoked and replaced by a score or so of
Cornishmen who dragged us to the Grand National Hotel, and this, mind you, in the noontide
heat of a South African day.'
That night she sang for four hours at the Theatre Royal. Afterwards, the crowd of Cornishmen
would not disperse; they followed her to the Grand National Hotel and waited outside - until the
curtains of a balcony window opened and Fanny Moody-Manners stepped outside.
The Star described the scene: 'There was an assemblage of enthusiastic but strangely silent and
peaceful Cornishmen; this congregation of robust Romeos waited for their Juliet to appear upon
the balcony. It was a beautiful night, a starry night, and the star of the evening was not long in
presenting
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herself to their view. To a silent crowd she sang Cornish songs. And as she sang, these big men
of Cornwall wept. They did not applaud; they hid their faces from each other and went quietly
away when she had finished.'
The following day she gave an impromptu concert at the Masonic Hall, singing only Cornish
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