Background to the John Ross Trilogy
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John Ross

Commemorative tablet
“A lad of 15 years of age who in 1827, braving the perils of an unexplored land inhabited by unknown people and abounding in wild animals, walked with great courage from Port Natal to Delagoa Bay and back (a distance of 600 miles) in order to obtain sorely needed medicines and other necessaries for the handful of pioneers at the Bay of Natal.”

The natal papers
In the 1980’s a young historian and academic, Stephen Gray, long intrigued by the story set out to discover what happened to the boy after his eventful journey to Mozambique. His search led him far from South Africa- to Scotland, USA, the Caribbean island of St Lucia and finally back to England.
Somewhere along the way, the journals of a certain Captain CR Maclean came to his attention, What he uncovered turned out to be far more dramatic and intriguing than he had ever imagined.
It is said that ‘Truth is stranger than Fiction’ In the case of John Ross, the boy known to the Zulus as iQawu, Shaka’s hero, it was never more apt.
This formed the background to the writing of THE JOHN ROSS TRILOGY.