MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

What Happened to the Wool?

An annual exhibition which has become a popular shop window for the Falkland Islands attracted an estimated 22-thousand people this year.
Held every November in a popular entertainment centre in Croydon, near London, it was limited this year to only a week instead of the usual two weeks because Millennium Year pressure limited available dates.

It was the thirteenth year of the exhibition at Fairfield Halls organised by former Falkland Island residents Brian Paul and Annabelle Spencer, who during the rest of the year run a Falkland Islands Agency shop and visitor centre in the tourist city of Wells, in Somerset.

On show at Croydon were a variety of Falkland Islands products, including sweaters, fleeces for hand spinners, designer knitwear and patterns. Also on display was what is described as one of the "finest wools in the world" -- but sadly not much of it.

At the precise time that the Falklands Islands Government had invited a marketing expert to the Islands, James King of Marketing Principals International Limited, to investigate and advise upon the concept of creating a Falklands quality logo to help sell products internationally, a consignment of wool ordered from Fox Bay Mill several months earlier failed to arrive in time for sale at the exhibition. Brian Paul had also hoped to have the wool for a major international wool and knitting exhibition earlier in the year in one of Britain's biggest cities, Birmingham.

Brian Paul and Annable Spencer are puzzled that they cannot get supplies of a commodity which has traditionally been the Falkland Islands major export, shorn from the backs of several hundred thousand sheep. It is all the more disappointing coming so soon after the much heralded Falklands Forum in London in July, attended by all the Islands leading officials, designed to give a boost to Falklands industry and its economy.

Apart from this disappointment, Brian Paul described the exhibition as a "great success". He said: "It keeps the Falkland Islands in the public eye. Otherwise people tend to forget about them".

The exhibition was open for nearly twelve hours every day with free admission. Visitors were able to see photographs and videos of Falkland Islands wildlife, the Islanders' way of life, fishing and agriculture.

Harold Briley, London