In the Beginning An Island Parish

Stuck out in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean,

the Falkland Islands are about the size of northern Ireland

with a population of only 2,500 people

but over half a million sheep.

This wild and rugged landscape

is one of the most unspoilt places on earth

and home to some spectacular wildlife.

But life here at the bottom of the world can be tough.

It's over 30 years since the dark days of the Falklands conflict.

Since then new opportunities have come to these shores

but also changes that threaten a way of life that dates back 200 years

to when the islands were settled by pioneers

from Britain and Scandinavia.

An important member of this close-knit community is the rector,

the Reverend Richard Hines.

Good morning, everyone.

A warm welcome to Christ Church Cathedral today.

And in uncertain times,

he's someone they can turn to in their hour of need.

I hope and dare to believe that they understand that

I care about them.

To be in the Falklands Islands, there's little more beautiful

than one can imagine than this here.

The Falklands archipelago is made up of 778 individual islands.

The two largest are West and East Falkland

with the islands' capital Stanley

on a natural harbour on the easternmost tip.

And it's here in the deanery that the Reverend Richard

and his wife Jen have lived for the past six years.

-Which do you prefer?

-Fish.

-You'd like fish.

They swapped the north-east coast of Norfolk

where Richard was in charge of nine medieval churches

for the largest parish in the Anglican communion

which takes in the British Antarctic territory,

South Georgia and the South Sandwich islands.

These days, 90% of Richard's congregation live in Stanley

but there are people dotted all over this vast area.

Today, he's at Stanley airport about to make the 85-mile trip

north to Pebble Island.

We're going to fly past Port Louis over Teal Inlet, Douglas Station,

we'll cross Falkland Sound which will be nice, I'm sure,

and eventually we'll reach Pebble Island

on the northern part of the West Falkland Islands.

There's nothing quite like a face-to-face visit

so if I get the opportunity

or if I feel I need to pop out and see somebody,

which is the case today,

and visit a couple of people in particular on Pebble Island,

then to be able to fly out like this

and to go with my wife Jen as well is nice

and it's the best sort of work you could imagine, really.

Jen likes to accompany Richard on his pastoral visits

but there's a price to pay...

She's not a fan of the twin propeller islander planes.

I shall be glad when it's over.

But I shall probably doze

cos I have been taking pills that the doctor gave me to calm me down

and stop me getting air sick.

So, I shall no doubt nod off.

I don't open my eyes much, so I shall be very tranquil and just...

calm down and just take it as it comes and be glad when we land.

The Falklands Islands Government Air Service or FIGAS

operates out of Stanley airport

and has a fleet of four ten-seater planes.

Most of the farms and settlements have their own airstrip

so islanders just have to call up and find out when the next pilot

is available to take them where they want to go.

Pebble Island is popular with tourists

because of its beautiful sandy beaches

but the interior is basically one large sheep farm

which is run by Irina Bernstein, a fifth generation Falkland islander.

Irina's younger sister passed away a few weeks ago

and Richard's checking in to show his support.

Chook, chooks. Come on, chooks! Chook, chook, chook!

And today that means helping collect some fresh eggs to take back

to Irina's mother Clara who lives in Stanley.

Chook, chook, chook!

I can never keep up with my hens. Free-range, quite literally,

they're that free, I can't find them half the time.

Come on, girls. Come and get supper! Chook, chook, chook!

Come on, girls!

Could you imitate the cluck so I can recognise it?

-Are you having me on?

-Come on, do a cluck. Do a cluck!

-Are you having me on?

-Do a cluck!

If I was a vicious mother hen, I would probably fly at you!

Do a cluck.

Cluck, cluck, cluck!

Richard, you are something else.

These are my mum's hens, these ones.

These are Mother's specials, the seven hens she's got here.

Keeps her going in eggs all year round because...

she stores them up in pickle for the winter,

in isinglass I think you would probably call it in England,

and therefore she has nice eggs all year round.

It's a bit of a dying art now, not many people pickle eggs any longer.

