Islands in the Sky

By David Gates

The Falklands, at the time of this story, were a little known group of islands miles away from anywhere that most people hadnt even heard of. Of course, nearly everyone has now heard of them and most even have a good idea where they are.

Back in the late 60s and early 70s they were a sleepy spot on the map where nothing much happened. They didnt bother anyone and no-one bothered them. For two hundred years nothing much had changed in that respect and the modern world had only just begun to impinge on the islanders way of life. There was no TV and, of course, no internet. Telephone communications to Home, as the UK was called, were limited to a few minutes per day when a particular satellite passed by and then only from a special room in Port Stanley, its capital.

The author was pitched into a way of life that was completely unlike anything most Brits ever experience and this book describes his struggle to adapt to a new way of life at the same time as learning how to teach in extraordinary circumstances. The things that happened to him were unusual, often very funny (in retrospect) and his story gives the reader a unique insight to the Falklands at that time, the place and its people.

The islands have, of course, changed dramatically since the war of 1982 and the advent of fishing licences, tourism and, latterly, oil exploration have had a major impact, not to mention the presence of thousands of military personnel. The sovereignty row with Argentina rumbles on and the islanders future has a dark cloud looming over the horizon. It is in the hands of politicians outside of their homeland.

This book depicts an altogether more innocent, unspoilt and peaceful time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491800355

David Gates

David Gates lives in Missoula, Montana, and Granville, New York. He teaches at the University of Montana, and in the Bennington Writing Seminars, and was an editor at Newsweek, where he specialised in music and books. He is the author of two novels, Jernigan and Preston Falls, and the story collection The Wonders of the Invisible World.Jernigan was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award. Gates's short stories have appeared in the New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Esquire, Paris Review and Granta.

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© 2013 by David Gates. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 09/05/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0033-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0034-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0035-5 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

Chapter One Getting There

Chapter Two Settling In

Chapter Three San Carlos

Chapter Four Work

Chapter Five Sex

Chapter Six Fred

Chapter Seven Collywobbles

Chapter Eight Saunders Island

Chapter Nine 2-Nighters

Chapter Ten Egging

Chapter Eleven Sheepdogs

Chapter Twelve Islands In The Sky

Chapter Thirteen Getting Back

Postscript

Cover picture was taken by the author and is of South Jason Island from Elephant Jason Island, December 1969

PREFACE

The fact that this book was written at all is purely down to drink. For many years I had regaled friends and acquaintances with anecdotes of my time in the Falklands, nearly always in pubs and with several pints in my belly. One or two remarked that I really should put the stories down on paper because they were unusual and sometimes funny. To mollify these friends I always said that one day I would and promptly dismissed the thought. This wasn’t because I didn’t want to; rather it was because I didn’t have the self confidence to believe I could ever write something that would be remotely worth reading.

That is, until a old friend of mine, Rob Gibson, a journalist, got so fed up with asking me that he offered to help me with it. He, like me, had had a few and was so insistent that I promised absolutely that, yes, this time I really would get down and write my story. So you see, the whole thing was, indeed, down to drink. Without that little demon, I’m sure Rob wouldn’t have made such a foolish offer and nor would I have made such a foolish promise.

John Badger Bailey, who belies his somewhat befuddled looks by having a keen intellect, also kept bullying (I resisted the urge to say badgering) me to do the same. He, too, read the manuscript through and I’m sure his comments would have been very helpful, except that his wife, in an excess of zeal, tidied the thing away to God knows where. As I type this, it still hasn’t been unearthed. Still, after a pint or two, he told me what he could remember of his critique.

Therefore, the first of my thanks must go to the makers of real ale, closely followed by my friends, Rob and John. The three combined made powerful allies, a force I was unable to resist. I am eternally grateful to all of them.

Also, several words of thanks must be directed toward the partners and staff of RPG Crouch Chapman, a firm of accountants in the City of London, who gave me a desk, computer, help and unlimited supplies of coffee whilst I was writing the book and trying to rebuild a shattered business. I know I caused a couple of the secretaries to have the shivering heebee-jeebees when they witnessed my two-fingered, tortuous typing.

This book deals with the three years I spent in those remote, windswept and fascinating islands, the Falklands. Having said that, it is not a travel book. Nor is it a book about nature or geography, although nature abounds there and geography sets the scene. So, if your interests lie in that direction, put down the book now because you will be disappointed.

Of course, having to write about how it was I came to go there, stay for three years and then find my way home must, of necessity include travel, geography and nature but it does so only insofar as it impacted upon me. It is a narrow story.

