Pip pip cheerio and all that rot

Today I became a British citizen.

Yes, that's right. I've joined the ranks of Winston Churchill, Paddington Bear, Lawrence Olivier, Margaret Thatcher, Dame Judi Dench, Ricky Gervais and even her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second.

The occasion was the right mix of British formality and British kookiness, particularly since it was presided over by the head of the North Somerset District Council and ably assisted by the Assistant Chief Registrar (or somesuch...I didn't take down names).


When you submit your acceptance to attend the ceremony, you have to choose if you are going to take an Oath or an Affirmation. The wording is the same for both, except for the beginning, in which you either swear to the Almighty God or you say you really, really mean it (or something to that affect). (As an interesting side bar, you also got to tick a box to express your preference to NOT shake hands. I was tempted, just to see how it was handled, and what you got instead, but couldn't go through with it).

On the day, the about-to-be-citizens were divided into two groups on two sides of the room, the Oath-takers and the Affirmation-makers. It kind of felt like West Side Story, actually, like we were going to rumble at any moment. Fortunately we didn't, because I was with the Oath-takers and we were way out-numbered by the Affirmation-makers.

As you would expect, there was official business (incuding a somewhat extended scripted monologue about how great North Somerset is - particularly Clevedon - by the Council Chair), then we stood up and repeated after the registrar person, who said the oath we were taking in small manageable chunks. Even smaller chunks than when you take your wedding vows, actually, even though we had the words written out for us on little laminated cards. I think they do that for people who are not fluent in English, which is nice, but at the same time, it made it really hard to say. Not to mention the lady next to me was really lovely and enthusiastic, so I couldn't really hear what I was saying. We have the whole thing on video, so I can check if I actually said it and said it properly. (And if you play it backwards, I say, "Paul is Dead, Paul is Dead.")

After the Oath-takers said ours, the Affirmation-makers said theirs. Then, we got called up one by one to shake the hand of the Council Chairman and get our "Citizenship Pack."



I was hoping to get one of those medallion things, but I think that's what you get after 5 years of citizenship.

The Chairman said a witty little aside for each person, and did a good job throughout putting everyone at ease. He also played the stern authoritarian and gave us a little speech about freedom. After that, they played the national anthem on a little boom box, which was quite sweet and a slightly awkward moment, particularly when the administration support lady accidentally let the next verse start, but cut it off right after. Then they served tea and biscuits in an anteroom. We didn't stay for the biscuits, but everyone was very nice.

All in all, a very pleasant experience. There was even a moment, when a newly-minted citizen was asked why he was smiling so much, he said "Because I was a man without a country. And now I have one!" So yes, we laughed, we cried, we discussed civic involvement.

It's great to be an American.

I mean, long live the Queen!

Step number 523, complete.

Yesterday, I drove an hour and a half to Newton Abbot, a town in Devon. It's a nice little place, and is on the way to Torquay, which is one of the sort of old British resort towns on the South coast of Devon.

Newton Abbot's local authority (sort of the equivalent of a town council) is the only place in the South West of England that does the Nationality Checking Service (NCS). The NCS basically means that if you pay £35 they look at your application for naturalisation (see it's working, notice the "s") and make sure that you've filled everything in properly and you've included all the documents you need.

The most important bit is that they make official photocopies of all of your documents so you don't have to send the originals into the national office that considers the applications. Normally, if you just mail in the application, you have to send in your passport, your spouse's passport (if you are applying on the basis of marriage, like me), your marriage certificate and some other paperwork. Which means that there are lots of chances of it being lost, or being kept for a long period of time (months, or in one case I've heard of, 2 years!). I don't like the idea of not being able to travel at all for however long it takes them to do the paperwork, so it's definitely worth it to drive the distance and pay the money to be able to keep our passports!

It was all a very quick process - it took all of about 15 minutes. There was a bit of a panic because they asked for lots of documents that I didn't bring because I had already showed them to the people when I got my indefinite leave. They said that it's a different office that is considering this application (Home Office rather than Passport Control), so they ask to see it. But they said that it's not really required, they just ask to see if it people bring it. I kept asking again and again if they thought I should come back, but they assured me that if the Home Office did need to see some more proof or identification they would contact me and ask for it, rather than just reject my application outright. Which is good, since if they reject your application, you don't get your £655 back!

They also submit your application by secure post, and so it was meant to arrive in Liverpool today at 1pm GMT. Apparently, the Home Office will get in touch in the next couple of weeks just to let me know they received it, and then it will probably take a couple to a few months to hear the response.

It's nice that it's all done, and now I just wait and see!

