Immigration •
LETTERS
From Mrs Joyce Raw, Nadine Peppard, Mal- colm Shaw, Paul Baratier, John Woodhill, Mary Leigh Doyle, the Rev Gordon Wilson.
fit';I dislike having to disagree with Mr
1 ;
Itram's letter in your edition of 29 March ng. he subject of immigration, just as much as 1,f4sliked his attack on those of us who have
1:; ;Ppme ashamed of our British passports re- -gr. F.010Y. .4,;Surely, the point at issue is not whether England can or cannot absorb any more copured people, but that she is now penal- jOng a; lot of people who actually hold British passports—passports issued as an insurance against the very conditions and circumstances which led to the current British government reneguing on a former government's promises. This is what sticks in the gullet and makes an Englishman abroad—especially in Kenya at the moment-ashamed at the actions of his govern- ment. Having issued these 'promises' without any foresight or appreciation that the holders might conceivably . one day want to make use of them for ,the very reason for which they were issued tin the first place: unfavourable condi- ,tions in a now independent state, I for one think ,it: morally wrong that Britain should now go back on her word or say with extraordinary ,gymnastic casuistry that these weren't promises, .qt that they weren't meant. Argue, if you like, that these should never have been issued itt the first place—though how England could have got out of that one at the time of indepen- dence here, I don't know—it was surely the least she could do to a people she was no longer prepared to protect or look after. But once hav- ing iSsued them, they should have remained what they purported to be—an entry pass into the country from where these documents had originated. In this matter, I firmly support the :stand taken by the At Hon lain Macleod, both in the House of Commons and in the columns of your journal.
My own personal reason for feeling slightly embittered is this, and I hope that perhaps Mr Mottram__ may be able to help. Unless I can prove the birth of one Maurice, son of Joseph Henry Hutton (a Unitarian clergyman) and Mary Mottram (of Norwich) in Manchester on 8 October 1856, I cannot myself prove a suffi- ciently 'substantial' connection with Great Britain to gain exemption from the 1968 Immi- gration Act. This is because, though English, I am descended from a long line of people, on both sides of the family, who never lay safely in their English beds on St Crispin's or any other special day, and the only English connection by birth, (we are an Anglo-Irish family) I can pro- duce is. that of . my grandfather, Maurice Mottram Hutton. The name is sufficiently un- common for .me to inquire of Mr Mottram, :through your columns, if he would like to be of assistance to a white, English 'D' passport holder, because it does look as if we might be 'distantly related. My father was born in Canada, went to India as a young man and served in the
• Indian Amity all his life, retired to England as a
-'brigadier and died.there. While in India, he met and married ;thy Mother, originally of Irish ex- ftrattion, but part of a family who had served -India with distinction since the early 1800s. I l'was•torw in, India—the seventh generation on my 'mother's side, as was later one of my
daughters (now Pakistan). My husband, the son of.ln ics collector, was born at sea en route for India!
After Independence and Partition we came here, where our second daughter was born in pro-independent Kenya. My mother, still alive, lives in England and was hoping for a visit from me this year—alas, now postponed, as being altogether too difficult. Before the airlines will issue an air ticket—return or otherwise—one must have a stamp in one's passport (if it is pre- fixed by the letter `D') issued by the British High Commission in Nairobi, stating that one is 'exempt from the provisions of the 1968 Immi- gration Act.' Without this essential stamp, the airlines are refusing to issue tickets to Britain, even though one may possess a perfectly valid re-entry permit for Kenya. Without proof of my grandfather's birth in Mr Mottram's home tOwn, cannot get this essential stamp in my passport. So, Mr Mottram, if you really want to help your own 'kith and kin,' here is a very deserving cause and, should you still remain complacent and content with your country's recent actions, just think of the fury of those true Britishers who still have to get these stamps put in their now totally devalued 'D' passports before they can visit the country of their birth, origin and allegiance.
Pd Box 991, Nairobi, Kenya Joyce Raw
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