Making sense of wartime experience
It was returning to the Falklands 25 years after the war ended that finally gave forces photographer and former commando Pete Holdgate a clear sense of the part he and his fellow servicemen played in securing a positive future for the islands’ British inh
NOW, with the passing of time and the marking of the 40th anniversary, he feels the conflict has even more relevance and meaning.
Until that trip in 2007, the former Plymouth-based Petty Officer and Royal Navy Commando had put the experience behind him. But it was meeting the people of the South Atlantic archipelago and seeing how the community had rebuilt itself, bigger and stronger, that resolved his sometimes mixed feelings about the experience.
Pete, who had by then left the military and become the picture editor for The Herald in Plymouth, says: “I’m not one for reunions, as such. You need to let go and look forward and I didn’t really want to go back to the Falklands, but the invitation came in and my editor at the time encouraged me to take the opportunity to go.
“I’m really glad I went. It’s the best thing I ever did because it laid that ghost to rest. It was a two-week trip and for me it was so cathartic,” recalls Pete, who travelled to the Falklands with The Herald’s defence reporter, Tristan Nichols.
“Going back gave me an idea why we had been there. I felt so humble because the people down there put us to shame with their patriotism. They’re more proud of being British than most of us are, and they’re such lovely people.
“It gave me the answers to a lot of questions. Seeing how people down there had thrived is what I found most humbling – and they couldn’t stop saying thank you.
“In 1982, there were around 2,500 Falklanders and when we went back, 25 years later, there were 7,500. Stanley was twice the size and the hospital had been rebuilt.”
The one reunion Pete did seek out was with a born-and-bred islander who was just a boy when he met him on the commandos’ first days after landing at San Carlos.
“I’d taken a picture of this little chap who insisted on coming out to help dig our slit trenches and bring us tea. Before we left to go back in 2007, I sent a note to the Penguin Times newspaper in Stanley to see if they could find him,” says Pete.
The paper found Keith Alazia at Goose Green, all grown up and living with his partner, Glynis, and their children, running the largest sheep farm on the islands.
“There was a girl looking after the press when we visited who really
went the extra mile for Tristan and me. She was a little girl when the Argentines invaded and she kept saying thank you. She arranged for me to be driven all the way out there to meet him.”
Before leaving Plymouth, Pete had mounted up and framed a print of the photo he had taken 25 years earlier to give to Keith as a present. “We stopped at this massive sheep estate and this man-mountain with hands like shovels came over and he had tears in his eyes. I gave him the picture and he broke down then. He said he could not thank me enough because he has now got a good life and living.”
Pete now sees the conflict as doing what he was paid to do. “We were there to protect British people. Regardless of what you think of colonialism, there were no Argentinians living there – it was all British people. The whole time we were there, only one guy questioned why we were there.”
He says the best thing is that the war did end, unlike other conflicts. “I count myself as fortunate to have been part of it and to have come back unscathed, because a lot of people didn’t. There’s a British military cemetery that overlooks San Carlos and it’s so peaceful, beautifully kept and manicured,” says Pete.