LITTLE POMMIE BASTARDS !!!

On 11 September 2013, our kids officially became little Pommie bastards. Really!

Before we left Australia, we thought we might be able to get Aisha and William British passports. Sally was born in London and left when she was the grand old age of 4 months.  Like Sally's, Mark's parents are both British, so he too has had dual nationality for many years.

As with so many things, we had great intentions of getting the applications done ages ago, but only got round to it recently. A few weeks ago we filled in the applications, gathered all the ORIGINAL documentation, including our current passports and birth certificates and had our teacher neighbour, Helen, counter-sign everything. Mark made an appointment, got to the Passport and Identity office in time (just) and was prepared to pay extra for the 1 week fast track option.

Once the interview started, however, the interviewing officer found that Mark's previous British passport, issued by the British Embassy in Damascus in 2002, had some typing irregularities and a slightly wonky letter in the date that made it seem suspect. To add to that, there was no record of it on the UK's electronic system. Sally's previous British passport, issued in Canberra, was also not on the system.

Hmmmmmmm.

What we thought would be a fairly straight forward application suddenly looked very doubtful. Mark was referred to the 'enquiries section' upstairs. Fortunately he spoke to a fairly relaxed officer who said the solution was to get copies of Mark's father's birth and marriage certificates and for the passport office to go back to the original issuing offices (Canberra and Damascus) to request confirmation. Not too much of a problem in Sally's case perhaps but, as Mark pointed out, the British Embassy in Damascus was no longer functioning, with staff having left due to the civil strife. 

In the end, Mark was able to get the necessary certificates from the registry office in London and it took less than the promised one week for all of us to be issued with new British / EU passports. Unless the kids marry UK nationals, this will be end of the line for British citizenship by descent for the Strutt/Eldridges. 

To mark the occasion, we pulled together a very impromptu 'event', inviting the neighbours around to share in the occasion. Sally, who has presided over several Australian citizenship ceremonies, held her own UK version for the kids.

The kids knew that the passports had come but not that the neighbours were coming over, nor of the proceedings to follow. Sally tested them with a list of questions taken from the British citizenship test about landmarks, flags and notable historical characters. Helen and James next door set a test of nerve by requiring the kids to eat a Marmite sandwich while wearing Wellington boots! They undertook an English language test in which they had to correctly name several particularly English items including yoghurt (not "Yoegert"); flip flops not "thongs"; crisps not "chips".

The dreaded Marmite test.

A few highlights of the evening are below.

 

The intellectual challenges were much easier than some of the more 'physical' challenges.

The jury of fine upstanding British neighbours (and Muriel from France) all agreed that Aisha and William had passed with flying colours.  At the end of the evening, having read the official oath of allegiance to the Queen and the official British pledge, they were presented with their British passports!.

Sally assures them that, as dual nationals, they will not lose their Australian citizenship.

Anyway they are now...
Pommie Bastards

as well as being Orstrillians
and proud of the fact!

                      Not to mention very pleased that this will allow them to come back whenever they want to! 

MUDLARKING IN AUGUST

We have not long been back from our three week driving trip to Spain and France. The blog of the trip will, inshallah, be ready in the next few weeks, though things are very busy in the count down to our departure.

But, before that, and going back a few months to the beginning of the good weather in July and August, when Mark took the kids mudlarking - otherwise known as scrounging around in the filth of the tidal Thames!

Having read about some of the marvellous discoveries mudlarks have made here and here, and having written about the use of the Thames as an open sewer 100 years ago, Mark felt that it was probably safe enough for the kids to dig around in.

We met other larkers who were very helpful at identifying what we had found.

We went three times bringing a friend of Aisha's, Tai, on the second trip. Sally came on the last trip along with Tai's younger brother Joe who is a friend of William's and who was keen to experience the joys of mudlarking after Tai had recounted his tales!

Jo having a lark.

Our last lark was on the one weekend in the year when the foreshore in front of the Tower of London is opened to the general public. This was the trip Sally and Joe joined us on and we went hoping to find some of the royal regalia stolen by the parliamentarians back in 1643.

We didn't, but with our mud larking permits that Mark had organised, we were allowed to go to a reserved section of the foreshore and found lots of Elizabethan clothing pins. Buttons only became widespread in the early 1600s. Prior to that, clothes were pinned on! Complex costumes would require hundreds of pins and take several hours to put on and take off. There was apparently a pin factory on the shores of the Thames beside what is now Tower Bridge. The pins were hand made by children using lead for the ends.  As part of this digging Will found what he thought initially was an ear ring. One of the museum experts later identified it as a chain mail link from around 1500. 

Clothes pins.

 In all this if you look carefully you will find....

Pipe stems amongst the pebbles.

The maker's stamp on the heel of the pipe.

Fine crimping around the rim.

The pipe stems we found are up to 300 years old. A bit like cigarette ends today, they were discarded once finished. The smaller pipes are oldest as they date from the time when tobacco was comparatively rare and expensive. As it became more commonplace, and therefore cheaper, the pipes were made bigger and became more decorative. Finding complete bowls and stems is now rare. The later Victorian pipes could be very elaborate. The ealy decoration included simple crimping around the rim or perhaps a maker's stamp.

We found a lot in the end

We didn't find Boudica's golden chariot, as Mark had hoped, but we did find some old stuff that was pretty cool to be able to 'discover' after several hundred years. Pipe stems and bowls from the 1600's up to Victorian times, Mediaeval green pottery bots, bits of German beer mugs old hand made nails of an as yet undetermined age. Others on the day found bits of Roman roofing tile and pots.  The Thames is very tidal and fast flowing and each high tide washes up new 'treasure' from the sludge at the bottom, ready for the finding. What can we say .... it is London!

All in all, this mudlarking was indeed a lark which all of us enjoyed.  It really did bring the history we have been learning so much about here alive in a very tangible way.