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Outlook: My Falklands War: The woman with the white gloves

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Road from Stanley with Mount William in the distance

03/12/2020 GMT

My Falklands War: The woman with the white gloves

BBC World Service - Outlook, My Falklands War: The woman with the white gloves

How a farmer ignored military threats and rallied her community to save injured soldiers

When Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982, farmer Trudi McPhee was one of a band of volunteers who helped save injured soldiers on the battlefield.

Sovereignty over the Falkland Islands - known in Argentina as the Islas Malvinas - is still the subject of a dispute between Britain and Argentina. Now that the last landmine has been cleared from the islands, Jo Fidgen hears what it was like to live through the ten-week Falklands War of 1982. 

Trudi McPhee grew up on the Falkland Islands, she’s the sixth generation of her family to live there. As a child, she loved the place so much that she never wanted to go on holiday, so when Argentina invaded, Trudi’s reaction wasn’t fear, but anger. Although she'd been told directly by the Argentine military not to help British soldiers, when the local chief of police asked her and other farmers for help, she said yes. In an area with no roads, the volunteers' knowledge of the boggy ground conditions proved invaluable in moving supplies, troops and medics across the island. During the battle for Mount Longdon, Trudi wore white gloves to lead a convoy of vehicles, at night, over rough ground. Her determination to help in any way she could took her close to the frontline.

Claudio Ayuso and Ken Griffiths were both teenagers when they began their military training, Ken with the British Royal Navy and Claudio as a radio operator with the Argentine Navy. Neither expected that they would ever go to war, but in 1982, they both found themselves in the middle of the Falklands conflict. Years later both men realised that they needed some closure on that part of their lives. After reaching out to each other online, they formed a friendship more meaningful than they could ever have expected.

Picture: Road from Stanley with Mount William in the distance
Credit: Getty / Dennis Gooch

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