The whole story.

No, I really didn't keep from posting just to experiment with everyone...it started out as building suspense, but quickly progressed to forgetfulness (Sunday) and then to laziness (Monday). And the laziness continued to today, since initially I didn't even bother posting the whole story about the experience.

So here it is. With pictures!

As I mentioned in a previous post, it all started with getting the official book that the test is based on and studying through the week.

Saturday morning we were up at about 8am; I had a banana and a last minute look at my citizenship timeline.

Before we left Clevedon, we had the important step of withdrawing the test fee (£35):



The ride to the test centre in Bristol was quiet and slightly tense.


We arrived to the area a bit early, so we sat in the car and Mark asked me random questions from the book. Then, at 10 am, the test centre opened, and it was time to go in!


Once inside, I filled out a simple form saying who I was and I paid my money.



Mark then wasn't allowed to go any further, so we don't have any more pictures of the inside. I took a picture of the waiting room with my phone, but I don't know if I should post it, in case it's some kind of State secret. But I have to say, there was a mural of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet, so it wasn't all that intimidating. Although Eeyore did have a bit of leer.

I sat around in the waiting room for a while, reading a story by Alice Munro (that doesn't bear any significance, just a little bit of extra color). The other people who were taking the test came in one by one, until there were six of us in total. It was a nice mix of nationalities; kind of like United Colours of Bristol. No one talked to each other; I think we were all trying to make sure the statistics we had crammed in wouldn't fall out of our heads before the test started.

We were called into a separate testing room, one at a time, to have our details inputted into the computer system. Then, once everyone did that, we were all called in together. The testing room had about eight computers in it and was pretty shoddy, to be honest. Each computer had a set of headphones (so you could listen to questions if you wanted to) and an instruction sheet about how the test worked taped to the desk. The thing that initially drove me crazy was that the sheet taped to the desk was crooked. Sheesh.

Anyway, they ran through the rules (no standing, no looking at other people's screens, no talking). We then took a practice test with really easy questions to make sure we knew how to use the system and all that.

Then, the test began. It was a mixture of multiple choice and true/false questions. I signed a little waiver saying that I wouldn't divulge any material from the test, so I guess technically I can't say what the questions actually were. But suffice to say, it was a mix of easy ones and less easy ones and I did get a couple of statistics questions. I might have been able to pass without studying, but it would have been a much closer thing. As it stood, there were about 5 questions (out of a total of 24) that I wasn't absolutely sure about the correct answer, and even those I was pretty confident about.

They give you 45 minutes to complete the test, but everyone was done after about 15-20 minutes. We had to leave the room when we were finished with the test, and once everyone was back in the waiting room, there was a little bit of a pause and then each person was called into the room individually, to hear whether or not they had passed. I was the second person in, and the moderator person just said "congratulations, you passed" and gave me a little printout that said "congratulations, you passed" with a boring red stamp on it. They don't even tell you what your score was, so I have no idea if I got everything right or if I only squeaked by or something in-between. But of course that only matters if that sort of thing is important to you, or if you are trying to out-do someone else, and since I don't know anyone else who has taken the test, I wouldn't be able to gloat anyway.

So I came out of the test centre all smiley, where Mark was waiting for me.



It wasn't as traumatic as it might have been, and I have to say that all in all it wasn't that stressful, even for someone who has an uncanny ability to make any situation unnecessarily fraught. So they must be doing something right.

Now the next step is to fill in the application form and send it in with the test certificate and lots and lots of money. They say that at the moment it is taking them about four months to process applications, so if I get it in before Christmas, I may actually be naturalized by the end of March (if they approve my application, of course).

Crazy!

The Answer.

So, I took the test on Saturday morning. I'm only posting now because I wanted to build suspense. I didn't want everyone see how it went before they even read that I was taking the test. The only thing, is that I hadn't realized that it's really difficult to build suspense when you have an audience of 5 people, max, and those 5 people probably don't look at the blog every day.

But it was an interesting experiment. I posted about the test on Friday, and it took until Tuesday for someone to ask how it went (thanks, Julie!). Granted, I got impatient and talked to half of my audience on the phone on Saturday night and spilled the beans. So really, I only have myself to blame.

Anyway, I passed.

The Test.

Tomorrow morning I am scheduled to take UK citizenship test. This is the first step in the process to become a UK citizen. Well, actually the second step, since you have to meet the eligibility criteria first (i.e. you need to have lived here long enough). So, actually, it's the third step, since you had to go through the process of settling here legally before you start the clock on your eligibility, which you have to do before you take the test. Which, you can't do until you've got your first visa, which you have to do before you can enter the country legally to go through the process of settling here legally so you can start the clock on your eligibility, meet that and then take the test. Thinking about it, I must be a citizen already with the number of steps I've already gone through.

