There cannot be many people alive today who have been shot in the head with a 9mm pistol (during a botched assassination attempt), followed by potentially equally life-threatening pioneer stem cell therapy in Mexico for the treatment of MS.
Gary Bees was born in Johannesburg, some years after the Soweto riots and the worst excesses of apartheid. He grew up largely unaware of the prejudice existing between the races in South Africa, and married a black girl. Gary and Nolwazi fled to England soon after he was shot, with just a suitcase, around £200, yet with big determination and ambition.
Gary had been greatly amused as a young boy being told by his father he once had a famous great Aunt called ‘Fanny.’ What is more, Fanny had a husband called Barney who was ‘big in diamonds and gold.’
I have helped Gary research his family history, and we have uncovered some amazing stories, quite unbelievable, if not absolutely true.
One of Gary’s fourth great grandfathers was shipwrecked on Robben Island in the early19th century. His other 4x great grandfather was a Huguenot farmer who fathered a child (Gary’s third Great Grandmother) with a Cape coloured slave girl. In Gary’s family line there are international rugby players (Bennie Osler, a Springbok 1924-33), boxers, magicians, actors, war heroes, pandemic flu victims, survivors of the siege of Kimberley, famous aviators (Diana Barnato Walker - first English woman pilot to break the sound barrier), racing drivers (Woolf Barnato - Three times Le Mans 24 hours winner), drunks, embezzlers, murderers and blackmailers. Gary’s second great grandmother, Christiana Bees, was found dead in a water filled ditch, his grandfather was stoned to death, and Gary’s own father committed suicide after being allegedly swindled by a trusted family member.
This book is about the life of Gary’s third Great Uncle, the famous Barney Barnato, who was at one time the wealthiest man in South Africa. He built a house in Park Lane London second in size only to Buckingham Palace. He was one of the ‘Big Three’ who together with Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit pulled off the biggest company merger the world had ever known, to form De Beers Consolidated Mines. Barnato died under mysterious circumstances when he fell from a ship near Madeira. His widow was subsequently blackmailed, and his nephew was shot dead at his desk in Johannesburg.
Richard Blacklee December 2020. It is an incredible story.
