My dear old boy – Delighted to say we are back at last. Safe and sound in dear old Blighty after a perfectly hideous 16000 mile round trip to the arse end of the world and back in – I might add – a series of unheated and seriously understocked RAF transports.
Penguin spotting has never been my forte, and neither sheep dropping nor ice pack are particularly representative of my preferred milieu. Sadly, however, ‘er indoors has been itching to get down to the Falklands since that idiotic corned beef merchant made the staggeringly foolish mistake of crossing swords with her back in April. Honestly – how on earth did the swaggering buffoon expect it to end?
Cards on the table, I think I was rather impressed by the way the jumped-up little popinjay managed to float to the top of the toilet bowl during the ’76 coup, and had therefore credited him with perhaps a modicum of common sense, or at least the kind of low cunning and steely sense of self-preservation that usually accompanies your typical Latin American dictator. After all, anyone who requires the nation’s deadliest death squads to report directly to their desk can’t be all that daft, can they?
Anyway, as I said to that little runt Runcie – just before he received a tremendously entertaining ear-bending of absolutely biblical proportions from ‘er indoors for having the temerity to suggest she might wish to consider a spot of turning the other cheek – it’s all very well for our South American chums to make a rod for their own back, so long as someone doesn’t decide to spend a great deal of blood and treasure ramming it right back up their fundament. After the extensive belt off, trousers down seeing too the corned beef merchant has just endured, I expect the daft old bugger will be looking forward to his enforced retirement with great relief.
The irony, of course, is that the silly sod only had to bide his time and wait for the glittering prize to fall right into his lap. The Foreign Office have been desperately trying to get shot of those bloody islands from well before Enoch crossed the Tiber; and the boy Ridley had been surreptitiously scuttling around like a defrocked priest in Mothercare, desperately trying to stitch together the sort of shabby dump-it-and-leaseback scheme for the islands that, quite frankly, would’ve made Del Boy blush.
Unsurprisingly, he made a complete pig’s ear of it by suggesting to the islanders it might be in their best interests to pass sovereignty to Johnny foreigner, and probably a jolly good wheeze to boot. Quite understandably they almost choked on their penguin pate and subsequently kicked up enough fuss and bother to wake the dead – or at least a few of our backbenchers, which is pretty much the same thing of course. And once the broadsheets got wind of it, that plan was as dead as a Dodo’s doornail.
And as much as they’d like to pass the buck to the FO, the MOD can’t escape their share of the blame, either. Their cheese-paring proposal to scrap HMS Endurance would have raised more than a few eyebrows in Buenos Aries and would certainly have given the corned beef merchant tremendous heart. Besides, even if they had scrapped her, it wouldn’t have saved a single penny – RN would almost certainly have used the savings to fund yet another bloody Rear Admiral and quite probably pink gins all round.
Anyway, once the balloon went up, our glorious comrades at the FO began sweating like blind lesbians in a fish market. They do not look kindly upon rapidly moving events. Glacial progress looks positively impetuous compared to policy development at the FO. So, as you can probably imagine, they were not best pleased by the broadsides of “action this day” missives that soon came cascading their way from ‘er indoors; and her frequent and entirely unscripted public pronouncements to camera put the wind right up their nighties, I can tell you.
Of course, it all wreaked havoc with my diary. Many a slip twixt cup and lip and all that, but my bloody social life vanished over night. Had no choice but to roll out the dutiful husband routine. Can’t be seen playing a round, throwing down G&Ts at the nineteenth or falling out of Annabel’s or the Garrick at 3am when ‘er indoors has the bit between her teeth and has effectively put the entire nation on a war footing. Simply can’t be done, old chap. Bad form. I’m not saying I was reduced to powdered egg and two inches of bathwater, but I did look enviously upon Carrington who had the bloody good sense to jump ship and scarper before the wicket got too sticky.
Many, I suspect, were hoping for, and perhaps expecting, a diplomatic solution of some sort to come galloping over the horizon. Undoubtedly to be accompanied by a large side-order of can-kicking and lashings of imperial fudge, but a diplomatic solution nonetheless. Sadly, however, once ships actually began to slide beneath the waves, it soon became abundantly clear there would be very little chance for that sort of escape plan.
On the subject of ships, I must say I thought it terribly sporting of our submariner johnnies to go hunting for ancient cruisers with appropriately vintage weapons – 1920s torpedoes for 1930s warships and all that – but apparently it was nothing of the sort. RN simply didn’t think their modern kit would be up to the job – bloody useless, in fact. So they dusted off their antique collection of ancient steam-powered fish and set about their grim duties. I suppose the only good to thing to come out of that particular incident was the remaining surface fleet reading the runes, nipping sharpish back to port and keeping their noses clean for pretty much the rest of the conflict.
Anyway, events unfolded as they did and eight months later, after the dust had settled and the weather had warmed up a bit, I found myself on a top secret RAF transport to Ascension Island, then a Hercules to Stanley – complete with larks-a-plenty in the form of mid-air refuelling shenanigans – on a pilgrimage with ‘er indoors to meet the plucky islanders.
8000 miles numbs the buttocks somewhat, so I was delighted to discover the locals were quite charming and most welcoming, showering us with gifts of potatoes, lambskins (felt a bit sorry for the lambs to be honest), home-made metal penguins and a magnificent bronze bust of ‘er indoors. All very touching, of course, but I was particularly pleased to discover their effusive gratitude to ‘er indoors was matched only by their fulsome hospitality towards me. As a result, I’m happy to report that snifters were as bountiful as they were plentiful.
So after four reasonably acceptable (if somewhat austere) days, we were faced with yet more hideous RAF flights for our return to Blighty. 16000 miles later, I’m very pleased to say we’re now safely back on terra firma. Once more in the warm, comforting and splendidly upholstered embrace of civilisation.
However, the primary reason for this missive is not to complain about our journey, but to give you some rather splendid news: Those magnificent islanders are giving serious consideration to an annual commemoration day – named for ‘er indoors, no less – to mark the day of our first arrival in the Falkland Islands – and it gives me great pleasure to tell you that Teddy and the Wets are absolutely spitting feathers at the prospect. I can assure you, if this comes to pass, I shall be winding the buggers up for months – Dog Strangler, in particular. What larks!
Anyway, must dash, old boy. The idiot child seems to have landed himself in yet another muddle, so ‘er indoors will be on the warpath if I don’t bail him out sharpish.
Take care, old boy. Toodle pip!
Featured Image: UK National Archives OGL 3, via Wikimedia Commons
© Ivory Cutlery 2025