Would you like to come and get this nest of eggs here for me

while I look in the hen house?

-There's some eggs down there in that nest, look.

-Oh, wow!

-OK?

-My breakfast?

-Your breakfast?

Yes, you can have them for your breakfast.

I'll tell Mother you've eaten them for breakfast.

So, one for me, one for your mum, one for me, one for your mum.

"How many did you get, Richard?" "Er, about four, Clara."

Yes, that's right!

THEY LAUGH

The parish is the whole of the Falkland Islands

and way beyond, so I need to be out and about,

I need to see people where they live,

they, I think, probably appreciate seeing me,

visiting them in their homes and so to go out to Pebble Island

or some of the other remote islands

is absolutely fundamental to what I do.

I didn't go to sit down and have a long bereavement counselling session

with Irina, but I went to see how things are since,

tragically, her younger sister died not so long ago.

The hens and the eggs are important to Irina

and they're important to her mother,

so they're important to me.

With the eggs safely packed up ready for the journey home,

Richard has got a couple of hours to spare

before he has to catch the flight back.

Even after six years of living in the Falklands,

neither he nor Jen ever tire of spending time

with the islands' most iconic residents.

There are five different varieties of penguin

that live on the Falkland Islands.

Amongst which, the world's largest population of gentoo penguins.

In all, around a million birds nest here during the summer months.

Rockhopper penguins are the smallest and most agile,

they gather together in huge colonies.

But that doesn't stop them wanting to make new friends.

He's a very inquisitive chap, he's come to say hello.

I think when you're in a place like this with these penguins

and watching the tide come and go and...

there's a timelessness about this.

These rockhopper penguins have been coming on to this island

for hundreds of years.

And I hope and pray that in 100 years,

several hundred years, forever, they'll still be coming over.

The weather on the Falklands is notoriously fickle,

but the one constant is the wind.

It whips in off the South Atlantic

and has shaped this landscape and the people who live here.

Out in the camp, which is the Falkland Island's word

for everywhere outside of Stanley

and comes from the Spanish word "campo" meaning "countryside",

the islanders have learnt to take full advantage

of this steady stream of air blowing across their land.

At Swan Inlet on East Falkland,

Andrez Short owns and runs the smallest sheep farm on the islands.

I'm just putting on some toast for breakfast,

it's a windy day so we can have toast.

And we generate 98% of our electricity with a wind turbine.

Here we go!

Thanks to the wind.

Of course there's nothing like toast and home-made butter.

Seventh generation Falkland islander Andrez has worked this farm

for the past ten years, helped by his young son Tom

and his wife Alison, who's a teacher

and moved here from London 20 years ago.

Back in England, I mean, you'd get on the rat race,

and on the nine till five,

and going to the supermarket on Thursday nights and whatever...

The whole thing, you know, the whole routine.

SHE LAUGHS

So, came out here, enjoyed it, went back, applied for a job.

-INTERVIEWER:

-Never looked back?

-No, never looked back, no regrets.

I had this sort of romantic idea about having

a place in the country to be self-sufficient and things like that.

This place came on the market

and we very, very quickly realised, or I very quickly...

We both very quickly realised that we couldn't have that romantic idea

of, like, a second home outside of town

and it was going to be far too expensive.

So, we had to set off to make some sort of business.

Fresh milk is a bit of a commodity on the islands.

There's no dairy so when the shops in Stanley

run out of frozen imported milk,

there's only UHT or powdered to fall back on.

Andrez has turned this problem to his advantage.

I sent away and got this separator a couple of years ago.

This is...

..Polish, I think it was. I got it off eBay.

Putting it in its individual plastic bags,

I can deliver it once a week and the added benefit for the customers is

they can put it in their freezer

and just thaw it out and use it as they need it.

Andrez's farm is 40 miles from Stanley

which can take up to an hour in his four-by-four.

People have different arrangements where I drop it.

This is one of our better customers,

they like six litres a week which is a good delivery for me.

And they have a freezer here especially for the job.

You do adapt and you do make do.

