Fencing was first introduced to the Cape by the officers of the British army during the Anglo-Boer war. It was pursued at local schools such as Bishops and SACS but not formally given concrete expression until the 1950s and 1960s. A Royal Navy officer, Captain Barber, serving at the Cape station at Simonstown later to become a full blown Admiral in the RN, introduced serious gymnastics into the Cape in the 1950s and along with it, came fencing. Mr Len Davids recalls the really serious boost to fencing emanating (appropriately) from a leadership conference held in the Western Cape in the mid 1960s which introduced adjudication training in gymnastics, fencing and jujitsu. Out of this conference organized fencing in the Cape took a more coherent form in the shape of the Amateur Fencing Association of the Cape Province. At that time the Cape Province covered a vast area and included such remote outposts as Kimberley, Upington and Grahamstown with all their attendant responsibilities...