UK Visits – Page 2

Brexit, Barclays & HSBC Banks

Earlier this year, I received a letter telling me of another wonderful ‘benefit’ of Brexit. The letter came from the headquarters of Barclays Bank, with whom I have banked for over forty-seven years, and told me that in a few months time, I needed to close my account or otherwise, they would do it for me at the end of August 2022.

The actual explanation was that, ‘We’re applying limitations to the banking services we provide to customers with an address in the European Economic Area (EEA). We’re sorry to say this means we need you to close your account’. This was Barclays polite way of saying that, now the UK was no longer a member of the EU, they were not prepared to go to the expense and trouble of setting up a legal entity in each separate country as they are required to do because of Brexit.

Whilst I have lived in the Czech Republic for nearly fourteen years and have Czech bank account, I have also always maintained my Barclays Sterling account. Since retirement over five years ago, I have had my Czech and UK state pensions paid into my Czech account and my Church of England pension paid into my UK Barclays account. I can normally live comfortably on my two state pensions and allow my Church of England pension to accumulate to cover the cost of travel outside of the Czech Republic and to make gifts to my children and grandchildren.

Several people upon hearing of my problem, have suggested that I give Barclays the UK address of a family member, the most obvious one being my son Phillip, as he has the same surname as me. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible as I have to declare that his address is where I live. And I don’t live there, nor am I on the Electoral Roll there. Banks require proof of your residential address as I shall shortly explain.

In online discussions with other Brits affected by this problem, several people recommended opening an account with HSBC, who several years ago, took over what was the Midland Bank. According to their website, they are happy to open an account with anyone who lives in the UK or the EU. Whilst it is possible to do this online, I decided I would prefer to do it by talking to a human being. So during my recent visit to the UK from which I returned a few days ago, I planned a visit to the HSBC branch in central Nottingham, whilst staying a few nights at the home of my son.

So on Monday 22^nd August, I went into HSBC’s Clumber Street, Nottingham branch to apply to open a new account. After much discussion as to what documentation I needed to show to prove my ID and my address, it was agreed that my UK passport identified me and my Czech biometric permanent residency card proved my residential address. My biometric residency card was issued to me last November, replacing the passport style document I wrote about and illustrated in this post from December 2017. This grants me, ‘Trvalý pobyt clánek 50 Smlouvy o EU / Permanent residence under Article 50 of the EU Treaty’. This is my new status courtesy of Brexit.

Outside the Czech Ministry of the Interior office in Ústí nad Labem on 2nd November 2021 with my shiny new biometric Czech ID card granting me Trvalý pobyt clánek 50 Smlouvy o EU / Permanent residence under Article 50 of the EU Treaty © Ricky Yates

I was given a letter, addressed to me, welcoming me as a new HSBC customer and giving me the details of my new account number and sort code. All I now needed to do was tell Barclays to transfer the balance of my account to this new account with HSBC and give the same details to the Church of England Pension Board.

Unfortunately, soon after I got back to my son’s home, my mobile phone rang. It was Tracy, one of the HSBC staff I had been dealing with earlier that afternoon. Someone higher up the chain of command at HSBC had spotted that what I had called my, ‘Czech ID card’, was not a Czech ID card but was my biometric residency card, and therefore wasn’t sufficient proof of my address. Of course I don’t have a Czech ID card because I’m not Czech. But it is my ID card as a ‘Third Country National’, as far as the Czech authorities are concerned.

We were back to what had been discussed earlier in the day. To prove that I really did live at the address on the back of my biometric residency card, I needed to present a bank statement from a British bank, (obviously from Barclays), that had been sent through the post to my Czech address, and was less than four months old. But, as encouraged by Barclays and out of concern for the environment, I had gone paperless many years previously, happy to accept online statements. And my letter from Barclays, telling me about the closure of my account, was dated 10^th February 2022, though not received until sometime in March.

So the next day, it was back into the centre of Nottingham to visit Barclays. A young man called Kieren on the Barclays front desk, was most helpful. Despite his female colleague saying it couldn’t be done, Kieren assured me that he could order a postal statement for me to be sent to my Czech address, and proceeded to do so on his laptop computer, there and then. A week later and back home in Stará Oleška, I’m eagerly awaiting its arrival. Of course, UK postal workers are currently holding a series of strikes 🙁

When, (and if!), I receive this posted bank statement, I then have to post it back to Tracy at HSBC. Only when she receives it, will my new HSBC account be activated. The two banks are effectively on the same street, within sight of each other. Absurd is putting it mildly. In the meantime, my Barclays account has been frozen and my August pension payment, due today, will be returned by Barclays to the Church of England Pensions Board.