If you haven't got something, you have to use an alternative.

It just makes an interesting lifestyle, really.

Fresh milk deliveries aren't the only way Andrez has tried

to make ends meet.

Over the years, he's turned his hand to a few trades.

At one time, he was the islands' only fridge repair man.

The struggle is to make it pay, that's why it's a struggle.

It's the fact it's always that push to try and make it pay

and make a living out of it.

It's too small in the Falklands to make a living traditionally,

the way that other Falkland islanders would.

It's an ongoing battle

but if Andrez's dream of self-sufficiency is going to work,

he's got to keep coming up with new ideas.

Stanley may only be the size of an average British village

but as well as a cathedral it's also got a hospital,

an airport and its own TV and radio station,

which is currently mid-broadcast

on Falkland Radio's weekly classical music show.

That was the Allegretto from Cesar Franck's Sonata

for violin and piano.

The next piece is by a renaissance composer called Orlando de Lasso.

For those of you who read Sherlock Holmes,

that's the Lassus whose polyphonic motets

Sherlock Holmes wrote a piece about.

Nigel Haywood is one of five volunteer DJs

who take turns presenting the programme.

But he also has a rather more important job.

Since 2010, he's been the governor of the Falklands,

Her Majesty's representative on the Islands.

His official residence is Government House, built in 1845.

It's easy to spot because it's surrounded by tall trees

which were specially planted and nurtured through their early years

to withstand the fierce winds that sweep in off the sea.

It's also recognisable to anyone who lives here

as it features on the islands' currency.

It's on all bank notes from the Falkland Islands.

There you are, with the church, with the cathedral,

that's the house where,

as you can see, the building we're looking at, straight in front of us.

Flag over there.

This is my favourite device.

I'll just share it with you.

I think the best thing in the house is George VI's cocktail shaker.

It makes extremely good dry martinis.

The house has a full-time staff of seven including a gardener

and a cook who caters for the governor's official functions.

-To guiding. ALL:

-To guiding!

This evening he's entertaining

the organisers of the Falkland Islands' Girl Guides.

I hope I don't have... Do I have to give this back?

-No, no, you keep that.

-Oh, good thank you. I'll treasure this...

Government House is also known as the site of the deciding gun battle

during the Argentine invasion in 1982.

On April 2nd, a few Royal Marines held out

against a much greater Argentine force.

But in the end, they had no choice but to surrender.

Our only bullet hole inside is... that one,

that's our relic of 1982 at any rate.

So, there's a whole history, just even in the drawer.

The obvious interesting point here is that this survived

the Argentine invasion...

Whatever they did - moving into the house, occupying it,

occupying the offices and the bedrooms -

they didn't actually take the silverware.

This is the Argentine governor from 1982 when General Menendez took over.

You can see the pictures there - that's a picture of Shackleton,

which is just on the wall outside there.

So, obviously, while replacing the Queen with Bolivar

or whoever it was,

they obviously felt that they could still retain Shackleton,

which I think shows at least the start of good taste.

The conflict lasted for 74 days before British forces

finally retook Stanley on June 14th.

During that time, there were over 900 casualties from both sides

and three civilians also lost their lives.

But that wasn't the first time that these islands

have been at the centre of world events.

In 1914, one of the pivotal naval battles of the First World War

was fought off these shores

when British ships pursued and sank a German fleet.

For the islanders, the full weight of this past suffering

and the sacrifices made to preserve their way of life

is brought home every year on Remembrance Sunday,

and it's Reverend Richards' job to put all that into words.

Just putting the finishing touches, I hope,

to my sermon for Remembrance Sunday.

I've been inspired to some extent by Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.

MUSIC: War Requiem, Op. 66 by Benjamin Britten

"My subject is War, and the pity of War.

"The Poetry is in the pity.

"All a poet can do today is warn."

The words of Wilfred Owen, who tragically was killed aged 25 years

when he was leading his men in the First World War -

he was killed five days before the war ended.

