FALKLAND ISLANDS:Islanders tell John Binghamabout what they remember of the early days of the invasion
In the early hours of April 2nd, 1982, Falkland islanders kept a sleepless and nervous vigil. After the governor, Rex Hunt, took to the airwaves to announce an invasion was imminent, households waited anxiously by their radios for news.
Patrick Watts of the islands' radio station, remained on air into the night offering practical advice as islanders called in with snippets of news.
Andrea Clausen, now a doctor in marine biology was 10-years-old that night. Although her family lived at Goose Green - a windswept sheep farming settlement - she was staying at a school boarding house in Stanley.
"The governor told us that there was a chance that within the next 24 hours there would be Argentinian forces on the ground - sure enough we woke up to gunfire the next morning.
"The gunfire was actually quite scary, the royal marines were defending Government House and there was a bit of a battle there. And then all these tanks, we had never seen tanks before. We had the radio on and we were advised to stay away from windows and stay down low.
"That morning there were tanks going up the street, our boarding house was in Racecourse Road . . . we had an Argentinian Spanish teacher and she negotiated with the officer in charge to allow all the children to go back to their families. One of the Argentinian soldiers swiped off his badge and gave it to one of the children, they were clearly very distressed that we weren't terribly friendly.
"The teacher arranged for us to leave, the biggest [ Land Rover] convoy that has ever been seen in the Falklands set off - remember that there were no roads, just tracks. My father met me at Fitzroy and lots of children went off."
In more remote areas the immediate impact of the invasion was one of uncertainty. While some areas would never have an Argentinian presence, in others the build-up began over a few days. Richard Cockwell, then 43, was the manager of the remote 150,000-acre farm estate at Fox Bay East on the island of West Falkland which would later become a significant Argentinian base. "It was very difficult at the start, the Argentinians were very nervous, obviously they weren't quite sure what to do."
Tim Miller (55), who now runs a market gardening company, was then at Dunnose Head, on the far side of West Falkland.
"We had been awake all that night . . . we were very worried and concerned about friends and family in Stanley. The only thing that happened to us out there was that during the day we had quite a few aircraft flying over us on the way going into Stanley.
"It was a case of just shock I suppose, and wondering what to do for a couple of days until we got ourselves sorted out and got back into the system of carrying on with the farm work. Virtually everybody in the islands knew that a year later in 1983 we were going to celebrate 150 years of British rule and with the Argentinian temperament, there was no way that they could allow that to happen without doing something.
"So for most of us in the islands an invasion was inevitable at some stage, but we just didn't know quite when it was going to happen." - (PA)