One more wonderful ‘benefit’ of Brexit 🙁

A very hot summer and a visit to the UK

The dry stream bed of Olešnicka © Ricky Yates

I need to start this post with a sincere apology to those who regularly visit and follow my blog, for the very long gap between my post about further progress with the house and garden in early June, and my post about walking above Kanon Labe, published ten days ago. As a result of my blogging inactivity, July 2018 became the first month in the nine-and-a-half years of my blog’s existence, in which I did not publish a post 🙁

My main excuse for my lack of blogging over this summer has been the weather. For the past three months, the Czech Republic, along with much of Central Europe, has experienced a heatwave with daytime temperatures well in excess of 30°C and virtually no rain. These conditions have not been conducive to me sitting down and writing coherently. They have also not been conducive to making much further progress either with the house or the garden.

The photograph on the left shows the course of Olešnicka, the stream that runs through Stará Oleška. As you can see, it is completely dry! The only consolation is that the grass at the side of the stream bed is still green, unlike my front and back lawns which are completely yellow and rock hard 🙁

Some relief finally arrived two days ago when I was woken at 07.30 by the crash of thunder and a heavy downpour of rain. We then had further rain off-and-on during that day and yesterday. But we still need plenty more! However, what there has been is a most welcome drop in temperature with the day time high today being only 18°C and the forecast saying that it will only rise into the low 20s°C in the coming few days.

This improvement in the weather has made me determined to get my blog going again and start posting regularly here once more. I have plenty of things to write about, but for this post, I’ll confine myself to the week I spent in the UK, Monday 25^th June – Monday 2^nd July, which at the time, was also experiencing a heatwave.

I flew from Prague to East Midlands Airport (EMA), with Jet2.com, who now regularly fly the route twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. I have to say I was impressed, with both flights leaving on time and arriving early, a considerable improvement on my previous flying experiences with Wizz Air between Prague to Luton.

From Monday night until the morning of Saturday 30^th June, I stayed with my son Phillip and daughter-in-law Lisa at their home in Nottingham. And of course, I got to spend time with my granddaughter Pearl 🙂

Here she is with her Dad!

Whilst this is Granddad’s favourite photograph of his granddaughter, taken during his visit.

On the afternoon of Friday 29^th June, I also travelled down to Daventry to visit my daughter Christa, son-in-law Ian, and my grandson Finley. Here I am with Finley on his bike. Grateful thanks to Ian for the photograph.

I spent the weekend in Sheffield, in order to attend and take part in the ordination as priest, of my Czech friend Dagmar Wilkinson, whose ordination as deacon I attended on Sunday 2^nd July 2017. The ordination service took place in Sheffield Cathedral on the afternoon of Saturday 30^th June, presided over by the new Bishop of Sheffield, Rt Rev’d Dr Pete Wilcox.

Standing between Rev’d Frances Eccleston & Rev’d Dagmar Wilkinson © Ricky Yates

Here I am once more, standing in-between two ordained ladies – the newly ordained Dagmar on the right and her training incumbent Rev’d Frances Eccleston on the left. Frances and her husband Steve, kindly hosted me over the weekend as Dagmar had her parents and other friends and relatives staying with her.

Here is Dagmar, standing between her proud parents, following the ordination service.

With Dagmar, following her first celebration of the Eucharist © Ricky Yates

On the morning of Sunday 1^st July, I was privileged to be present at the Parish Church of All Saints, Aston cum Aughton, as Dagmar celebrated the Eucharist for the first time. Here she is with me, fully robed!

Following worship, there was an excellent parish lunch, held in the adjoining Church Hall, at the end of which we all got to share in a piece of this cake, especially made by one of the parishioners to mark the occasion.

Children and grandchildren

As I mentioned at the beginning of my previous post, during my recent UK visit, as well as attending the Ordination of Deacons service in Sheffield Cathedral, I was also able to spend time with both my adult children and their families. This is a brief photographic family blog post before returning once more, to writing about life in my new home in North Bohemia.

The last time I was with my son Phillip and daughter-in-law Lisa, was on their wedding day, eleven months previously. They have since then, actively taken notice of the third reason that marriage is given, according to the liturgy of the Church of England, ‘as the foundation of family life in which children may be born and nurtured’. This photograph was taken at lunchtime on Lisa’s last day at work before going on maternity leave 🙂

Likewise, I hadn’t seen my daughter Christa, son-in-law Ian and grandson Finley, since the wedding ceremony on 30^th July 2016. Whilst Finley had inevitably grown since I last saw him, what I most noticed was how vocal and talkative he had become, even if he struggled at times to know what to call me 🙂

My grandson Finley, driving his car © Ricky Yates

Finley, trying to use his mother’s mobile phone, having just eaten an ice cream 🙂 © Ricky Yates

As well as these two photographs of Finley, for the first time in many years, I managed to get a photograph of Phillip and Christa together, seen here sitting on a bench in the garden of Christa’s home in Daventry.

