Much busyness today, booking travel to Bristol airport, and car hire the other end. Bank a cheque, obtaining Swiss currency, catching up with Ashley and doing a few invoices for the weekend, plus the essential visit to the tea room to catch up on the news. Tomorrow I travel to Geneva to help out in the la Cote chaplaincy for a couple of Sundays.
Julia emailed first thing to say she'd received an early call from Monaco on her answering machine advising her to advise me that they needed an official document with my address on for confirmation of my request. The address is on my passport written in under 'next of kin' with Clare's name, but though it's obvious, this doesn't meet their requirement. We don't have identity cards like most people do in Europe. However the driving license photocard will suffice to corroborate the passport. It hadn't occurred to me that this was what they wanted. I emailed copies of my license straight away, and firs the first time had my communication acknowledged from Monaco with the reassurance that now the request is being processed.
I guess officials are used to a very strict regime of confirming the identity of anyone making a request for an archive document, because of identity theft, fraud etc. Clare's and my address may have been the same for the past forty five years, and her details in my passport may be identical with my letterheading, but there could be no assumption made I had to prove the obvious - that I lived in the same place - by independent means. Fine, I get it at last.
The driver's photocard is not the legal driving license document, because photo cards are neither universal nor obligatory. But their usefulness is persuasive and seems to be taking us in the same direction as the USA, where the drivers license photo card is used as evidence of i/d.
I wonder how long before the document requested finally arrives?
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