It was an incredibly daring and some might have said

blasphemous proposal that Benjamin Britten should have taken

the words of the Catholic Requiem Mass and interspersed there

these devastating words and images of the First World War

that Owen put down.

The only authentic reverent remembrance is indeed

one full of hope -

a message of reconciliation, but a message of hope and great promise.

And I'll try to say that in seven or eight minutes.

With his sermon as good as finished,

Richard is able to fulfil an important promise that he made.

-Hello, Clara!

-Oh, hello, Richard!

-Back from Pebble Island!

-Ah, how nice to see you.

-Come in.

-I've brought you the hen's... The hen's eggs.

-Oh, thank you very much.

-Your daughter says, "Hello!"

THEY CHUCKLE

The dozen eggs that were laid by Clara's hens out on Pebble

have now been safely delivered to their rightful owner.

Is that the nice bush tea?

-Yes, it is. It is. It's your... It's your favourite.

-Bush tea...

Bush tea made on a peat...stove, that's got to be good.

Clara has prepared a traditional Falkland Islands tea,

known as "smoko", with mounds of home-made cakes and biscuits.

Thank you very much.

-This was the dance hall at Port San Carlos.

-Oh, right...

She moved to Stanley after the 1982 war,

but before that, she lived her whole life out in Camp

in the far west of East Falkland.

Back then, there were no roads, and the only way to get into Stanley

was on horseback.

-These are the ones I like. Look at this.

-Oh, yes, that's...

-Look at that picture now, that... That's your husband?

-Son.

Yes, son Fraser, and Irina.

-Irina in the middle, who we saw on Pebble Island.

-Yes.

-And dear...

-Leona, her sister.

-Leona, yeah.

-And that's my horse. I'm taking the photo, you see.

When you were in the Camp,

I believe you worked as a teacher, didn't you?

Yes, that's right. I was a travelling teacher.

-I mean, those are quite long rides, aren't they?

-Yes, that's right.

So, did they look out for you, to know whether you'd arrived...?

No! No, there was no communications or anything,

I just used to go on my own.

When you look back, do you think of all the thousands of miles

you must have ridden on your horse?

Oh, yes! There was freedom and fresh air and...always had a dog,

just a sheepdog.

-So, a dog would run with the horse?

-Yes, the dog was company.

Since the war, there's been a general migration away from Camp

and into Stanley, as people took up jobs in new industries

like offshore fishing and tourism.

But sheep farming is written into the DNA of the Falkland Islanders

and in the last few years, there's been a resurgence

in the number of small family farms springing up all over the islands.

The smallest, with only 300 sheep,

belongs to Andrez at Swan Inlet.

Because we're so very small, we have to do things that's different

to the normal way that it's done here.

We don't have vast areas where we can have vast numbers of animals.

We've got small areas, so we've got to have high-value animals

to maximise the area that we have.

Ever resourceful, Andrez has hedged his bets again

and made the decision to become a purveyor of pork

to the shops of Stanley.

These are about three weeks old now

and we've got some more babies just down at the bottom here that's...

like a week old.

He bought his first boar and sow in 2009, but there are so few pigs

on the Falklands that he soon ran into problems with inbreeding.

Getting new stock is complicated.

Argentina has restricted shipping between the islands

and mainland South America, so he had to look 8,000 miles away.

Those fellas with the pointy ears are from the boar

that come from the UK that we flew in.

His proper name, I think, it's... Withersfield McFlannel,

but we called him JJ,

cos JJ Jeffries was the guy on the oil flight

that sort of helped look after him and that, bringing him down.

They were little, tiny babies when they came

and they were eye-wateringly expensive, I can tell you.

They were valued at £1,500 each by the time we got them here, so...

-INTERVIEWER:

-What's so special about them?

Well, there's no genetics in the Falklands - they're not special.

There's just no new genetics in the Falklands,

and if we wanted to breed pigs,

we had to find some new genetics from somewhere,

and the only way to get them was to have them

flown down on the oil flight.

