
Part time GP Dr Rebecca Edwards lives at Port Howard with her husband, Christopher Lee, and four children, Jessica, Daniel, Oliver and Peter.
My home, the Falklands, is an extremely special place to me. Growing up here as a child was a wonderful experience, and I am very lucky to be able to bring my own children up in the wide open, clean, healthy environment of Camp.
I live at Port Howard on West Falkland, where my husband and his brother run Port Howard Farm, a sheep station of 39,000 sheep and 270 cattle. My children have an idyllic time on the farm with a menagerie of pets, a big garden and lots of fishing and messing about on the beach to keep them happy. I look at them and hope and pray that their future here will be secure.
I work as a part-time GP in the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital in Stanley. I read medicine at University College London, qualifying as a doctor in 2001 and after my hospital jobs were finished I trained to become a GP so that I could come home again. I always wanted to come back to the Falklands to work, not just because it is home, but I knew that I wanted to raise my children here, and because the work of a GP here is hugely varied and challenging. We are not only the GP but the A&E doctor, the obstetrician, paediatrician, hospital doctor, flying doctor, etc. It is a fantastic job, but not without the difficulties that come with working in an isolated place far from the nearest specialist advice.
The last 30 years have flown by. The Falklands have changed beyond all recognition ̧ but still retain their charm and beauty. We have a democratic government who have maintained excellent finances in the current world recession. We have excellent health and educational facilities. I am proud to call myself a Falkland Islander.
I wonder what the next 30 years will bring. I hope my children’s children will still be living on West Falkland in all its beauty and safety and most importantly I hope they will live free from the aggressive neighbour, Argentina, we know today. The conflict was 30 years ago, surely Argentina must want to move on and forward from the dark memories of 1982?
I pray that Argentina will wake up and realise that we aren’t going to vanish or give in to their bullying, and that they accept us as a nation of people in our own right, choosing to live the life we want to, quietly, in our home, the Falkland Islands. I hope that soon we will see the Falklands and Argentina living peacefully, and respectfully, side by side.