To say that the people of the Falklands are British is both an understatement and at the same time, an over-simplification. Everywhere in the Islands' capital Stanley, there is evidence of our British roots: pubs, neat gardens in front of Jubilee Villas, British 'bobbies', red mail boxes, the union flag outside Government House, street names.

 The Falkland Islands has no recorded evidence of an original indigenous population, but has experienced a number of waves of settlement and immigration in its relatively short history. The biggest early influx of British people came in the 1840s when the importation of a sizeable contingent of Royal Marines and military pensioners made easier the task of governing what was at first a polyglot mixture of South American gauchos, shipwrecked mariners of all nations, sealers, whalers and adventurers. The many members of the Biggs, Short and Felton families living in the Falklands today trace their ancestry back as far as seven generations to those early pioneers.

Open the telephone directory and Scottish names are there in plenty: McLeods, Morrisons, Mackays, McCallums. Many of their ancestors arrived in the Islands to be shepherds, with the introduction of sheep in the late 1800's. Ironically it was because of the introduction of sheep that many were cleared from their native highlands and islands. Maybe it was this rejection by their native land that caused these hard-working, thrifty and industrious folk to abandon so much of their own traditions to absorb much of the horse-centred work and life style of the South American gaucho cattle herders who preceded them. If Stanley has always been obviously British, 'The Camp' the generic term for everywhere else in the Falklands, has always had a distinctly South American flavour. Many of the place names like Rincon Grande, Dos Lomas, Cantera, Tranquilidad, Laguna Isola and Saladero illustrate this, particularly in East Falklands.

Look a little closer at today's Falkland Islands phone book and other influences come to light. Names like Clausen, Henrickson, Pettersson and Bernsten represent a once strong Scandinavian presence, descendants of 19th century sailors who jumped ship or were signed off in Stanley after bruising encounters with Cape Horn.

For many years the farms looked to Chile when short of labour, but now, while there are still some Chileans in the Camp, the members today's Chilean community in the Falklands are more likely to be found in Stanley working in electronics or other technical callings.

Since 1982, of course, the Islands have had a much larger British military presence, with some two thousand souls living at the Mount Pleasant air base complex. Not all of these are military personnel of course, but civilian employees of the MOD or contractors responsible for the provision and maintenance of services at the base. The military for the most part rotate every four months, but the civilians, many of whom hail either from Glasgow in Scotland or from the tiny Atlantic Ocean island of St. Helena form a much more permanent community.

Given chronic unemployment on St.Helena for many years, an increasing number of the 'saints' as they are known, have in recent years opted to leave the warmth of their island home for better job prospects and a more secure future in the windier and cooler Falklands. Over time some have drifted from the relative bleakness of the Mount Pleasant air base to live and work in Stanley, where they are beginning to integrate fully into Falklands society.

With the Islands wealth relying since the mid 1980's on the efforts of Spanish, Chilean, Korean and Japanese fishermen rather than sheep farmers, Stanley has once again returned to its historical roots as a cosmopolitan port in whose streets and pubs many different languages may be heard. While remaining true to their own British traditions and institutions, this cultural diversity is welcomed by the majority of the Islands' population, which may always have been isolated, but has never been insular.