Misadventures with HM Immigration
Or how I was refused and then granted entry to the UK at the height of my youthful naivety
I spent a month or so in the South of France in the fall of 1974. At the end of that vacation, I headed for the UK and after getting back to Calais I took a ferry to Folkestone. My intention at this time was to take a year off from the University of Maryland which I had attended for my freshman year. During this ‘gap year’ I intended to apply to universities in England. In the end I applied to Nottingham, Sussex, Kent and one other, I can’t remember which one, through the central clearing agency which was abbreviated UCCA. In those days all applications had to go through UCCA with the exception of Oxford and Cambridge.
The reason I had chosen these universities, particularly Sussex, which was the ‘in’ place among red-brick universities in Britain, was because they were seen to be non-elitist and devoid of snobbery — one wouldn’t want that would one? Right, until I spent three weeks sleeping on the floor of a friend of mine’s room at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford and saw and experienced what elitism in education really entailed. Then my views completely changed.
To support myself for the intervening year I intended to get a job as civilian personnel at one of the US Air Force bases in the country. I had been told that American citizens could get these jobs without needing a work permit. I thought I would be fine.
Now I was 19 and not versed in the ways of the world, and I did something very stupid. I arrived in Folkestone and when asked by the Immigration Officer Mr. PG Baker, how long I intended to stay in the country said, honestly, if not a bit hopefully: ‘Four years’.
He said: ‘What do you mean “four years”?’
I said that I was hoping to go to university in the UK, starting next autumn and in the meantime was going to get a job working as civilian personnel at one of the US air bases where I wouldn’t need a work permit. He said that was true, and then gave me a notice which informed me that I was to be detained in Her Majesty’s custody for further questioning. I was then put in a room with two Moroccans with a policeman guarding the door. HM Immigration, meanwhile, went off to search my bags.
At one point I needed to go to the bathroom and asked the cop if this was possible. He said ‘Sure, down the hall and on the left’. I hesitated and said, ‘Aren’t you coming with me?’. He said ‘No’. I said, ‘What if I was trying to flush drugs down the toilet?’ (I told you I was naïve). He said, ‘I don’t care now, do I?’ I just love the attitude of British police.
The Immigration officials found a piece of paper in my backpack that a friend had given me with the address of a company that specialized in recruiting people to work on the oil rigs in Scotland. They concluded that I was not going to work for the Air Force after all. I was, but with that paper in my possession, I was not believed. I was then given orders for my deportation to Calais on the MV Horsa, for attempting to enter the country to seek employment without a work permit. I still have the order. I had it framed years later as a souvenir of the incident. They then stamped my passport with the usual entry visa stamp but with a black cross drawn through it. A policeman escorted me to the boat and my passport was then given to the purser. After we were outside the three-mile limit it was given back to me.
I wasn’t sure what to do at first but on reflection I decided to go to Paris to see the Air Attache at the US Embassy to see if there was anything he could do. I arrived in Paris late at night and having nowhere to stay decided to crash with one of four Frenchmen I had met on the Greyhound bus earlier that summer when travelling across America. I had accommodated them at my place on their trip to the US so hoped that the fellow I chose to impose upon would reciprocate. You should always do favors for people. What goes around comes around, always.
I found one of the guys’ flats, but he wasn’t in. As it was around 11pm I rolled out my sleeping bag on his doorstep and went to sleep. He showed up around 2am and was very surprised to see me but was more than hospitable and put me up for the time I needed to be in Paris.
In the morning, I went to the US Embassy, met with the Air Attache, and explained my situation to him. He picked up the phone, called the Head of Civilian Personnel for the UK at RAF Mildenhall and said: ‘I have a young man here who’d like to come for an interview, will you see him?’ The guy, a Mr. Ganser, said sure.
The attaché put the phone down, turned to me and said: ‘When do you want it for?’
I said: ‘How about Wednesday?’.
He called his secretary in and said: ‘Type up a letter in quadruplicate addressed to HM Immigration asking them for leave to let Mr. Stewart attend a job interview with the Head of Civilian personnel for the USAF UK at 10.00 on Wednesday October 16, 1974.’
As the secretary was leaving the room he called out, “Oh yeah, and put it on the letterhead with the really big seal on it.” He then turned to me and said: “The Brits really love official-looking documents”.
So armed with this letter I thanked my kind host for his hospitality and headed back to England. I decided to go to Dover as I didn’t want to run into Mr. Baker again. I took the night ferry and arrived at Dover around 6.30 in the morning. I was again detained in Her Majesty’s custody for further questioning. This time I had plenty of company.
There were ten of us detained — myself, two Bolivians, two Austrians, a guy from Gibraltar, a Mauritian, one I can’t remember, and a Chilean guy and his girlfriend. We were taken to a room with straight-backed chairs in it. At one end of the room there was a large opening in the wall. Two policemen sat on the other side of this opening. There was a television mounted on brackets above the opening and a payphone mounted on the opposite wall.
The Chilean guy walked over to the payphone, picked it up and said: “Yes, I have two kilos best marijuana, hashish, you come get, OK?” Then put the phone down, walked over to the cops and said: “What time does your television open?” The cop told him to sit down and shut up.
Around 8am this cop took us down to the police canteen for breakfast, sat us down and said: “What do you want, ham or cheese sandwich, tea or coffee?”
The Mauritian said: “Can I have cornflakes?” This created confusion, near farcical, as the Bolivians, who didn’t speak much English, took it into their heads that they could order anything they wanted. They tried to order eggs.
The cop took umbrage at this behavior, and said again, in a louder voice: “Ham or cheese sandwich, tea or coffee.” He then went off, bought ten sandwiches and put them down on the table. The second he turned his back the Chilean guy whipped three of the sandwiches and put them in his lap under the table.
As a result, the Bolivians didn’t get any sandwiches. The Chilean guy then called the cop over and pointing at the Bolivians said: “They no have sandweech, no have sandweech.” The cop then went and bought two more sandwiches and gave them to the Bolivians. The Chilean guy then said pointing at his empty plate: “But me no have sandweech”.
At this point you could see the cogs in Officer Plod’s head turning slowly. He said: “Now wait a minute. I bought twelve sandwiches for ten people….”
Before he could go any further, the Chilean guy pulled the sandwiches out from under the table and put them on his plate. He then said: “Majeek, majeek”. He then took his hand and tapped the underside of the table and said: “No more sandweech, no more sandweech”.
I swear to God at this point this cop just looked at him and said: “Arrivederci, England.”
The Chilean just shrugged.
For me, the final act of this farce was that while in Her Majesty’s custody I ended up acting as an interpreter for HM Immigration as they had no-one in the Port Authority of Dover who spoke enough German to deal with the two Austrians. Eventually, myself, the Mauritian and the fellow from Gibraltar were allowed to enter the country. The rest of them were sent back to France. In my case, they had waited until both the Embassy in Paris and the base at Mildenhalll had opened to make sure I hadn’t forged the letter and that the interview was real. I was allowed in on a 30-day visa on the condition that if I did not get a job with the Air Force, I had to leave the country.
I went up to Mildenhall and was then sent over to RAF Upper Heyford, about ten miles north of Oxford, where I was given a job pumping gas on the gas station on the base. I was sorted.
