Gail Nattrass lectured in the history department at the School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, for twenty years. She is the author of The Rooiberg Story, the co-editor with S. B. Spies of Jan Smuts: Memoirs of the Boer War and a contributor to They Shaped Our Century and Leaders of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902.