Casper Bakkes
(b. 03/11/1925 – d. Paarl, 06/01/2016). Historian, actor. At the age of 12, Casper (Casparus Marius) Bakkes was selected to play the part of Piet Retief’s son in the Afrikaans-language version of Joseph Albrecht and Andries A. Pienaar’s Die Bou van ‘n Nasie (1938), with Myles Bourke as his father and Anne Immink as his mother. In the English-language version the part was taken by Gordon Buchanan. Dr. Cas Bakkes went on to become a prominent military historian, lecturing at the Military Academy first in Stellenbosch and then at Saldanha Bay. From 1970 he was Director of the Institute for Historical Research at the Human Sciences Research Council in Pretoria. He was married to author Margaret Bakkes and he himself was responsible for “Boskroniek April-Junie 1977: dagverhaal van ‘n grenssoldaat”, an account of his experiences as a 50-year-old soldier in South Africa’s border war (2008). He was also a member of the Volksteater and a co-founder of Radio Pretoria.
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