The tale is of a very naive and gullible young man who, almost by accident, found himself in a place far removed from anything he had imagined himself ever to be in. He had been fired with wanderlust by, first of all, his father’s stories of the places he was forced to go to by the army in the Second World War and Korea, and then by his insatiable reading of books about the rest of the planet. Chief among these was A Pattern of Islands, by Arthur Grimble (great name!), a truly wonderful little book.

You may well think that the title of this book was inspired by his title but it wasn’t. The title, Islands in the Sky, didn’t come to me until I wrote the second-to-last chapter which has the same name. The reason it was so called will be obvious. However, I am delighted to have, fortuitously, been able to pay a little homage to that lovely book.

Once started, I found writing the book relatively easy. After all, all that was required of me was to remember people, places and events from forty-five years ago. The greatest difficulty I had was with names. I have always had that problem. So, if anyone recognises themselves but I’ve given them a different name, I’m sorry. Some may recognise themselves and be grateful for the fact. Sometimes, it was deliberate.

Essentially, the story is set out as a series of anecdotes about events that happened to and around me and, as these are largely based in places and I was constantly on the move round a circuit, the chronology may be a bit confusing. To be perfectly honest, I sometimes was unsure of the exact timing of some of the events in relation to others and so decided not to worry too much about getting them in perfect order. I hope this does not spoil your enjoyment.

My time in the Falklands shaped me and helped make me what I became. They were an education and a severe test and I would be less than honest if I tried to pretend that everything was a bed of roses for me while I was there.

Having said that, I came away from them grateful for what they had taught me about the world in general and myself in particular. So, my final vote of thanks goes to the people I met there, many of whom showed me great kindness and forebearance, and to the place itself. It is unique.

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This is the map I sent home to my family after I had been on the islands for a few weeks. It shows all the flights I had taken, most of which were during the two days’ invigilating the local elections. My mother had it framed and hung in the house.

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CHAPTER ONE

GETTING THERE

Leaving

It was the milkman’s fault.

Well, not entirely but to a large extent, anyhow. One Saturday in the month of September 1967 I opened the door to John, who’d been our milkman for donkey’s year, to pay the weekly bill and in answer to his cheery, What you up to these days, Dave? for want of something better to say, I replied, I’m thinking of applying for a job as a teacher in The Falkland Islands.

That’s a great idea, mate. I was posted up to the Scottish Isles in the woah. Luuuvly people. ’Ad a bloody wonderful time. If you get offered the job, you take the bugger. You’ll really enjoy it.

So that was it settled then; I was going to apply for a job in the Scottish Islands to be a teacher, a job for which I was eminently qualified, having the necessary 5 O Levels and being single, male and naive.

That’s how my life had always been decided up to then. I don’t think I had ever made an important decision of my own volition. Like when I left school three years earlier. I had failed to get through The Officers and Aircrew selection process at Biggin Hill just before leaving school when their medical team discovered the hole in my left eardrum which I knew nothing about. All those painful earaches and disgusting, smelly emmissions after going swimming and it had never occurred to me or anyone else that there might be a problem actually with the ear itself.

I was at a loss then as to what to do with myself and it was one of my best friends, Mick Masters, who said to me, Why don’t you apply for a job in Westminster Bank; they took me, they’re bound to take you?

So I did and they did.

I lasted two and a quarter years in the bank. I was a hopeless bank clerk. I hated the work and I think the only reason the bank and I tolerated each other that long was because of the rugby I played. Sport was highly rated in the Bank and I showed some signs of ability. I would say that some of the happiest times of my life were spent in the sports club in Norbury, South-West London. The drinking, the singing, the cameraderie and, oh yes, the drinking, all at heavily discounted prices, was something I look back on with huge fondness.

The rugby, which I had never played before, my school being of the football sort, came as a revelation to me. Come to think of it, not even that was a decision I took, to play rugby, I mean. It was Johnny Crumplin, who was a clerk in the bank who said to me on my first day there, You’re built like a scrum half and the bank’s short of scrum halves. Come to training on Thursday, which is what I did, of course.

One of the best decisions I never made, that was. I immediately loved rugby, to my mind a superior game in almost every respect to football. I mean, the footballers would come off the pitch, get showered and changed, have one beer and go home! What kind of a sport was that? Not only did they not socialise, they did nothing but shout and complain at each other whilst they were actually playing!

About three weeks after I started playing rugby, I met Viv Davies, who played in the same team as me. We quickly became friends; a friendship that has endured right up to the present day. I worked in Temple Bar Branch, opposite The Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand and he was posted to Chancery Lane Branch about five minutes’ walk away.

