For Friday 8th November.
Today, the serious business starts: visits to battlefield sites and cemeteries. We all assembled at the Falkland Islands Defence Force drill hall for a briefing, and then a fleet of eighty land rovers and other four-wheel drive vehicles, driven by volunteer Islanders sets out for Goose Green. I found myself in the company of Bill Dawson and Pancha Rai who were both in the Gurkha Regiment, Pancha was a Lance Corporal at the time, and Bill a Major. In fact Bill is something of a celebrity, it is he who was filmed emerging from his Tac HQ tent to announce "Gentlemen, there are reports of white flags flying over Stanley," and then chuckling, added, "bloody marvellous," a clip that is included in most television accounts of the War.
It is quite a spectacle as the convoy winds its way along the rough road, stretching to the horizon with the mountains on the right and the South Atlantic ocean on the left. With mounting excitement Bill and Pancha point out the features they once fought over, naming them and reminding themselves which units did what and where. The sun is out, the open vista is magnificent and spellbinding, Bill and Pancha have never seen the Falklands like this before. In fact, few of the veterans will have, they spent all their time here twenty years ago crouching behind rocks and generally keeping their heads down. Nobody would have wandered around in the open, or stood on the crest of a hill to admire the view. Few in the Navy ever saw the Islands at all. For the first time now, everyone can appreciate the beauty of the Falklands.
We drive by Bluff Cove and Fitzroy settlements and decide not to visit at this point, feeling that the Welsh Guards and the other contingents like the Medical Corps should have some privacy while they visit to remember their many dead. We make the same decision not to intrude on 2 PARA when later we pass by the Goose Green cemetery. But we decide we ought to visit the Argentine cemetery there and pay our respects, and so we drive up.
As we drive round a hill on the approach to the Argentine cemetery, we are confronted with an amazing sight. About twenty Land Rovers are parked up and dozens of vets are walking slowly amongst the Argentine graves, paying their respects. I meet "Jacko" Jackson on his way out as we are going in, and he is close to tears. He told me had just placed an Argentine helmet on the grave of its owner, Eusebio A. Aguilar. It was picked up as a trophy from the battlefield twenty years ago but when it was found that the name inscribed inside matched that on one of the Argentine graves in the cemetery, Jacko was asked to place it where it belonged. A short while later, "Paddy" Burton, in 40 Commando during the war, played a salute on his bagpipes, 'Oft in the Stilly Night', the regimental march of the Irish Regiment and a favourite of the late Queen Mother.
And so to Goose Green. The new road gives a commanding view of the landscape and at strategic points there are clusters of land rovers where the occupants have got out for a better view on foot. There is one group in the distance obviously making its way along the route they would have taken twenty years ago, in darkness and under fire. We can see to the right the upper ground where the Argentine defences were dug in, pouring that fire upon them. We can see another cluster there around the spot where Colonel H Jones was shot, a cairn now marking the spot. We decide not to intrude, and move on. Bill and Pancha point out other features as we drive along, they know the area well, the Gurkhas moved into Goose Green when 2 PARA moved out.
As we surmount another crest we suddenly see the settlement below us. It is surprisingly large, a village comprised of wooden buildings painted in uniform white walls with green tin roofs. Already there is a cluster of land rovers around the hall, and we find somewhere to park up too. This is the hall in which the entire population of the settlement was held in confinement from 1st May until their liberation by 2 PARA on the 29th May. It seems incredible that more than 100 people could fit inside such a small building, still less live in it for a month. While they were imprisoned, their captors ransacked and trashed their homes. It is small wonder the residents today are so pleased to see everyone as they serve up tea and refreshments. I watch two small children playing at one end of the hall. As they chatter away it strikes me that this is what the war was all about [^] these children are chattering in English, not Spanish.
There is a bar leading off from the main hall and the walls are festooned with pictures and letters, pride of place going to a letter from Margaret Thatcher to the villagers thanking them for their hospitality on her visit in 1983. Joe Erskine is there next to a photo of HMS Hecla, talking about the Survey Ships Association. These were the ships that were used to ferry the wounded from the hospital ship Uganda to Montevideo for onward flights back to England. An interesting and little known facet is that there were no nurses on board, all the nursing was provided by the ships crew. Everyone who sailed on Hecla, Hydra or Herald as an evacuee is entitled to honourary membership of the Association, something Joe is very keen to spread the word about.
Bill and Pancha have been off exploring the settlement, revisiting where various elements of their company were located. Bill comes back with some news. The first doctor to arrive in Goose Green with 2 PARA treated a sick baby boy. That baby boy is now a strapping youth who as it happens has just broken his leg. That doctor is on the Pilgrimage and as it happens is now an orthopaedic surgeon. So he will now be operating on the lad the day after tomorrow.
