But that is the option Brian Wilde gave himself, and he left the decision up to fate with the toss of a coin.

The pensioner has now published a book To the Falklands at the Toss of a Coin about that fateful 50-50 chance, which led him to a new life in the south Atlantic.

Mr Wilde made his choice at a bus stop, when the coin landed with tails facing up.

Had he thrown heads he would have just seen a film but within weeks he was on his way to the South Atlantic.

That was in 1955, and now the 74-year-old from Woodcroft Gardens, Water-looville, has written about his 13 years there.

He said: 'It was an odd decision and I thought later generations in my family would want to know why I did it.

'I don't regret it. It was a wonderful place to live.

Mr Wilde was 21 and living in Paulsgrove, Portsmouth, when he saw an advert in The News.

'I saw a piece asking for sheep farmers in the Falklands and I had no idea where it was,' he said.

'I decided to toss the coin. If it was heads I would head into town to the cinema, and if it was tails I was off to the Falklands.'

Within weeks Mr Wilde was on his way to start life as a farmer in Fox Bay in West Falklands.

'There was a great sense of community too, which seems to have been lost now.'

That togetherness was caused in part by threats from the Argentine government, later to invade.

'I left in 1969 so that was more than a decade before the war,' he said.

'There was tension even then.

'It was one of the reasons I decided to come back to the Portsmouth area.'