Finally for this post, to bring everything right up-to-date, on Wednesday 2^nd August, I became a grandfather for the second time, when my daughter-in-law Lisa, gave birth to Pearl Yasmin Yates. Below are a couple of photos of my new granddaughter whose acquaintance I look forward to making, later this year.

My new granddaughter Pearl © Phillip Yates

Ordination in Sheffield

With the newly ordained deacon, Rev’d Dagmar Wilkinson © Ricky Yates

I spent from Thursday 29^th June – Tuesday 4^th July in the UK, staying with my son Phillip and daughter-in-law Lisa, at their home in Nottingham. I was able to spend time with them both and also with my daughter Christa, son-in-law Ian and grandson Finley, at their home in Daventry.

However, on the morning of Sunday 2^nd July, I set off early to drive up the M1 to Sheffield Cathedral, in order to attend a service for the Ordination of Deacons. One of those to be ordained was my Czech friend Dagmar Wilkinson.

Dagmar comes originally from Kuncice pod Ondrejníkem in North Moravia but has been living and working in the UK for about seven years. She discovered the Church of England whilst working in a pub which was adjacent to Portsmouth Cathedral. She started worshipping there and in due course, became Head Server.

Dagmar first found me via this blog over four years ago, at the time when she was beginning to explore the possibility of a vocation to train for ordained ministry. It has been my privilege to support her through the various hurdles she has had to jump through, culminating in being recommended for training following her Bishop’s Advisory Panel (BAP), earlier in 2015.

Dagmar has spent the past two academic years, studying theology at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, just outside Oxford. She was very fortunate in being to arrange for her four-week long summer placement in July 2016, to be at Westminster Abbey. But one thing not allowed by this Royal Peculiar, was for her to preach, something that is normally part of a long summer placement – see my post about Lea Williams and his time in Prague.

Therefore at the suggestion of her Placements Tutor, Rev’d Dr Jane Baum, Dagmar asked if would be possible for her to preach at St. Clement’s, Prague, whilst in the Czech Republic visiting her family. So on Sunday 7^th August 2016, Dagmar was the preacher at our Sung Eucharist that morning. She also willing agreed to help me with a bilingual wedding the previous day, between William (English man), and Kristýna (Czech lady), held at Chateau Trebešice, near to her brother’s home in Caslav.

At the wedding of William & Kristýna © Ricky Yates

Having been released by Portsmouth Diocese, Dagmar found a training parish for her curacy lying between Sheffield and Rotherham – the Benefice of Aston-cum-Aughton with Swallownest and Ulley. Hence her Ordination as Deacon, took place in the Diocesan Cathedral in Sheffield.

The ordination service was a wonderful occasion featuring hymns and music across the Christian spectrum – from Graham Kendrick’s ‘Restore, O Lord, the honour of your name’ to ‘Veni Creator Spiritus – ‘Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire’. I very much enjoyed meeting members of Dagmar’s family who had flown over for the occasion, along with several of her UK friends. Equally enjoyable was meeting Dagmar’s training Incumbent, Rev’d Frances Eccleston and discovering amongst other things, that like me, she was born in Coventry. And it was to the day, the twenty-eighth anniversary of my own ordination as a deacon on 2nd July 1989.

Standing between Dagmar & her training Incumbent Frances, surrounded by Dagmar’s family & friends © Ricky Yates

Here we all are, following the ordination service. A great privilege to stand between two ordained ladies!

More about the wedding of Phillip and Lisa

My postcard © Ricky Yates — My postcard. Photo © Ricky Yates

One of the delightful features of Phillip and Lisa’s wedding were the individual touches they created that made every guest feel welcome. One of these was a named envelope, marking the place where each person was to sit at the reception, which contained an illustrated postcard with a personal message on the back.

Apparently, during her childhood, Lisa spent numerous holidays in Skegness, a traditional British seaside resort on the Lincolnshire coast. Phillip recreated his own version of a famous 1908 poster by the illustrator John Hassall (1868-1948), produced for the Great Northern Railway, declaring that ‘Skegness is SO bracing’.

Here is mine, declaring that Coventry, the city of my birth and the first eighteen years of my life is, ‘SO bracing’ 🙂 Whilst the artwork is a fairly accurate recreation of the original poster, it does contain a typical Phillip Yates addition of a squashed beer can on the beach 🙂

As well as my personal postcard, there was also a wrapped present from Phillip and Lisa, awaiting me at my place on the top table. It contained this inscribed beer glass, with the contraction of their names as ‘Phlisa’, which also appeared on their wedding invitations.

My postcard & inscribed beer glass, together with the EU flag © Ricky Yates

However, inside my beer glass was a further gift – an EU flag – emphasising my strong support for the ‘Remain’ cause, in the recent referendum. Apparently Hugh, Lisa’s father, also received an inscribed beer glass. Inside his beer glass was a Scottish flag, in recognition that, although of Irish heritage, he was actually born in Glasgow 🙂