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| Goose Green |
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 So what is the capital, Stanley like? Initial impressions suggest more
prosperity than I thought. There is a great deal of new housing being built.
There is the new school and hospital, both of which would do any small British
town proud. There are also several supermarkets and pubs. There are also those
large 4x4’s….Stanley is not the islands, but it is where most islanders live. Another surprise was that so many had settled since 1982 in the train of post war construction work and had decided to stay on. Consequently an island accent may be hard to recognize. Accents are polyglot British with a genuine island accent reflecting west country elements. Outside Stanley the settlements are much smaller. In Goose Green many of the houses are now owned by people from Stanley as weekend places in the country…… The actual permanent residents are thus very small (But it does sport an excellent café for those out and about!)  This is why most visitors come and is best described in the guidebooks
available. We saw a broad collection of varied birds, sealife and of course
penguins…  Volunteer point is a day trip from Stanley and unless you are unlucky enough to choose a day when a cruise ship arrives, offers isolation as well as white sand and a menu of several types of penguin close up. The birds are well tended and protected by the local warden and there is a new (wind) shelter and toilet unit for visitors. It has no road though and needs a 4x4 offroad for 20 miles or so. 1982 sites & war Tumbledown and Mount Kent are close to Stanley and can be walked easily from the town. Most of them are mine free but to look at other areas requires a tour or 4x4. It was perhaps a pleasing sign that 1982 is receding so much into history that I found it hard to get on a trip “Most trips are to see the wildlife” I was told.  The cemeteries for the Argentine and British dead are all well tended.
What I found concerning though was the number of Argentine dead who were
unknown. As many as 40% of the graves seemed to be to unknown soldiers. For a
war fought in the 1980’s that seems pretty depressing to me. As for the islanders they see the war as an episode in their history, but
one they wish to put behind them now. There is no doubt though they feel they
are British. There was very little animosity expressed towards Argentina –
indeed there was sympathy for the plight of the conscripts in the war who I was
told on several occasions “were treated worse than islanders by their officers”. The museum in Stanley has many
artefacts and documents from the conflict on display. This is in a small cramped
area and I believe they are looking to expand it as soon as finances allow.Nearly thirty years on one might expect the military presence on the islands to be lessening. However there are still a great many signs of the British military. Jet fighters patrol and fly low over the hills, tracked vehicles zoom across the landscape as part of the bomb disposal work. Most of all there is the Mount Pleasant Military base. No doubt a necessity for modern defence purposes and communications given the short nature of Stanley airports own runway. However its reaction to passengers using the airport is not the most welcoming and when we were there bordered on the bullying. We were all ordered out of our minibuses before departing to be photographed and issued with individual base passes. When this s |