Digby reflects on visits to the Visa & Immigration Service and Support (sic) Centre, Solihul

Visas & Immigration Service and Support (sic) Centre, Solihull

I had to get a special visa when I emigrated, in 1975, from Australia to Britain. My grandparents were, all four, English, but that was considered irrelevant, though two had patriotically responded to campaigns in the late 19th century encouraging them to settle in the colonies. (As did many men who served Albion in world wars.) But, now that Empire had become a bothersome memory, I discovered that loyalty works one way only and is anyway time-limited.
Australia had been very kind to me when I had a Rhodesian passport – at a time when only South Africa and, I think, Uruguay, recognised it. Despite my British heritage and my opposition to the Rhodesian government’s disastrous policies, the British Government wouldn’t grant me a passport, nor even agree to admit me should I manage to reach Heathrow. Canada, New Zealand, the US, even Hong Kong, were in their various ingenious ways, unhelpful. But Australia had seemed to accept me on my apparent merits and gave me a temporary travel document. You can see why, though I no longer live in Australia, I’m proud of my Aussie passport.
The British Nationality Act 1949, which conferred British citizenship on all Commonwealth citizens, wasn’t actually repealed till 1981, but even without the measures taken against UDI (Unilateral Declaration of Independence) it wasn’t straightforward to go “home”. A patriality concession for men with a male grandparent was still in place but the proofs they required were formidable and the concession was anyway scheduled to disappear, giving the authorities a motive to hold back applications indefinitely.
Fortunately, my wife’s an Essex girl, born in Colchester: would this help her hubby? The Consulate in Sydney interviewed us at length before deciding our marriage of ten years wasn’t after all one of convenience – but I had to apply for an “Indefinite Residence Permit” stamp in my Australian passport. Then, after twenty years of increasing panic in England about immigration, it became a more difficult and more expensive exercise to acquire such endorsement. (It’s irrelevant that immigrants are usually enterprising people; they’ve chosen to move to a new country, not merely stayed on because they happen to have been born there.) Anyway, come 2007, it was time to renew my passport. I was summoned to attend the Immigration Enforcement Centre at Sandford House in Solihull, and I joined the other applicants as they waited fearfully in their serried rows.
My name was eventually called and three minutes later, after a perfunctory interview and a cheerful welcome, I was pronounced genuine! Great.
But I was white. And there were two modes of welcome. Ahead of me was an Asian student nurse and one of her documents was photocopied: extension denied. “Can I come back with the right document later?” No, reapply from scratch. The official’s tone was curt, unsympathetic, dismissive. And it would’ve been cripplingly expensive for her. Then there was the fellow who’d bought a Post Office cover for his worn Pakistani passport, to keep it tidy, he said. The official screamed at him: “The cover says ‘UK Passport’! You are committing a criminal offence!”. The offending cover was snatched away and binned. A large black man with a tiny baby was right behind me. He looked like Joshua Nkomo. He was sweating with fear. Uncharacteristically emotional, I laid my hand on his arm and whispered: “Good luck, mate.” (Mind you, officialdom was probably pretty bad where he came from.)
At first I wasn’t allowed dual nationality, unless one was my country of birth. And Zimbabwe wanted none of me: I’d supported widening the franchise, but I was white – the badge of colour reversed. Later the rules changed and I was permitted to hold two passports, neither necessarily my place of birth. I carried on with just the Australian one: there was an element of bloody-mindedness in my attitude, but I’m as Australian as British, an alien in any country. However, it became hideously expensive to have the embossed mini “Indefinite Leave” authorisation placed in my Aussie passport – cheaper to become a UK citizen and sport two passports. No more trips to Solihull. God knows how crassly ill-mannered, after a few more years of practice, they are today.
And when I next pass through Heathrow I hope I’ll be received politely, as I always have been. And who knows, perhaps darker-hued folk will also be well-received. And how has Brexit affected things? Not well, but I bet our officials won’t ever be as offensive as those supreme masters of rudeness, the South African officials at Beit Bridge in the 1950s.

Digby is the author of the biography of Sir John Christopher Willoughby.