There was snow on the runway at Mount Pleasant and it couldn't land

so they had to get diverted to Punta Arenas

and the engineers kindly stayed on the plane to look after them

and I believe it cost about £7,000 to keep the plane warm.

Unfortunately, the oil flight said

they'd never fly them again for us, so...

It is very difficult when you're trying to get something in.

Take the pig food -

that's three months' lead-in time at least for us,

from the moment we order it until we get it.

So you've always got to be planning a long, long way in advance.

Buying Swan Inlet wasn't to be a farm,

it was to have somewhere in Camp and...have some horses

and have a bit of land and somewhere to go out of town,

and it's only as he got into it and got interested in sheep...

and then...pigs, and I'd just nod and say, "Yes, OK, dear..."

SHE LAUGHS ..and then wait to see what really happens!

He'll never forgive me for saying this!

Andrez's dream of living the good life in Camp,

while still bringing home the bacon, is going to be an ongoing challenge,

but there's no doubting his passion for the project.

I've just given her a scratch. We like to...sort of give them all

a scratch or a pet.

And after all, they're earning us money,

so, you know, they need looking after, don't they?

She sort of wriggles and squeaks a bit, it's very...

She must find it quite pleasurable, I think.

But...not today, too busy eating.

Remembrance Sunday is here and at Government House,

Nigel is preparing for a day of services and commemoration,

which means donning full ceremonial dress.

The uniform is a traditional governor's uniform

from about the 19th century, I think, and...

the acorns and whatever braid represent the ranks of governors -

I'm actually the only person

that wears this particular uniform, I think, now.

And then the badge there is the sort of royal crown thistle,

so that's a United Kingdom's badge.

There used to be a stage where every governor had their own sword

and it would be quite nice just to use it to lop

the top off a champagne bottle.

You're kind of expressly forbidden from doing that by the sort of rules

of looking after swords because swords are quite delicate creatures.

These are swan feathers and they're...

Actually, they're not just any old swan feathers,

they're from a particular bit of the wing,

so that they're balanced either side of the spine

and then they're stitched together to make them drape like that.

But actually, in the wind, as you'll probably see today,

they sort of tend to take off a bit.

So, pretty precarious!

In the cathedral, officers representing the military personnel

who are stationed out here -

as well as veterans and members of the public -

make up the congregation.

Would you all please stand?

Tomorrow morning in many places around the world,

but especially in the UK,

millions will pause at the 11th hour of the 11th day of this, 11th month

to remember how, at that moment, 95 years ago,

the guns of Europe fell silent.

The welcome presence of esteemed veterans

of the 1982 war for liberation fought around these islands

and within sight and sound of this cathedral church...

..means that the military personnel and civilians,

whose lives were tragically cut short 31 years ago,

will again be remembered today.

Yeah, it's always lovely to see the cathedral full and...

you can't help noticing from the pulpit when you're preaching

whether people are listening carefully

and I was persuaded that they were listening today, which was nice!

Slope arms!

Right turn!

A detachment of men and women from all three of the armed services

lead the way to the war memorial on the coast

for the placing of the wreath.

They shall grow not old as we, that are left, grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

-ALL:

-We will remember them.

John Thomas Kendall.

Donald Eric Turner...

REVEREND HINES: This island community has lived with one sort of difficulty

and pressure or another for a long time

and even though the community, as a whole, has been through

a great deal during the last 30 years and has changed a great deal...

..it's also in some ways a stronger community.

The resourcefulness and the integrity of these island people, I think,

is what's going to see them through

any more change that is on the horizon.

In the next programme, Christmas is coming...

# Da da da da... #

And in Christ Church Cathedral,

preparations are underway for a very special occasion -

a wedding - joining together two of the island's oldest families.

You'll be a little bit nervous, I'll be nervous as well.

It's a while since I conducted a wedding, so...

"What do I do next?" You know?

And the Army chaplain, Padre Al Nicoll,

volunteers for some basic training.

Police, halt, I will release my dog!

PADRE NICOLL LAUGHS

PADRE NICOLL GROANS

I know which dog collar won!