Millions of people have found it to be a far-from-pleasant experience.The London street of Petty France is unremarkable apart from Clive House, the home of the Passport Office and the place that put the "bureau" in bureaucracy. Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to step across its threshold and into the vast, bleak hall will remember the way that your eyes had to adjust to the stark lighting, as you slowly realised that hundreds of people had got here before you. The prospect of trying for a travel document by tea time was more daunting, and less likely to succeed, than applying for admission to the USSR.Indeed, the whole subterranean horror looked as if it has been imported lock, stock and grey-plastic-chairs-bolted-together from the Soviet Union. Tens of thousands of holidaymakers had miserable experiences here during the summer of 1999. The Passport Agency, you may recall, made a small rule change that required children who did not already appear on a parent's passport to have their own travel document.
A Chinese whisper that was transmitted through an uncertain travel trade convinced the public that all children, including those happily ensconced on their parents' travel documents, henceforth needed individual passports. (They didn't then, and they don't now, until they reach 16 or the passport runs out.)Clive House could not cope with demand. Queuing around the block was no guarantee that you would be able to travel, and hundreds of people missed their holidays. And if it was bad enough being a customer, imagine how demoralising it was to work there.
No wonder the average interview had all the bonhomie of a KGB interrogation.Yesterday afternoon, Clive House closed its doors to the public for the last time It will not be mourned. Today, if you want a passport in a hurry, just call 0870 521 0410 and make an appointment for the much more auspicious Globe House. For a start, it could hardly be easier to find, being about 50 yards from Platform One of Victoria station. Suppose you turn up at Gatwick airport to find your passport has expired – or, as occurs increasingly, the destination country demands it must be valid for six months after your date of arrival. You can be at the office within half an hour and may possibly make your original flight.Unlike parts of the National Health Service, you will be seen within half an hour of the appointment time.
Another disparity from usual government practice: when I say "today", I mean it. The new office is open from 9.15am to 3.15pm on Saturdays, and 7.40am to 6.30pm from Monday to Friday.One more strange thing: the whole office is flooded with natural light, which explains why everyone from the security guards to the examining staff is many degrees more cheerful than at Petty France. Globe House itself has a noble travel-related history: it was originally built for BOAC, one component of the present British Airways. The new office opens officially on Monday, just in time to meet a diminished demand for passports.* Winter draws on, at least on the railways. The summer schedule ends today, which means that travellers must get to grips with a new edition of the byzantine National Rail Timetable.If the value of books could be assessed on a lb-per-pound basis, this tome would win the non-fiction prize (if it were allowed to compete in this category).