How Eve and Tony Hall got their British passports. I left my home country, South Africa , in February 1964, on a British passport. On page 3 was a stamp which said: "Permanent Depareture" in South African officialdom's misspelt English. I was looking forward to Nairobi and my new job there, so it surprised me to find my eyes filling with tears as the BOAC comet listed off the runway of Jan Smuts airport. Perhaps it was the strain of taking such a long hard look at sights I knew I wouldn't see again for a very long time. My wife Eve and our three sons, Philip , Andrew and Christopher were to join me a month later in the capital of newly independent Kenya, once I had settled as a reporter on the Daily Nation. We got our passports with remarkable speed, considering Eve and I were both down on the local political blacklist. Though I did just qualify for British Citizenship through my geologist grandfather who had gone out to settle in Pretoria afte...
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