Sue Townsend's fictional diarist Adrian Mole might have been unable to find the Falklands on a map because it was hidden under a crumb of fruitcake, but 25 years after Britain's war with Argentina, most people can pinpoint the islands with a bit more accuracy.
The ten-week conflict was one of the key events of the 1980s. It gave a huge boost to Margaret Thatcher, paving the way for her to remain prime minister for the rest of the decade. But 25 years on, it is hard to find anything new to say about the war, although this has not stopped the anniversary from being an excuse for an avalanche of new books.
John Shirley, who covered the war as a journalist, estimates there are some 230 books on the subject. In a recent article in the Guardian he asked: 'Is there really anything left to say?'
Julian Thompson is a Falklands veteran and military historian who has written No Picnic, one of the definitive accounts of the conflict, and is also the historical adviser for the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Falklands exhibition. He says that while there is 'little more to come out about the war', the public remains interested.
'That is something to do with it being a successful war, it was a short war and people can identify with the reasons for going to war. I'm not suggesting people are gagging to read articles and attend exhibitions about it, but they are more keen about the Falklands than other minor conflicts such as the Korean war.' But he adds that this is nothing compared with interest in the first and second world wars.
So where does this leave the museums that have developed exhibitions and events for the anniversary? There is a belief that the war appeals to the public because it seems far more straightforward than the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
'Our exhibition does not have direct comparisons with current wars, but what comes out is that this war was immensely popular,' says Alastair Massie, the curator of Task Force Falklands: A War That Defined the Eighties, the exhibition at the National Army Museum (NAM).
Personal stories are central to the exhibitions at the NAM and the IWM in London and the Royal Naval Museum at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. All had lots of existing oral history recordings, but were able to plug gaps with new interviews to assemble the mixture of voices and stories that they wanted.
Hugh McManners' book Forgotten Voices of the Falklands has been published to coincide with the IWM's exhibition, which opened last month. The publication is based on the 570-plus Falklands-related recordings in the IWM's sound archive.
McManners, also a Falklands veteran, supplemented the material in the archive with new interviews, such as those he did with Falklands islanders. He believes personal testimonies are a good way of telling the story, even when the accounts differ.
'I have left in the mistakes of memory as I am not there to change what people say, but I am there to present it in a way that people can see the differences and draw their own conclusions,' says McManners.
The IWM exhibition is centred on a timeline with profiles of people dotted along it. Each one has information about their involvement in the war next to various personal objects. Some of the profiles feature recordings of the participants that visitors can listen to on handsets.
Those featured include British and Argentinian military figures, islanders and others involved in the conflict, such as war artist Linda Kitson, and former Falklands governor Rex Hunt. Terry Chapman, the IWM's historian, says the strong emphasis on personal accounts is something the museum developed in the Holocaust Exhibition. 'We have moved away from showing every bayonet, because stories are what people pick up on.'
The IWM's show was designed by an in-house team led by Sarah Gilbert, the exhibitions project manager, and the audiovisual and online elements were financed by the Big Lottery Fund's Their Past Your Future educational strand. The IWM also has Falklands photography exhibitions at Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and HMS Belfast in London.
The fact that the war was relatively recent has made assembling new oral history recordings possible, but it has also provided challenges. Material from soldiers often only finds its way to museums after their death, although the museums with exhibitions did target their collecting rather than making a general call for artefacts. Also, because so many Falklands veterans are still alive, the museums have had to be sensitive to their concerns.
The Royal Naval Museum had an informal veterans panel to advise it on the development of its exhibition, which opened in March.
It features 16 audio recordings, mainly from naval personnel, but visitors to Task Force South can also hear from Rex Hunt again; Jenny Lippiett, the wife of John Lippiett, who served in the Falklands and is now the chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard; and Brian Patterson, a Portsmouth dockyard worker who was informed that he would probably be made redundant because of defence cutbacks a few hours before he was told that he would have to work through the weekend to prepare Hermes and Invincible to sail to the South Atlantic.
'I think we differ from the IWM in that they can tell the national story, and while we can do some of that, we are a naval museum, so we can tell it in that context,' says Matthew Sheldon, the head of the curatorial department at the Royal Naval Museum. 'We are not just telling a military story. A lot of the Portsmouth story is about the ships leaving from here and the redundancies in the dockyard.'
