‘After so long there, living as we were … it was almost like they were a separate species, certainly a separate community. Their deaths were worrying, but only insofar as they related to us. To our situation. I don’t think we spared much thought for them as people, terrible as that is to say. It was a luxury we didn’t have room for, mourning people we didn’t know. No … I think the worst part of it all, for us, was not having that influence anymore – those representatives of the outside world.’
