MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands’ citizen objects to the cancellation of parades on the King’s birthday and Battel Day

The Falklands naval Battle Memorial in Stanley on Ross Road

Gerald Cheek a Stanley citizen, much respected and knowledgeable of Falklands’ history has written an open letter, published in the Penguin News, greatly concerned and objecting to the cancellation of parades on important celebrations for the Falklands calendar. They are the sovereign’s birthday, 14th November, and on Battle Day, when 110 years ago on 8th December 1914, the Royal Navy destroyed a powerful German naval squadron ready to take over the Islands. It was also the great first British victory of WW1, and both events mark the closenessof the Falklands with the Royal Family and the UK.

I believe that it is very sad to learn that not one but two of our most important parades have been cancelled this year. The first being the British Sovereign`s birthday parade which currently is of course in honor of King Charles birthday on the 14th November.

A reason given I believe is that it clashed with our Remembrance Day Parade which was held on the Sunday the 10th of November, the Remembrance Day Parade being held on the nearest Sunday to the 11th of November.

In this particular case the two potential parade days would be three days apart and a holiday (i.e. a day off work for most people) so surely it should not be a problem to hold the parade on the day and on the somewhat rare occasion when the two days should clash the actual remembrance day/parade could be rescheduled for the next or previous Sunday.

I am quite sure that the majority of people living here would not wish to see this extremely important parade dispensed with. I know that it surely goes without saying that in addition to our permanent desire to remain British we must not under any circumstances fail to show the world how much we appreciate this desire and in doing so continue to honor our British sovereign.

The second parade which is also being cancelled, at least for this year, is our Battle Day Parade. The purpose of this parade is to honor and remember with gratitude those brave Royal Navy souls who saved us from being captured and dealt with goodness knows by whatever means by the German naval squadron who were about to land on our shores.

This parade has been held on the 8th of December which was the day in 1914, one hundred and ten years ago, when the battle took place. This was the first naval battle of the First World War and in addition to these Islands being captured by the German enemy it no doubt saved many British lives if these particular German ships had continued to terrorize the oceans.

In fact they had already attacked and sank two British naval ships at the battle of Coronel with the subsequent loss of many Royal Navy sailors.

I understand this reason for not intending to hold the parade this year is because of the marching troops not being able to march along Ross Road from the east part of the town as they usually do due to the road being closed. Obviously this is the most convenient access to the Battle Memorial but given the roads now in use via the recently built housing estate on Sapper Hill this allows easy access to the Memorial from the west part of the town.

The troops could therefore could quite easily be transported by vehicles to somewhere in the vicinity of Sullivan House and march from there. This situation would obviously not have been possible prior to these recent constructions having taken place.

A further reason has been spoken about is the somewhat difficult means of how pedestrians could get to the Battle Memorial but with the sidewalk along the harbor side of the road works still being in use this need not be a problem.

Well there are my reasons why this parade, which has been part of our extremely important celebrations for the past one hundred plus years, should not be held as usual this year, and I do know that a number are also extremely concerned about this situation.

Given that the 8th of December this year is still some four weeks away surely there must be sufficient times to organize this parade as normal. May I therefore implore the MLA`s, FIDF and all of the other authorities involved in this matter, reconsider this situation and act accordingly.

Just imagine if Ross Road to the east of the Liberation Monument was being repaired and it was decided to postpone the parade and wreath laying etc. on the 14th of June because of that reason what the reaction would be. I rather expect such a situation would not be allowed to occur even if it was some one hundred years in the future….