Life in the Falkland Islands and particularly working life has many habits and customs that are very familiar to me. However, there is one custom that stands out as being totally different to the UK and that is the Lunch Hour.

In the Falklands, the lunch hour is midday to 1pm and this seems to hold true across almost all employers and locations. Not only is it at a set time it is also strictly observed, people do not work through lunch, they do not eat lunch at their desks – they go home or at the very least go out to eat their lunch. No one ever organises a meeting in the lunch hour, people just won’t come and I have yet to encounter anyone trying to organise a working lunch, it doesn’t seem to exist.

How has this happened? No one is really sure, but it does seem to revolve around the fact that children go home from school for lunch. Indeed the schools do not have kitchens or any catering facilities, as at the time they were built the expectation was that all children would go home for lunch.

Although I have not adapted to the extent that I go home for lunch, I do appreciate the space that the lunch hour gives you. On a nice day I will eat my lunch outside and go for a walk. I have quickly learnt to appreciate the fact that there is an hour in the working day when you can stop and no one will send you an email or expect you to answer the phone.

It’s a practice I think the UK would do well to consider adopting!