First Passport

Until I was nine I had travelled on my mother and father's passports so I had to have my own when I went to school in England. It was issued in Mombasa on 10th December 1953 ready for my departure in early January 1954.

It used to be a very smart old-style, cardboard covered British passport but the gold of the royal coat-of-arms has been worn off the front and the black material of the cover is sticky.

As with so many things, it lived for years in the old Arab chest. Packaged with it are two subsequent passports along with other documents one had to have, such as a little yellow World Health Organisation booklet which contained records of yellow fever, smallpox, typhus, cholera and other vaccinations.

It was a Kenya passport so was issued by the governor on behalf of the Queen. In those days a stamp was affixed as a receipt for the payment made for the passport, a mere £1 - and what a beautiful King George VI stamp it is. The bit in blue at bottom right is important: I was born in Tanganyika, a UN Trust Territory, so had automatic right to pass full UK citizenship to any of my children who, like Katy, were also born abroad. This would not have been the case had I been born in Kenya, a colony.

When issued, the passport was valid for five years and was duly renewed, so it finally expired in December 1963. Even though it was a Kenya passport and my parents lived there, in order to return to the country I had to have....

....a valid re-entry pass. These were stamped into the back of the passport, and each lasted for two years.

The body of the passport contains the immigration stamps each time I entered Kenya. British immigration didn't stamp it, nor did Kenya normally stamp it each time I left, but on the occasion that our 'plane broke down in Rome and we were delayed for 24 hours while parts were flown out from England, the Italian authorities recorded both my entry and departure.