Exciting times in An Island Parish: Falklands (BBC2). It’s April – autumn down there – and Rev Richard and his wife, Jen, are off to Gypsy Cove to pick tussock grass to make crosses, because there are no palm fronds in the Falklands, though they still call it Palm Sunday, not Tussock Grass Sunday. They’re getting 100 grasses, which, with spares and mistakes, will make 50 crosses. Optimistic, I’d say, having seen the size of Rev Richard’s congregation. But you never know, it is the start of Holy Week, celebrating and reflecting biblical events at on the heart of the Christian faith.
Richard’s in reflective mood. Gypsy Cove has become a favourite haunt in the seven years he’s been on the islands. “I think what we’re seeing here is the tracks of the magellanic penguins saying goodbye to the Falklands,” he says at some footprints in the sand heading towards the water. He and Jen will be making tracks, too, retiring and leaving. Unlike the penguins, they won’t return next year.
Ah, here’s a decent sized flock (sorry, Richard), on Saunders Island, where the Pole-Evans family and their dogs are rounding up spring lambs to board the Concordia Bay. Hopefully, for the sake of the sheep, Captain John is a better mariner than the captain of the Costa Concordia. Or of the Lady Elizabeth, an iron barque whose wreck lies in Stanley Harbour. Well, maybe it doesn’t much matter – these sheep are destined for the table.
In Port Stanley, they’re celebrating the Queen’s birthday with a brass band, flags, and a helicopter flypast. And at Goose Green (remember?), Hattie and Kevin are having an end-of-season party, cooking up a feast of smoked reindeer, upland goose terrine with diddle-dee berries and patagonian toothfish kebabs … Whoa, hang on, does Prince Charles know? That’s one of his things isn’t it? There was a black spider memo about the patagonian toothfish. Quick, send Hattie and Kevin to the Tower.
I like this South Atlantic strain of the Island Parish franchise. No, seriously. Sure, it is very gentle, mundane even, and barely acknowledges the sovereignty dispute that hangs over the place like a dark cloud. But it’s an interesting little portrait of an odd little outpost and the people who live there. Better than Scilly, or Sark, certainly.
