REAL SHIT THAT HAPPENS

The British Home Office Threatened to Deport Me Alone When I Was Six Months Old

I had my personal secretary explain the flaw in their plan to them

When I was just six months old, I arrived on the British Isles for the first time. I don’t remember it, just for the record.

Before that, I’d been living it up in the town of Ipoh in Malaysia, where I was born and where my dad had been working for the previous couple of years.

When I say “living it up,” I mean that I assume that life was pretty a-okay; that I had everything I needed from my mummy’s boob milk to the sugary biscuits our maid apparently used to give me, a cosy cot close to my mummy and daddy, and someone to sort out and clean up whatever my bladder and bowels produced. I assume that I had that waited-on feeling that most babies of that age have.

I assume…because I don’t remember that part either.

Now, there was a little complication in the way everything had panned out. You see, my mother was only British through marriage, and in order for her foreign-born child to be given British citizenship, she needed proof that she was married to her British husband, my father.

But they hadn’t thought to bring their marriage certificate with them to Malaysia.

Neither could I be given the nationality of my mother’s country of birth since she is Israeli — a nationality very much NOT welcome in Malaysia, at least at the time. Thus she had left her Israeli passport back in the UK too.

So although the British Embassy allowed me to be added to my mother’s passport to travel back to the UK, I was noted down as a non-British citizen and my entry into Britain was recorded and followed up, as they do with any non-British citizen on a short term visitor’s visa.

Soon enough, I had overstayed my permissive period, and then, according to my parents, the letters started coming, thick and fast.

They were all addressed to me rather than my parents. But since I couldn’t read yet, nor could I open letters very well with my limited motor skills and strength, I had my servants — I mean my parents — open and read them for me.

They all contained the same kind of message. This kind of thing:

Dear Miss Sally Prag,

I am writing to inform you that you have overstayed your visitor’s visa by two days and you must make arrangements now to leave the country. Please ensure you depart immediately to not place yourself in danger of legal procedures.

Yours Sincerely,

The Home Secretary

And then,

Dear Miss Sally Prag,

We previously wrote to you requesting that you make your departure from the United Kingdom immediately to avoid any legal proceedings. This letter is to serve a first warning before we take further necessary steps to remove you.

Yours Sincerely,

The Home Secretary

And so it went on. They sent several to me, which my servants, I mean parents, faithfully opened and read to me.

Since I liked the sound of my parents’ voices, I just cooed happily in response. But my dad didn’t think that was a good enough way to deal with the impending problem, so he took the matter into his own hands. Acting as my personal secretary, he wrote a letter back on my behalf:

Dear Home Secretary,

Since I am only six months of age and, as yet, haven’t had the chance to learn to cook for myself or change my own nappies, I would really appreciate being allowed to stay with my family. I’m still largely dependent on my mother’s milk, am only just grasping how to hold a teddy bear and a teething toy, let alone carry my own luggage, and I still need carrying around or to be pushed in a pushchair.

Yours Sincerely,

Baby Sally

However, the first letter went unnoticed and another letter arrived from the home secretary.

Dear Miss Sally Prag,

We see you have not yet made any moves to depart from the British Isles and must therefore present you with a legal order for your deportation. Please expect that to be delivered by home office personnel within the next two weeks.

Yours Sincerely,

The Home Secretary

To which my dad responded,

Dear Home Secretary,

I am moving. Really I am. I would love to be moving faster, but since I’ve only just learnt to crawl, it’s a little outside of my capability to get myself to an airport and off to another country. In any case, I’m not sure where I would go because I don’t have any nationality right now. Any ideas where might take a small baby? If so, please let them know I require mother’s milk every night before I go to sleep, and someone to cuddle me at least five hours per day. These are my basic needs.

Yours Sincerely,

Baby Sally

This game of letter tennis apparently went on for a while, but I’m relieved to say there was no dramatic deportation or forced removal of a babe-in-arms from her loving parents, despite all the threats. In fact, the story, perhaps disappointingly to my reader, ends rather abruptly, for somebody in the Home Office must have clicked that this was not how things should be dealt with — even in British bureaucracy.

The process of giving me my British nationality — my birthright — was completed in the meantime, and perhaps my loving parents were able to wave that confirmation gleefully in the faces of the government representatives when they showed up with their official removal papers. Or perhaps the different sections of the government managed to find a way of communicating with one another without the help of ordinary citizens explaining the law to them. You never know — stranger things have happened.

However, the story turned out, they finally left me alone to live in peace and continue to be served, dressed, fed and changed by my servants…ahem parents.

But it was a close call!

Author’s note: Although I may have made up the content of the letters between the Home Office and my dad, the story is true. My dad really did have some fun responding to the Home Office’s letters that threatened to remove me from the UK.

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