Too soon we have to leave. There is a Service of Remembrance at San Carlos cemetery at 1pm and we have an hour's drive ahead of us. The route is along a single lane gravel track with cattle grids and farm gates at intervals. As it is the custom to leave gates as you find them, and for the lead vehicle in a group to open a gate and wait for the rest to pass through before closing it again, we amuse ourselves discussing ploys to avoid being the lead vehicle. There is also much comment about the terrain over which everyone yomped or tabbed. It is hard enough simply to walk about on this ground, still less to do so under great pressure of time and burdened with over 100 pounds of equipment. 2 PARA, and their support Arms, had to carry not just the mortars but the mortar shells and a lot of other ammunition as well, and at any moment they might have been caught in the open by a Pucara.
Then another magical moment. We climb a hill and find as we reach the summit dozens of land rovers parked up, and everyone outside gazing below at San Carlos Water laid out below them. Everyone is spellbound. There is San Carlos settlement, on the other side of the hill is Port San Carlos, there is Fanning Head, there is Ajax Bay. We stay there for far too long but nobody wants to leave, the service will have to wait. This is a Big Moment on the Pilgrimage.
Eventually we do start to move off, but just then someone finds a Blowpipe missile container and returns to great hoots of joy and amazement. It is later deposited with the San Carlos Museum.
San Carlos cemetery is circular in shape, like the sheep pens that are such a feature in the countryside. At one end, the stone wall is built up to over six feet high and has plaques embedded in it with the names of all those who lost their lives during the war. There is time for everyone to mull around the graves, paying their respects to those of their comrades whose bodies were not repatriated to the UK. The cemetery looks out over San Carlos Water and during the minute's silence the sound of the sea crashing on the shore provided a powerful and evocative background.
Between the cemetery and San Carlos settlement is a memorial to "Mac" McAndrews, and there was Paddy Burton with his bagpipes again, lamenting this time for his good friend. He stayed there for half an hour or more, in the bitterly cold wind now blasting off the bay, only sheltering occasionally behind a nearby land rover. Who could ask for more, than to be remembered with love and devotion by such a good friend? This is what binds the Pilgrims, they are all here to remember friends and comrades and Paddy is much in demand to attend their own wreath laying ceremonies at monuments and memorials around the Islands to lend the dignity of his bagpipes.
Back at the settlement, the locals have provided a feast. Boiled rice and bread rolls are covered with an astonishing selection of dishes, eight I counted, such as spicy chicken or chile con carne, while the beer tent had some of the biggest cans of beer I'd seen. The San Carlos Museum is small, but packed with many items of interest from the war in one half, and artefacts from the settlement's sheep farming past in the other.
There was to be a trip across the bay for some people to visit Ajax Bay and others to go on out into the sound to lay wreaths for those killed on ships defending the landings. Unfortunately, we were now so far behind schedule that the landing craft had sat on the beach for too long and couldn't get off. By the time it was freed, the water was now too choppy for it to be safe to sail. This caused considerable anguish to those with wreaths to lay, and some became understandably very angry.
From this point, everyone was free to make their own way back to Stanley, in their own time, as there were no more scheduled events. Those who had visited Fitzroy but not Goose Green on the way up, now headed for Goose Green. We were amongst the last to leave San Carlos and we headed for Fitzroy and Bluff Cove.
There are five memorials there, three together by a small cove, and one each at either side of the cove. There is a good track leading to a parking area, and then a gravel path interlinking the memorials. Here are remembered the Welsh Guards, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary including the Chinese crewmen, and the signallers, medics and others who died on that tragic day when Sir Galahad and Sir Tristram were bombed. We visited each in turn and paid our respects.
On the journey back to Stanley we again pointed out the features and reminded ourselves who had fought on which, and how astounding their achievements were. How was it possible that the Argentines could not have held on to these seemingly impenetrable fortresses having had ten weeks to prepare? The victory at Goose Green was a major contributor to the determination to succeed, the sheer professionalism of the soldiers and sailors was the major contributor to keeping the casualty rate down.
We drove back into Stanley at about 7pm. Twenty years ago the town was a complete shambles; wreckage, abandoned military paraphernalia; smoke and fire; tired, hungry and bedraggled soldiers of both sides. The only ones who were clean and smartly dressed were the Argentine officers. That evening I dined out with John Fowler, the Director of Tourism at the ritziest new restaurant in town, the Brasserie. Stanley is not only cleaned-up, it is booming and tourism is a major economic activity. It has been the determination of the Islanders to seize the opportunity that liberation provided them to build a better life. That is the best possible monument to those who gave their lives to win that freedom back.
9:00:10 PM 
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