2 April (Part 2) - Forty four years of decline
It
was forty four years ago today that I rolled up to the office on a Friday morning to be told the circuit to Port Stanley was down.
We had a link to Rugby where a long wave radio transmitter struggled against the
sunspots to reach Port Stanley on the Falklands Islands. It was the last
remaining radio circuit operated by what is now called BT. The link to Kabul had
been withdrawn a couple of years earlier by the idiots-that-be and not replaced with anything at all.
The very next day I took my two children down to Portsmouth - I lived in
Hampshire at the time - to see what Mrs. Thatcher was doing about it. On a
dreadfully dull day supplies were being helicoptered on board and a couple of
days later the Royal Navy set sail for the South Atlantic. The rubbish photos are mine.
Now it takes three weeks to get a single boat to the Mediterranean.
Whatever has become of us?.
I did eventually manage to re-establish the link to Stanley. The Argentinians
were difficult buggers and I have not knowingly bought anything emanating from
that country since then. I still examine tins of corned beef to make sure it is
not one of theirs!