Second Birthday

I was born in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in 1954 when the country was a British colony. So I automatically was British, as were all newly borns of whatever race or colour. My passport looked just like a normal British one but was issued by the Colony of Trinidad and Tobago.

On 31st August 1962, Trinidad gained independence from Britain but Queen Elisabeth II remained as Queen of Trinidad, the country being a member of the British Commonwealth.

All was fine and I could travel to the UK and Europe using my passport as could anyone in the Commonwealth. However, the UK fearful of mass immigration from it's former and also still Commonwealth citizens, started to pass laws to restrict the rights, the first law in 1962. However, this didn't seem to be enough and continued unrest made the situation difficult. One of the outcomes was that travelling on a UK passport issued by a Commonwealth country did not automatically give you rights to enter the UK.

Sometime around then my mother was taking a plane from Frankfurt to London but was not allowed to board as her UK passport, similarly renewed and issued by Trinidad, could mean she was not allowed into the UK. An official from the British Consulate had to be called to the airport and guarantee her right to travel.

To avoid this and aware of planned legislation to further place much more restrictive rights on Commonwealth citizens, my father had my birth registered at the British High Commission (same as Embassy) in Trinidad, whereupon I was then entitled to a UK passport issued by the UK itself.

From the document, one can see that he applied for the registration on 25 February 1966 and I officially became a full-time pukka Brit on Friday 30th December 1966. I suspect there may have been some change planned for the 1st January 1967 and so the application was rushed through!

Writing this in March 2016, with the Syrian immigration crisis and the announcement of the UK referendum on a European Union exit, based mainly on fears about immigration of EU and for that matter any foreign nationals flooding the country, I thought this Blip may be appropriate.

As an interesting note - my current UK passport runs out at midnight on 22nd June 2016, the referendum takes place the next day.