Anyway, the test has two functions: 1) make it seem like they're being tough on immigrants and 2) decrease the number of applications the poor overworked civil servants have to process. No, just kidding, the two functions are: 1) make sure you understand English and 2) make sure you can answer random questions about the UK so the people who are born here don't have to.

I'm sure it's the same with all citizenship tests (I haven't checked, but I'm sure the US must have one too and I'm sure it's equally...ah...interesting). There are lots of questions that no native born Brit would probably be able to answer. At least, that's the way it seems from the practice questions in a study book I bought. Most of the questions were random historical facts ("in the 1950s, the UK set up centres in the West Indies to encourage immigration to the UK to fill what job roles?"), statistics ("according to the 2001 census, what percentage of Scotland's population is from an ethnic minority?"), specific questions about government ("how many members are there in the Welsh assembly?") and then finally things that you would actually know if you lived here ("what are Easter eggs made of?"). Although, I have to say that last example is a trick question for Americans, since over here all Easter eggs are chocolate--they don't do dyed boiled eggs at all. But at least you'd know that if you had ever spent a single Easter in the country or knew someone who had.

So seeing all the statistics questions ("about how many young people participate in community work?") made me panic, of course. I basically gave up, received a pep talk from Mark, got back into it, gave up again, decided to just try it and now I'm feeling a bit more relaxed.

I've read the chapters of the official "Life in the UK" book that the test is based on. I've written out a "citizenship timeline" -- all the completely arbitrary dates that are mentioned in the book and might be on the citizenship test (1550s, Church of England created, 1850s women allowed to divorce, 1918 women get the vote, 1949 Council of Europe created, 1973 UK joins EU, 1990 Thatcher resigns, 1999 Scottish and Welsh assemblies created...) and written down a study sheet of all the random statistics which I'll maybe look at once tomorrow morning before I go in.

I was really worried until I talked to a work colleague who has a South African friend who went through the process and said the test was really easy. That made me feel better. But they say that the test is different for everyone, which may mean that they decide if they like you or not first and decide the test's difficulty according.

Hm. So actually, right now I should be on my best behaviour, just in case. I will go look at the colours of the Union Jack and consider whether or not I want to vote for the Labour organisation in the next election if I am a citizen of this fair land.

Long live the Queen and pass the Marmite!

This hoop's for you.

For those of you who don't know, I have recently discovered that I'm eligible to apply for UK Citizenship. I had thought that you had to wait until 5 years after you received what they (without a trace of irony) call "indefinite leave to remain" to even think about doing the citizenship thing. But, somewhat by accident, I found out a few weeks ago that in fact, if you are married to a British person (which I am) and have been in the country for a total of three years (which I have been) then you can apply. The clock on your eligibility starts ticking the moment you enter the UK on a settlement visa (which I did on 11 September 2004, on a "spousal" visa), not the "indefinite" visa as I had previously thought.

Ergo, as of 11 September 2007, I could decide if having permanent status is worth the many hoops the UK government has decided to put in place in order to prove that you really, really want to stay.

Now, I don't HAVE to apply. My status means that I can work, play, mingle with the locals and all that good stuff. I pay taxes, I go to Tesco, I discuss East Enders. The two things that don't apply to me are 1) a British passport and 2) Elections. I can't vote, and I'm not a citizen, so I don't have a UK passport (which means whenever we travel in the EU I have to stand in the "Non-EU" passport queue, which is always long and slow).

Oh, and technically, they can at any point decide that they don't want me anymore and kick me out of the country. But, of course, they can't do that as easily as if I was illegal or a tourist or on a temporary visa or whatever. They'd have to have a darn good reason (and so far, I don't think this blog entry has been treasonous, so I think I'm still ok).

The other thing is that if I went and lived someplace else, say the States, for a while, if/when we moved back to the UK, I would have to apply all over again for my "indefinite leave to remain" status (and pay £500 again). This is not life-threatening--I mean we did once already so we'd know what to expect--but it's kind of a pain.

SO, if I go ahead and go for citizenship, then I become a dual-citizen, and as far as I know, move about the countries more freely. There doesn't seem to be much reason not to go ahead and go for it, since it's likely that we have many more immigration applications to make in our future anyway. It's really becoming a bit of a hobby.

Which reminds me, I need to go study...for the TEST!

(How's that for a cliff hanger? Tune in tomorrow, folks to find out... "is Jessica British enough?")