The Royal Naval Museum's displays have plenty of personal objects, as well as oral testimonies. The £60,000 exhibition at Portsmouth, which was designed by London-based Designmap, was supported by funds from local sources, particularly defence companies.
Task Force South was the first time an exhibition has used the National Museum of the Royal Navy brand. The Royal Naval Museum, the Royal Marines Museum, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and the Fleet Air Arm Museum have worked together before, but the navy used the opening of the exhibition to announce plans to finally bring all four museums under the umbrella of the National Museum of the Royal Navy.
The Fleet Air Arm Museum opened its own Falklands exhibition in April and the Royal Marines Museum has organised various activities, including a small photographic show.
The NAM's Task Force Falklands has far less objects than the other two exhibitions and is mainly centred on photography. But it did steal a march by opening on 2 April, the day the Argentines invaded, and attracted a fair amount of press and television coverage as a result.
The few artefacts on display at the NAM include one of the two Victoria Crosses awarded in the Falklands war and letters sent by Argentine children to their country's soldiers.
Rex Hunt pops up yet again, this time in relation to a note recording his radio transmission to the Argentine military personnel who landed on South Georgia. Julian Thompson also appears among the audio recordings, which feature six Falklands islanders and six soldiers.
The Felixstowe Museum is one of the few non-military venues involved in the anniversary, and has an exhibition centred on 25 paintings by Dean Regan, a veteran who lives near the museum. Many military museums, such as the Royal Logistic Corps Museum in Surrey and the Royal Engineers Museum in Kent, have concentrated on organising one-off events rather than full-blown exhibitions.
Perhaps the future of the Falklands could inspire subsequent exhibitions. The islands have been transformed since 1982, buoyed by money from a large military presence, reconstruction grants and fishing.
There are plans to drill for oil, although negotiations with Argentina have not been straightforward. The pop-ulation has grown from 1,800 to nearly 3,000 today, and GDP has risen from £4m to £75m. Not bad for a place that can be lost under a crumb of fruitcake. mj
The ten-week conflict was one of the key events of the 1980s. It gave a huge boost to Margaret Thatcher, paving the way for her to remain prime minister for the rest of the decade. But 25 years on, it is hard to find anything new to say about the war, although this has not stopped the anniversary from being an excuse for an avalanche of new books.
John Shirley, who covered the war as a journalist, estimates there are some 230 books on the subject. In a recent article in the Guardian he asked: 'Is there really anything left to say?'
Julian Thompson is a Falklands veteran and military historian who has written No Picnic, one of the definitive accounts of the conflict, and is also the historical adviser for the Imperial War Museum's (IWM) Falklands exhibition. He says that while there is 'little more to come out about the war', the public remains interested.
'That is something to do with it being a successful war, it was a short war and people can identify with the reasons for going to war. I'm not suggesting people are gagging to read articles and attend exhibitions about it, but they are more keen about the Falklands than other minor conflicts such as the Korean war.' But he adds that this is nothing compared with interest in the first and second world wars.
So where does this leave the museums that have developed exhibitions and events for the anniversary? There is a belief that the war appeals to the public because it seems far more straightforward than the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
'Our exhibition does not have direct comparisons with current wars, but what comes out is that this war was immensely popular,' says Alastair Massie, the curator of Task Force Falklands: A War That Defined the Eighties, the exhibition at the National Army Museum (NAM).
Personal stories are central to the exhibitions at the NAM and the IWM in London and the Royal Naval Museum at the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. All had lots of existing oral history recordings, but were able to plug gaps with new interviews to assemble the mixture of voices and stories that they wanted.
Hugh McManners' book Forgotten Voices of the Falklands has been published to coincide with the IWM's exhibition, which opened last month. The publication is based on the 570-plus Falklands-related recordings in the IWM's sound archive.
McManners, also a Falklands veteran, supplemented the material in the archive with new interviews, such as those he did with Falklands islanders. He believes personal testimonies are a good way of telling the story, even when the accounts differ.