We arranged to meet for a beer in The George next to my branch and by the end of the second pint we’d decided to get a flat together. We’d known each other for just two weeks. I was living in Swanley, Kent with my parents and he, I think, was living in a hostel run by the bank, being from Treorchy in The Rhondda Valley. I can’t really remember, but I suspect it was his idea for us to flatshare-it would fit the pattern. Eventually we did move in together.

We lasted six months in the flat in Crockerton Road, near Tooting Bec underground station before we ran out of money, food and probably patience with each other. One day Viv said we should give up the flat. I asked him why and he said, I want to go home.

He meant to Wales. We talked about things in general and he said he’d had enough of banking and was thinking of leaving. That’s a good idea, I thought and on Monday, I resigned. Viv was astonished at my foolishness.

I thought you were resigning, I said.

Yes, but not before I get another job! That would be stupid! I can remember feeling surprised. And a bit stupid.

Viv only lasted in the bank a few months longer than me and he did go back to Wales. The time we spent sharing the flat was dotted with many incidents but I’m only going to recount one as it had a sequel many, many years later.

Towards the end of our flat-sharing time we had run out of money. It was winter, the rugby season, and it was cold. We had no money for the gas meter or food. So we hit on the idea of writing to our mothers and telling them what state we were in. They both responded within a couple of days. Viv’s mother sent him a biscuit tin full of Welsh cakes. My mother sent me two pounds!

O joy! We immediately went out for a curry in Tooting Broadway, which cost about ten bob (50 pence) between us. Then we went to see a film called The War Game that had been made for BBC TV but had been banned as it depicted the aftermath of a nuclear strike on Rochester. The powers that be had decided that it was too stark and frightening to be shown on TV so the makers had released it to the cinemas. It had caused a major furore.

We came out of that film so depressed that we had to go to The Wheatsheaf, opposite Tooting Bec Station, for a couple of pints. The world was in the middle of The Cold War and most people believed that nuclear Armageddon was bound to happen.

Viv and I made a solemn promise that, if we managed to survive until the end of the millennium, we would come to The Wheatsheaf on 31st January 1999 and drink to our survival. We kept that promise and thirty-four years later, give-or-take a couple of months, we went back to the pub at the turn of the millenium and sank a couple of pints accompanied by his daughter, Eleanor, her partner and a couple of others, who all thought it a wonderful, romantic thing.

The place hadn’t changed much. We had, so we quickly cleared off back to Eleanor’s place in Greenwich and had a good meal with some decent wine. I wonder if there has ever been an appointment made so far in the future and kept?

The Beeb was probably right not to show that film. I don’t think I’m a very sensitive soul but for many years after seeing the film I would have a recurring nightmare about being in a nuclear war. Some other people to whom I have confided this have admitted that they, too, suffered similar nightmares. They were scary times, all right.

So, I had left the bank and was now living with my parents again. Just before leaving the flat I had gone to the local Employment Office and naively asked if they could find me a job where foreign travel was a possibility. The very nice gentleman who was interviewing me was a bit nonplussed by me. He said that they didn’t often get someone in with the qualifications I had (only 5 O Levels, for goodness sake!) and he didn’t really know what to suggest. This was a time of full employment and it was so easy to get work that my sort didn’t bother to go to there. He did suggest a few posts; filing clerk, messenger for solicitors, that sort of thing but nothing that caught my imagination.

Finally, I said, What about the Foreign Office, do they want anyone? He practically dragged me across his desk and kissed me! Not The Foreign Office but The Overseas Development Agency was looking for some clerical officers. Was I interested?

Overseas, thought I. That sounds promising. To cut a long story short, I got an interview and became a Temporary Clerical Assistant at the Agency.

God, it was boring, even worse than the bank. Some of the people there were only slightly less moribund than corpses. There were many very good, worthwhile people, intelligent and able, but they were completely swamped by an avalanche of mediocrity and apathy which, at that time, anyway, ruled supreme in that particular Government Office and probably in many others too.

The attitude of a small, but very vociferous and influential minority, was, this world is responsible for turning me into a complete waste of space and therefore must be made to accept its responsibility for the fact that I do not accept why anyone should expect me to actually do any meaningful work.

I promise you, they are the precise words spouted at me by an otherwise intelligent man who just didn’t see any point in putting in any effort. He was just plain angry that life had forced him into working (?) for a living in such a pointless and meaningless organisation. When I asked him why he just didn’t leave to do something he considered worthwhile, he mocked me saying, You are such a wanker! Why would I leave this cesspit to go somewhere I might have to take some responsibility?

