General Meeting: November 2023

Our speaker was Martin Lloyd who describes himself in his blog as a Writer, Speaker and Cyclist, and he regaled us with his accounts of historical use (misuse) of the passport by the dodgy people above.

Whilst engaged in research for his book, Passport, the History of Man’s Most Travelled Document, that he uncovered the three interesting stories which he presented in his talk. Ranging from 1850's to WW2, Martin explained how not all countries used passports at the same time.

Britain didn’t require passports while other European states did, enabling the criminals to move about - posing as British tourists.

In those early days, there were no photographs on the passports and they were hand written and signed by the authorities. Even by 1945, the infamous “Lord HawHaw” has several passports (USA, Irish, British) and was actually an American born citizen with a German passport but was eventually hanged by the British authorities as a British citizen - because of his British passport.

Martin now has eleven titles published, covering romance and thriller fiction, travel humour and history and gave members the opportunity to purchase a selection of his books at discount after his talk.

Eric Rennie