130) Dominic on the move
Around about this time Dominic was starting to make his plans to emigrate to Australia. We all thought that it would just be a matter of filling in the forms and being accepted. He was young, healthy and was a qualified instrument mechanician. It was not as easy as that though. He filled in all the forms paid his money and then sat back to wait. After more than a years wait he got a letter to say that he had been refused entry. The letter said that he had been refused ‘on the grounds listed on the attached list’. There were quite a few items on the said list but beside each one it said “Not applicable” We were amazed, how could he have been refused when all the items were “Not applicable”. Dominic contacted his brother Jonathan in Sydney and asked him what he should do about it. Jonathan made some enquires and was told that Dominic should just resubmit his papers. Then came another long wait. Eventually he got a letter to say that he had been accepted with no explanation for the previous letter. I suppose it was just a clerical error but it was very upsetting for Dominic at the time.
When I think of Dominic’s move to Australia I think of all the paper work involved, he seemed to have to fill in so many forms and answer so many questions but eventually it was all done and he was almost ready to leave. He began selling things that he did not want to take to Australia with him. One of those things was his video camera. About three weeks before he was due to leave he took it into Pinetown to a cash converter shop and they bought it from him. As he walked back to his parked car he was pick pocketed and his wallet was stolen. In his wallet was some cash, his passport and his entry visa into Australia, the document that he had taken so very long to acquire. Our first thought was that he would not be allowed into Australia and that he would have to start the whole immigration process, that had taken about four years, all over again, but as it turned out it was not as bad as that, he just needed to get the documents reissued. As he had already booked his flight he needed to get a new passport and get his Australian entry visa stamped in it as quickly as possible.
It was upsetting to lose the money of course but the passport with the visa stamped into it was the worst. Dominic searched the area as best he could and reported the loss to the local police station. They took his particulars but did not offer much hope that his documents could be found. When Dominic got home we had a long talk about the theft and decided that maybe the thieves would remove the money and drop the rest of the stuff into a rubbish bin in the area. We thought that if Dominic offered a reward to anyone who brought it back there was a chance that he could get it back. He put the advert into the paper for Friday Saturday and Sunday. Quite late on Sunday evening the phone rang and a man with an Indian accent asked to speak to some one with regard to the newspaper advertisement. I called Dominic to the phone and he spoke to the man who said that he had found the wallet with a passport still in it in a rubbish bin near a car park in Pinetown. He explained where the rubbish bin was and we were sure that Dominic’s problems were over. Dominic arranged to meet the caller at the offices of a local truck company early on Monday morning. The caller said that he worked for the truck company as a driver and it would be an easy place for them to meet. On Monday morning Jonny went with Dominic to meet the man and to hand over the promised reward but it all turned out to be a hoax. The people in the office had no idea who the man was, they did not have a driver by that name and Jonny and Dominic asked the other men there if they had every heard of him, but none had. It was very disappointing but we realised that it been a long shot that it would be returned but we thought was worth a try.
So then we started the process of replacing the passport and visa. I rang the relevant offices in Pretoria and told them our sad tale. The British Embassy agreed to try and get the passports issued as quickly as possible but they did not hold out much hope that the Australian visa would be processed in time for Dominic to catch his intended flight. They promised to post the relevant forms straight away. Postal services at that time were very poor and after a week, when the forms still had not arrived we phoned the Embassy again only to discover that they still had not been posted. Meanwhile by telephoning the Australian Embassy we had started the process of getting the new visa and they told Dominic that as soon as he had his new valid passport he could bring it to their Pretoria office and they would stamp the visa in there and then. It did not turn out to be quite so simple but I do remember that they did seem to be keen to help.
As Dominic was still working so a great deal of the organisation was left up to me. I seemed to have spent hours on the telephone and I was beginning to think that the telephone hand set was becoming grafted to my ear. I don’t remember how the whole thing came together but I remember Dominic took a few days off work and went to Pretoria with the forms and queued in the British Embassy and then queued in the Australian Embassy. It did not all go smoothly but eventually by persistence and throwing a couple of temper tantrums he did manage to get it all sorted out and he became the proud owner of a new British Passport with an entry visa into Australia stamped in it and he was ready to leave.
When I think of Dominic’s move to Australia I think of all the paper work involved, he seemed to have to fill in so many forms and answer so many questions but eventually it was all done and he was almost ready to leave. He began selling things that he did not want to take to Australia with him. One of those things was his video camera. About three weeks before he was due to leave he took it into Pinetown to a cash converter shop and they bought it from him. As he walked back to his parked car he was pick pocketed and his wallet was stolen. In his wallet was some cash, his passport and his entry visa into Australia, the document that he had taken so very long to acquire. Our first thought was that he would not be allowed into Australia and that he would have to start the whole immigration process, that had taken about four years, all over again, but as it turned out it was not as bad as that, he just needed to get the documents reissued. As he had already booked his flight he needed to get a new passport and get his Australian entry visa stamped in it as quickly as possible.
It was upsetting to lose the money of course but the passport with the visa stamped into it was the worst. Dominic searched the area as best he could and reported the loss to the local police station. They took his particulars but did not offer much hope that his documents could be found. When Dominic got home we had a long talk about the theft and decided that maybe the thieves would remove the money and drop the rest of the stuff into a rubbish bin in the area. We thought that if Dominic offered a reward to anyone who brought it back there was a chance that he could get it back. He put the advert into the paper for Friday Saturday and Sunday. Quite late on Sunday evening the phone rang and a man with an Indian accent asked to speak to some one with regard to the newspaper advertisement. I called Dominic to the phone and he spoke to the man who said that he had found the wallet with a passport still in it in a rubbish bin near a car park in Pinetown. He explained where the rubbish bin was and we were sure that Dominic’s problems were over. Dominic arranged to meet the caller at the offices of a local truck company early on Monday morning. The caller said that he worked for the truck company as a driver and it would be an easy place for them to meet. On Monday morning Jonny went with Dominic to meet the man and to hand over the promised reward but it all turned out to be a hoax. The people in the office had no idea who the man was, they did not have a driver by that name and Jonny and Dominic asked the other men there if they had every heard of him, but none had. It was very disappointing but we realised that it been a long shot that it would be returned but we thought was worth a try.
So then we started the process of replacing the passport and visa. I rang the relevant offices in Pretoria and told them our sad tale. The British Embassy agreed to try and get the passports issued as quickly as possible but they did not hold out much hope that the Australian visa would be processed in time for Dominic to catch his intended flight. They promised to post the relevant forms straight away. Postal services at that time were very poor and after a week, when the forms still had not arrived we phoned the Embassy again only to discover that they still had not been posted. Meanwhile by telephoning the Australian Embassy we had started the process of getting the new visa and they told Dominic that as soon as he had his new valid passport he could bring it to their Pretoria office and they would stamp the visa in there and then. It did not turn out to be quite so simple but I do remember that they did seem to be keen to help.
As Dominic was still working so a great deal of the organisation was left up to me. I seemed to have spent hours on the telephone and I was beginning to think that the telephone hand set was becoming grafted to my ear. I don’t remember how the whole thing came together but I remember Dominic took a few days off work and went to Pretoria with the forms and queued in the British Embassy and then queued in the Australian Embassy. It did not all go smoothly but eventually by persistence and throwing a couple of temper tantrums he did manage to get it all sorted out and he became the proud owner of a new British Passport with an entry visa into Australia stamped in it and he was ready to leave.
posted by MC at
7:21 pm
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