I pointed out to him that his logic was, perhaps, faulty and he responded that he knew that I was right but why would he bother to do anything that would mean he had to actually work for a living. He wasn’t stupid or unaware, quite the opposite, in fact, he just thought, for some unexplained reason, that the world owed him something. Fortunately, I didn’t stay there long enough for such attitudes to infect me. In that regard, I was lucky.

I worked there for nine months during which time I was persuaded to become established as a permanent Clerical Officer (I apparently got a pension and other perks for signing up to The Establishment). Then to break the boredom, I sat the exam for Executive Officer rank. At least it gave me three days off.

I failed all the papers except the IQ one but, as they were aggregated, I sneaked into the pass category. I believe that, out of 5012 passes, I came 5011th. That meant that I was to be interviewed at some point in the next few weeks.

While all this was going on, two things happened.

First, a friend who worked alongside me (actually, to say that we worked is a complete misrepresentation of the truth. We sat at our desks day after day waiting for some forms to arrive from Kenya which would enable us to pay inducement allowances to people like teachers and engineers who went out there on contract. They took six months to reach us, during which time we did no work whatsoever) said to me, You want to get out of this shit hole, don’t you? Our Ministry (it had been elevated to Ministry status) is advertising in The Observer for teachers to go to the Falkland Islands. Why don’t you apply, they’re only asking for 5 O Levels?

Naturally, I thought this to be a pretty good idea and wrote and applied as an outsider (the rules) and was sent an application form.

The second thing to happen was that I met and fell in love with Christine, who also worked at the Ministry.

Ah, Christine! She relieved me of the excruciating burden of my virginity, an act of kindness for which I shall be ever grateful. She was pretty and fun and she lived in West Ewell. I’m not going to say too much about her but she did eventually break my heart.

So I got the application form and put it in my desk. It was late August 1967 and Viv and I had made plans to go hitch-hiking in Germany at the beginning of September. I bought the rail and ferry tickets for both of us and we agreed to meet at Victoria Station at a certain time on a certain day and just go off on an adventure in Europe.

The only trouble was that, a week or so before we were due to go, Viv had disappeared. No-one, not even his mum knew where he’d gone. I turned up at Victoria Station clutching the tickets and waited until the last possible moment for Viv to show up. Of course, he didn’t and I went alone.

I discovered some time after I got back from Germany that Viv had run off with a friend’s wife and they had fled to Birmingham and set up home there. She was carrying his child, his daughter Eleanor, who was born just before I went to The Falklands. He’d obviously been busy since returning to The Rhondda Valley.

I was away hitchhiking for two weeks. I remember being allowed to take only £30 with me because Harold Wilson’s government had put a limit on taking money out of the country but, even so, I came back with £12 still in my pocket! I know that seems extraordinary now.

When I got back, I found that the date for sending in applications for the teaching job had been and gone and I was too late. But I was well versed in the ways of the civil service by then and I figured that they would spend at least a week shuffling the papers before inviting people for interviews. I waited until the chap who was dealing with it went to lunch, went to his office and simply put my application in the middle of the pile on his desk. There were loads of them (200 I later learned). So the Scottish Isles must be popular, I thought.

I was interviewed by a senior civil servant and Sir Edwin Arrowsmith, who was introduced to me as a former Governor of The Falkland Islands.

Even then the penny didn’t drop! Scottish Islands do not have Governors but I didn’t know anything about that. This is a level of ignorance you rarely come across and is a thing, almost, of exquisite beauty, to be cherished. In my defence I would say that, at that time, not many people had heard of the Falklands except, perhaps, philatelists and naval historians, and you have to admit they do sound Scottish. And, of course, there was John the Milkman.

It does, however, say a lot about my approach to life at that time that I hadn’t bothered to look them up on a map, although I had had a quick look for them in a road map of Britain. I wasn’t at all surprised they weren’t in that. Too far out and not many roads, I surmised. I was dead right on both counts.

The whole interview couldn’t have lasted much more than a quarter of an hour. All I can remember about it was being told that conditions on the islands could be fairly arduous. Sir Edwin only asked me two questions, I think. He asked, Do you like children, Mr. Gates? to which I said that I had a number of younger siblings and cousins and I got on alright with them. Then he asked, What about fishing, do you do any of that?

I was a keen, if occasional, angler and said so, whereupon he waxed lyrical about the tremendous trout fishing rivers in the islands. What about salmon? I enquired. No salmon, no, but the trout are just as good for sport. That’s excellent, I said, I’ll really look forward to that.

That must have been it! The reason I was selected. A week or so later I received a letter offering me the job and saying that, if I accepted, I’d be sent there in January or February 1968. Travel instructions would follow as soon as they had been finalised.