'I have left in the mistakes of memory as I am not there to change what people say, but I am there to present it in a way that people can see the differences and draw their own conclusions,' says McManners.
The IWM exhibition is centred on a timeline with profiles of people dotted along it. Each one has information about their involvement in the war next to various personal objects. Some of the profiles feature recordings of the participants that visitors can listen to on handsets.
Those featured include British and Argentinian military figures, islanders and others involved in the conflict, such as war artist Linda Kitson, and former Falklands governor Rex Hunt. Terry Chapman, the IWM's historian, says the strong emphasis on personal accounts is something the museum developed in the Holocaust Exhibition. 'We have moved away from showing every bayonet, because stories are what people pick up on.'
The IWM's show was designed by an in-house team led by Sarah Gilbert, the exhibitions project manager, and the audiovisual and online elements were financed by the Big Lottery Fund's Their Past Your Future educational strand. The IWM also has Falklands photography exhibitions at Imperial War Museum North in Manchester and HMS Belfast in London.
The fact that the war was relatively recent has made assembling new oral history recordings possible, but it has also provided challenges. Material from soldiers often only finds its way to museums after their death, although the museums with exhibitions did target their collecting rather than making a general call for artefacts. Also, because so many Falklands veterans are still alive, the museums have had to be sensitive to their concerns.
The Royal Naval Museum had an informal veterans panel to advise it on the development of its exhibition, which opened in March.
It features 16 audio recordings, mainly from naval personnel, but visitors to Task Force South can also hear from Rex Hunt again; Jenny Lippiett, the wife of John Lippiett, who served in the Falklands and is now the chief executive of the Mary Rose Trust at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard; and Brian Patterson, a Portsmouth dockyard worker who was informed that he would probably be made redundant because of defence cutbacks a few hours before he was told that he would have to work through the weekend to prepare Hermes and Invincible to sail to the South Atlantic.
'I think we differ from the IWM in that they can tell the national story, and while we can do some of that, we are a naval museum, so we can tell it in that context,' says Matthew Sheldon, the head of the curatorial department at the Royal Naval Museum. 'We are not just telling a military story. A lot of the Portsmouth story is about the ships leaving from here and the redundancies in the dockyard.'
The Royal Naval Museum's displays have plenty of personal objects, as well as oral testimonies. The £60,000 exhibition at Portsmouth, which was designed by London-based Designmap, was supported by funds from local sources, particularly defence companies.
Task Force South was the first time an exhibition has used the National Museum of the Royal Navy brand. The Royal Naval Museum, the Royal Marines Museum, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum and the Fleet Air Arm Museum have worked together before, but the navy used the opening of the exhibition to announce plans to finally bring all four museums under the umbrella of the National Museum of the Royal Navy.
The Fleet Air Arm Museum opened its own Falklands exhibition in April and the Royal Marines Museum has organised various activities, including a small photographic show.
The NAM's Task Force Falklands has far less objects than the other two exhibitions and is mainly centred on photography. But it did steal a march by opening on 2 April, the day the Argentines invaded, and attracted a fair amount of press and television coverage as a result.
The few artefacts on display at the NAM include one of the two Victoria Crosses awarded in the Falklands war and letters sent by Argentine children to their country's soldiers.
Rex Hunt pops up yet again, this time in relation to a note recording his radio transmission to the Argentine military personnel who landed on South Georgia. Julian Thompson also appears among the audio recordings, which feature six Falklands islanders and six soldiers.
The Felixstowe Museum is one of the few non-military venues involved in the anniversary, and has an exhibition centred on 25 paintings by Dean Regan, a veteran who lives near the museum. Many military museums, such as the Royal Logistic Corps Museum in Surrey and the Royal Engineers Museum in Kent, have concentrated on organising one-off events rather than full-blown exhibitions.
Perhaps the future of the Falklands could inspire subsequent exhibitions. The islands have been transformed since 1982, buoyed by money from a large military presence, reconstruction grants and fishing.
There are plans to drill for oil, although negotiations with Argentina have not been straightforward. The pop-ulation has grown from 1,800 to nearly 3,000 today, and GDP has risen from £4m to £75m. Not bad for a place that can be lost under a crumb of fruitcake. mj
