FALKLANDS MEMOIRS

EAST COVE CAMP

December 1983

On 14th December George L, Wickham, Dave O and James M moved down from Mount Pleasant House to the new portakabin camp on the cliff top opposite the Merchant Providence.

The whole accommodation programme was running about three weeks late because of the delayed arrival of the Merchant Providence. The England had gone off to Cape Town and was due back in three days with another two hundred and ninety one workers but the camp was hardly big enough for us already here.

George was a strong-minded individual to say the least, young and not afraid to speak his mind loudly. We had heard that the portakabins were to hold eight people in four double bunks. George was vociferous to say the least and complained that PSA should only be four to a cabin. This was one reason why we delayed our departure from Mount Pleasant House where we had complete independence. He got his way.

We ate in the hold of the Merchant Providence. There were soon complaints about the food at director level between LMA and Kelvin the camp contractors. There was nothing they could do until the main camp up at the site was built. Several times a week we had minced meat mixed with baked beans probably left over from breakfast which was called chili concarne, followed by tinned fruit and evaporated milk (which I am addicted to).

The steel walls of the hold ran with condensation. The kitchen was in a smaller hold with barely any ventilation and the servery hatch was a hole cut in the steel wall.

I remember looking over the side of the ship once in the evening and seeing thousands of fish lit up by the ship's lights, no doubt eating food waste thrown overboard. There was often a night heron nearby.

At this time the stone haul road was being laid from both ends to the site five miles away but still had a gap of three hundred yards at a soft spot next to Mocho Pond and a steep climb over March Ridge needed some work to create a route for heavy vehicles. Big grooves in the grass showed where the CAT D9 had got bogged trying to cross the short stretch of grass between the haul road and the ridge.

Ras-ing entered our dictionary and became a reality. The initials RAS stand for replenishment at sea, which took place off Ascension Island when one ship might have all the medical supplies and another all the body bags, so they swapped supplies.

Frank S was a past master at this and a few cargo ships had arrived with containers. He found one with office furniture so he and I took out the best of the stuff destined for directors when the main office complex had been built. I got a very nice swivel tilting chair that I kept for months until I was asked to give it up.

Ras-ing happened a lot as there was a bit of a wild-west atmosphere. We didn't consider it stealing, just borrowing common property that we shouldn't really have.

John G, from G & T's Scunthorpe office, joined me on 27th January 1984. I had gone to meet the Islander on 23rd but only land surveyors turned up. John must have been booked on a later Hercules flight and just turned up unexpectedly.

Dave "where-were-you-in-'82" left on 7th February 1984 in a crowded landrover (he always joked that he was more of a pioneer than us because he had come out with the first surveyors in 1982). There was him with all his kit, 3 oxygen cylinders, Bert F the local driver, Bill a burly policeman and two guys arrested for burglary and stealing a shutgun from a house in Fitzroy who were off to the court in Stanley.

The Sunday before 7th February 8,500 cans of beer were drunk by 450 people, some of whom weren't drinking, but it was an average of nearly twenty each.

For a long time the site had been working six and a half days a week for about ten hours a day. On Sunday afternoons most workers just slept. Now Saturday evenings and Sundays were free. There was a show put on by a small folk group from Stanley on Saturday evening 18th February and George played his guitar. No one listened, the noise of people talking was incredible. I'd left by the time George started singing, Thank God.

In the morning I heard that several fights had broken out. The camp ambulance had been called to ferry someone drunk or injured to the medical area (all of fifty yards) and passed ten fights on the way. One man had a broken jaw, broken nose, one cut eye and the other eye black. Clem a quarry man was said to be the cause and had his fingers strapped together.

One portakabin next to our's had been converted into a bar for workers and was called Huggy's Bar after a section leader or ganger who was built like a bear with his huge barrel chest and thick arms. He was always seen wearing a thin T-shirt even on the coldest days. I only saw him wear something more if it was raining.

Many people left the bar and couldn't be bothered to walk twenty yards to a toilet block and pissed against our cabin. I was in the bed at that end and my head was only just the other side of the hollow timber wall. I don't remember thumping the wall or swearing, it seemed the norm for the rough conditions. We all pissed anywhere during the day when we were out and about. However, I did notice that there was soon a miniature river valley in the gravel where it ran away.

One night there was a series of loud hurrahs followed by enormous thumps. The noise and banging was so loud I got up and went out to see what was happening. I didn't dare go in, not that anyone had lost their temper, but there were large bits of wood flying around. The main table was built of stout 4" x 4" timber with a thick boarded top and it was being lifted up high then brought down hard on the floor with much cheering. There was no sign of the camp security guards.

Next morning I admired the restraint of the workers. The portakabin structure was untouched, apart from the floor which was non-existent, but easily repairable. The table had survived and was sitting in a large hole on the gravel below. The rest of the bar was completely bare inside. All the bar counter, shelves, chairs and other fittings were in small pieces.

James M left on 20th February. The atmosphere got more civilised, the pioneer days ended as more and more workers arrived. George had brought carpentry and metalwork tools, camping kit, butane gas cooker and the like but a new arrival Mark T brought a slide projector, slides, camera, radio cassette recorder, headphones, and a coffee machine complete with beans, grinder, milk, etc.!

The bar PSA and LMA management used was the Merchant Providence bar which was tiny. It got incredibly crowded and hot. Sometimes we sat in Maurice C's cabin and talked there but that was crowded too. I remember once Frank S wanted to leave so he stepped up onto Maurice's desk and walked across it in his big boots, right in front of Maurice (who had even bigger boots).

Maurice C was the PSA director. He and other PSA and LMA senior staff lived on the Merchant Providence after the England first left for Cape Town. He, and I think the LMA director, stayed there the whole time while other staff went up to the main site camp after that was built.

Our cabin at East Cove camp
Our office thunderbox near the temporary offices
Pioneers

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