Yesterday was the accursed day when I renewed my passport.
Accursed because I can't believe ten years has come round again. A passport is a marker on one's life, a literal snapshot. I keep them all, and I see I've only had four before which makes renewal a distinctly rare occurrence. My first individual passport was issued on 27 May 1977 at the Peterborough office, required because I was about to go on a school trip to Germany, and extended five years later because I was no longer a minor. After a gap of seven years when I didn't go abroad my second passport was issued on 26 January 1995 to ensure I could join the rest of the family in the Canaries. My third passport was issued on 14 December 2004 because I was now a jetsetter and couldn't afford a hiatus, and my fourth was issued ten years ago on 13 January 2015. Just the four, and I now need a fifth.
Accursed because it's not expired but I can't use it. It used to be the case that they gave you a couple of extra months so my current passport officially still has five weeks to go. I remember thinking when I got it "blimey I'm still in my 40s but this won't expire until I'm in my 60s", such was the way the dates fell. But the rules have changed, not least because of Brexit, so it is in fact now doubly unusable. For a start these days only the first ten years officially count, so technically it expired three weeks ago. And secondly "your passport should be valid for at least 3 months after the date you intend to leave the EU" and I'm well past that limit so I couldn't even have gone anywhere for Christmas. A passport that's technically valid but can't be used is already obsolete.
Accursed because I've not actually used it recently. My current passport got a lot of use in the first half of its life with six trips to six different European countries, but since 2020 I've not used it for border crossing at all, only as occasional proof of ID. In part I blame lockdown for wiping out a couple of years, but mostly I blame inertia brought about by increased friction at passport control making me think "nah, I can't be bothered". A day trip to Paris is somehow less worthwhile when you need to spend an extra hour of it in a queue. My two previous passports were also used for six foreign jaunts each, and I need to make sure I actually do something with my next one rather than it sitting expensively in a drawer.
Accursed because it's going to be a different colour. Since 1995 I've had a burgundy passport which says United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on the front alongside European Something (Community for the 1995 issue and Union for the subsequent two). But my next passport is going to be dark blue instead because we voted to leave the EU and then did, supposedly one of the prime benefits being the chance to revert to the previous colour. I have one such passport, a very-dark blue number with a solid hardback cover and little windows in the front for my name and number, back when we still wrote British Passport on the front. To be frank I don't really care what colour it is, more what I can do with it, and alas my new blue passport won't be quite so swift at crossing borders as my current one.
Accursed because it's a record of inexorable ageing. My first photo shows me as an angelic 11 year-old with a badly-cut fringe wearing a polo-neck jumper and a zip up jacket. A few pages later I appear as a spotty sixth-former with hair down over my ears and a gauche brown tie, thankfully in black and white. The third photo is me from half a lifetime ago, now with a hairstyle I'd chosen for myself and a marginally more stylish set of clothes. The fourth photo is me at 40 and definitely my favourite, indeed I'd like to go back and tell myself how shaggable I still was and not to waste the opportunity. As for my current passport photo, on the day it was taken I wrote in my diary "illusions of youth shattered" but my god I look so young, having had no idea of what the next ten years would bring. A life in five portraits, and now I have a sixth.
Accursed because I had to obtain a new photo. I knew whatever I ended up with would follow me around for a decade so I spent a while at home picking a decent shirt and checking in the mirror. I'm sure I didn't have to worry about an errant eyebrow last time round. I reminded myself that however things turned out the resulting photo wouldn't resemble what I think I look like because I only ever see me in the mirror and the photo would be the right way round. It peeves me slightly that I think I look better in reflection than in real life, but it's important to ignore this because it could fundamentally weaken my self-confidence. Instead I stared at what I look like now and confirmed, with some degree of relief, that the photo representing my seventh decade wouldn't be a depiction of excessive decay.
