Hi all, I hope someone can help me with this... I'm looking to make the background to my next book as realistic as possible. A character in the book absconded from the UK in the 1960s/70s and has since been living abroad. Owing to other external reasons, his birth record in the UK is lost/stolen. He returns later in the book, so needs to have somehow gained a passport and legal identity from his adoptive country. My question is: which country would be viable for him to have lived in? It needs to be realistic that he would have been able to obtain a passport at some point between the 70s and the present day without a valid birth certificate or proof of identity (crucial, as he could not have lived there under his real name for a reason vital to the plot) in order for him to be able to return to the UK all those years later. Is anyone able to help?
Brilliant, thanks! Have just had a look into it and saw an article that said 'these days' the French Foreign Legion conduct extensive background checks before accepting you, to ensure there is no major criminal background. Do you know when these checks began?
They have become more picky since the 1960s, when the Legion moved from Algeria to France. I'm sorry but I don't know exactly when the checks became mandatory, but I know for sure they did them back in the '90s. Before that, I don't know. Sorry.
Another option is that your Hero married some lady and got citizenship/passport. This would work in basicly any cuntry, as long as he complies with local imigration laws and lives enough years in said country. Just check the Imigration/citizenship laws in the country you want your hero to have lived in.(internet).
Actually foreigners are allowed to register under a new identity when they enroll in the French Foreign Legion.
You have to wait five years to get a passport and citizenship. The new name you get when you enlist is useless on it's own. I consider this closed.
If it helps at all for the name/identity difference thing, you can change your name without going through the courts when you join the British army--or you could in the 1960s and 1970s. As another example, my records were lost in Cyprus when the building burnt down in an EOKA raid and my father applied for copies just giving his army number. Maybe your character could have discovered and used someone else's number and got a new set of documents (maybe someone he was at school with?). It's also still not necessary to have photos on many documents in the UK, which always amazes me. Actually, the possibilities are pretty endless but IMO it's up to you to investigate further since it's a vital part of your plot, surely? E.g. My character loses everything in a shipwreck--in British India it wasn't mandatory for people to register births with the British consulate, the father simply applied for a passport for a child when necessary. BTW Michael, you don't have the authority to close threads or discussions--did something upset you?