I accepted.

A couple of days afterwards I had my Executive Officer promotion interview. The promotion board, apart from the usual boring questions, asked me what I considered to be the main reason for the outbreak of World War II.

This was most fortuitous because only a few days before I had been listening in to a discussion between two clever work colleagues on that very subject. They had agreed that a major factor was the huge burden of reparations placed upon the German nation in a time of global depression, making life there even more difficult than elsewhere and so making it easier for someone like Hitler to gain support when he presented an apparent answer to their problems. I had no idea if this was right or wrong but, as I didn’t have any thoughts of my own on the subject, I trotted out, almost word for word, what I’d overheard.

I also told them about the Falkland job and I was honest when they asked what I’d do if I was offered promotion and said that I’d already accepted the position and would take up the teaching job. The panel nodded sagely. I was lucky they didn’t ask where the Falklands were.

To my astonishment, the marks for the interview, when added to the exams put me in joint 119th place out of the 5012 and I got the promotion. At the time I think I was the fastest promoted Temporary Clerical Assistant they’d had in that Ministry. It pays to eavesdrop on other, cleverer, people’s conversations.

One day in November a large brown envelope was pushed through our letter-box and flopped onto the floor by our front door. It was addressed to me. My travel instructions! Eagerly, I ripped it open and started to read.

Dear Mr. Gates, we are pleased to inform you that you will be taking up your post as Camp Teacher in The Falkland Islands in February 1968 and have much pleasure in enclosing your travel itinerary and tickets.

I started to read the itinerary.

Air France flight No. xxx from London Heathrow Airport to Orly, Paris. What? Paris? Why?

Connection to Air France flight No. yyy from Orly to Montevideo. Montevideo? Where the hell is that?

Two days’ stay in Montevideo and then take the RMS Darwin to Port Stanley, Falkland Islands, sailing on 22rd February 1968. The journey takes approximately four days.

Finally, after having got the job two months before, I realised that I was not going to Scotland. I still didn’t know where I was going exactly, but I knew it wasn’t Scotland. It was time to get out the Atlas.

When I saw where I was going to spend the next three years of my life, I couldn’t have been more delighted. I was going abroad! Away! A long way away! On an adventure! I couldn’t believe my luck. Of course, there was Christine and she wouldn’t be too happy about it but I reckoned (naive fool) that I would be able to persuade her to come out and join me. I really was completely ignorant of the sort of life I was going to and how the minds of women worked. I still am about the latter, like most men.

Christine was great. She said, and meant it at the time, I’m sure, that she’d come and join me after I had settled in and found us a place to live and, perhaps, a job for her. She even helped me choose a huge trunk to put all my stuff in. As it turned out, when the time came to go, I didn’t have enough to fill even an ordinary-sized suitcase.

The couple of months before my departure date were filled with a strange mix of emotions. I was tremendously excited at the thought of going somewhere not many people had even heard of to do something so completely different. I was also plunged into occasional fits of gloom as I wondered what life without Christine would be like, even for just a few months. She was almost entirely gloomy about the whole thing. It never occurred to me that not everyone had the same attitude to foreign travel and adventure as I did.

A week before I left I addressed the problem of my lack of money. I was entirely broke and reckoned that I ought to have a little to take with me to cover any emergencies. I decided to go to see Mr. Keep, my old bank manager and ask him for a loan.

He still treated me like an employee rather than a customer and when I put my request to him for a £50 loan, he said, Well, Gates, it wouldn’t be a very good banking decision to lend you any money, would it? After all, you’re going thousands of miles away and there’s no guarantee you’ll pay us back. He had a good point too. The majority of the customers of that particular branch were members of the press (Fleet St.) and the legal profession, for banks, at that time, two of the least reliable professions you could hope to meet. He was used to people not paying him back.

Having made me squirm for a while, typical of his modus operandi, he agreed and gave me a £50 overdraft, at that time a month’s salary.

Cashed-up, I naturally went on a party, sex, party, sex, party binge for the last three days and finally left England with £12 in my pocket. Christine came with me, slightly against my will, to Heathrow Airport to see me off.

It was an emotional goodbye and I don’t remember too much about the airport experience which is a bit of a shame because I had never flown before. I remember that I was wearing my one and only suit. I believed that airlines expected passengers to be smart and many of the old films I had seen seemed to indicate that all international travellers wore their Sunday best. I don’t think I was unusual in that respect, certainly not from the working-class background I came from, anyway.

The only think that sticks in my memory is that, as I sat waiting at the departure gate, the strap on my