Accursed because I had to leave the house and find a kiosk. Technically I could have tried taking a photo with my phone but the best way to get a compliant photo is still to visit one of the magic machines specially designed for the purpose. Last time round I found one at the back of Boots the chemist but this time I searched online in the hope of finding somewhere quieter. The last thing you want when you're composing yourself for posterity is an audience of judgemental passers-by. Thankfully a website with a map exists and being London there were surprisingly many of the things, indeed hundreds, so I located one not too far away and duly turned up. Annoyingly it was broken so I had to move on to my reserve option instead, but this proved pretty much perfect tucked away in an empty passage by a fire exit.
Accursed because technology's always moved on since last time you used one. Last time there were buttons to press, this time it was all touchscreen. Last time it wanted cash so I'd brought coins just in case but obviously these days it's card only. Last time there was a swivelling stool you had to adjust to get the height right and it never felt like you had, but thankfully this time the camera itself went up and down instead. Last time it was hard to be sure my eyes were in the right place, but this machine was brilliant with a red oval on the videoscreen to align with my face with so I almost couldn't go wrong. Indeed we got to the dreaded "we are now going to take your photo" moment a lot quicker than I'd been expecting.
Accursed because it's still incredibly easy to take an invalid photo. No smile for starters, and for goodness sake don't open your mouth. Forgetting to take your glasses off must invalidate hundreds of photos daily, ditto accidentally blinking. Also you only get three chances, even though it's now a fully digital system, and if you don't like the third one you can't go back to the first or second. I looked at my first impression and thought "oh god really look at me I look so miserable and asymmetrical and that crease wasn't there ten years ago and my hair could have done with a final tweak and I don't like it but hey at least I've still got hair and I'm not the grey wizened creature I'll be next time and I suppose it'll do and who's going to see it anyway?", and I touched the screen and accepted.
Accursed because it costs £10 for a strip of photos these days. Ten years ago it had only been a fiver and I know this machine was more technically complex and inflation moves on but that still felt like quite a hike.
Accursed because you have to stand around outside the kiosk like a lemon while your photos develop and I've always hated that bit. Except these days the finished strip is deposited in the tray almost instantaneously - hurrah for new technology - and what's more it isn't damp and sticky so you can't accidentally ruin it with your fingers. Best of all you don't need the actual printed photos to make a passport application, all you need is the three-part alphanumeric code printed across the top of the sheet. It's unique to you which means the kiosk company can share your digital photo with the Passport Office automatically on demand. That is systematically brilliant, or alternatively an appalling violation of privacy as the government files away your submitted image in some eternal surveillance database.
Accursed because you then have to apply for the passport and fork out £88.50 for the privilege. It is great that you can renew on your computer rather than having to queue at the post office, but that innovation's been around for a while so this was my second time jumping through hoops on screen. I typed in all the necessary numbers and made all the relevant declarations, momentarily amazed as my photo appeared on the page mid-application. But given I was the one doing all the work it did seem quite steep charging quite so much, indeed adding in the price of the photos the cost is pretty much £100, and all just to validate my existence to permit foreign travel.
Accursed because you then have to return your existing passport by post before they'll start work on your new one. This is the one part of the procedure they can't automate, mainly because they can't trust you to cut the corner off your own passport, they need to do it themselves. This is also the moment you rediscover how much postage costs these days, and extra if you want to send it back securely, all of which takes the total cost over the £100 mark. Then you face three weeks without a passport anxiously hoping the new one comes back and isn't stolen by evil miscreants somewhere along the line, a passport in transit being the ultimate in identity theft.
I should get my new passport back by the end of the month, three weeks being the current processing time, and when it finally arrives I have to remember to sign it else the first gendarme to inspect it may dismiss me. I know I shall also look at the cover and sigh, and stare at the photo and sigh, and look at the expiry date in 2035 and assume it's a heck of a long way in the future with many happy foreign travels to come between now and then. But 2035 will soon come round and I'll look back at the photo with wistful nostalgia and I'll sigh again, not just because I used to look like that but because it's time to go through the entire accursed renewal procedure one more time.
