Brexit

How I became a hymn book smuggler into the EU

Smuggled hymn books in the boot of my car © Ricky Yates

As I posted here a year ago, since May 2023, I have been officiating at a monthly English-language Anglican service of Evening Prayer held on a Thursday evening in the Unterkirche of the Dresden Frauenkirche. This is in addition to the monthly Sunday evening service in the Hauptraum for which I’ve had responsibility since January 2015.

For my monthly Sunday evening service, the Pfarrbüro produce a twelve-page complete Order of Service based on the text I send them at least a week earlier. Hymns are taken from ‘Hymns Ancient & Modern New Standard’, published in 1983, with the melody line of the tune, as well as all the words, reproduced. As I understand it, the Pfarrbüro was given a copy of this hymn book by the late Rev’d Dr Irene Ahrens when the monthly Sunday evening service began in June 2006. I presume that this was the hymn book used by St George’s, Berlin where she was the Assistant Priest.

For the German-language services held on the other three or four Thursdays each month, only a simple four-page folded A4 sheet with limited text, is produced, with hymns being sung from the Evangelisches Gesangbuch, copies of which are kept on a mobile bookcase in the Unterkirche. I was asked whether I could obtain some English-language hymn books so the same procedure could be adopted for my services.

The Church of England’s Diocese in Europe, has a Dresden Fund, which I can tap into for anything that is ‘ministry in Dresden’. So the cost of purchasing hymn books could be covered. But I had two decisions to make. Which hymn book to choose and how to get copies from the UK to Dresden without incurring huge costs.

Two revised and updated editions of Hymns Ancient & Modern (A&M) have been published since ‘New Standard’ was produced forty-one years ago. ‘Common Praise’ was published in 2000 to coincide with adoption by the Church of England of Common Worship, the liturgy in contemporary English. Then in 2013, reverting to the original title, ‘Ancient & Modern – Hymns & Songs for Refreshing Worship’, was published.

I have a music edition of ‘Common Praise’ but have only once briefly seen the A&M 2013 edition when attending a service at Wimborne Minster in April last year where it was in use. So I sent an email to Norwich Books & Music, the umbrella organisation for A&M, asking if they could send me a complete list of all the hymns contained in the 2013 edition. A prompt reply promised to send me a free sampler booklet, produced back in 2013, which included an alphabetical list of all the hymns.

Before Brexit, that sampler booklet would have dropped into my mail box, five to seven days later. But instead, what did drop into my mail box was a registered letter saying that my free booklet was held by Czech Customs in Prague. If I wanted to have it delivered, I needed to pay CZK 334/GBP 11.25/EUR 13.30 in customs duty and to gain customs clearance. Yet another example of the wonderful benefits of Brexit!

Having reluctantly paid up and then studied the sampler booklet, I decided this was the hymn book I wanted to purchase. But my mind boggled as to what customs duties might be levied on twenty-five copies of the melody edition and three full music editions. And of course, there would be legitimate carriage costs too. Therefore I decided that I would become a hymn book smuggler into the EU 😉

I have to say that Norwich Books & Music were extremely helpful and cooperative. They agreed to treat my services at the Frauenkirche as though they were a congregation in the UK, providing five of the melody editions free – I only had to pay for twenty copies. They also happily agreed to deliver them to my son’s home address in Nottingham. And because of the value of the order, delivery within the UK was carriage free.

In July this year, I drove to the UK to visit my children and grandchildren and to spend a most enjoyable week, exploring sites of religious and historic interest in the Northeast of England with a small group, led by my good friend Ken Dimmick. Whilst staying with my son Phillip, I loaded the two boxes of hymn books into the boot of my car.

I returned to continental Europe by overnight ferry from North Shields to IJmuiden in the Netherlands. At Dutch customs, all the officer wanted to know was whether I was importing large quantities of alcohol. I assured him I wasn’t and, after that, I was free to travel onwards with my hymn book booty 😉 It was a pleasure to sing from these hymn books for the first time at my service on Thursday 1^st August.

I’ve written this post to illustrate once again, the absurdity of Brexit and the lengths one now has to go to, in order to mitigate the innumerable problems it has created. Why is it beneficial to the UK for me to be forced to pay CZK 334/GBP 11.25/EUR 13.30 in order to receive a free booklet? Can Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, the Daily Fail, the Daily Excrement, the Daily Torygraph et al, please explain.

Brexit, Barclays & HSBC Banks – the second instalment

Just one day after I wrote the first instalment of this saga, a letter arrived in my mail box. No, not the promised bank statement from Barclays, but a letter from the UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). It was a request for the completion and return of a ‘life certificate’ – putting it bluntly, the DWP wanted me to prove that I’m still alive!

The letter arises because I don’t live in the UK. The DWP fear that when I do ‘pop my clogs’, they will not necessarily be told and will be paying out pension to a dead person. I have had a request of this nature previously and have also once signed a life certificate for a member of the St Clement’s, Prague congregation as a Minister of Religion is one of the possible people whose confirmation is acceptable. I was seeing my GP the next day so he happily agreed and signed mine to say that I was still alive. In those immortal words, attributed to Mark Twain, ‘Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’ 😉

However, according to the HSBC website, a DWP letter confirming your right to benefits (dated within the last 4 months), is acceptable as proof of address. Whilst the letter didn’t confirm my right to benefits, it did state quite clearly that I would lose my right to benefits, unless I filled it in and returned the life certificate. And it was dated 14^th August, less than one month old.

So I photocopied the DWP request and sent the original, with a covering letter, by registered post, to Tracy at HSBC Nottingham. Twenty-one days later, I received an email from Tracy saying that I had now successfully proved my address and the block had been removed from my new account. I’ve since received a shiny new debit card and a PIN code, both arriving in my mail box on the same day, but in separate envelopes.

After failing to act on my first request, the Church of England Pensions Board have eventually managed to pay my September pension payment into this new account and the payment due on Monday 31^st October, arrived safely.

Barclays promising to make money work for me 😉 © Ricky Yates

However, getting access to the contents of my now closed Barclays account is an ongoing saga. According to the advice on the Barclays Bank website, it is possible to reclaim my money online, by post, or by visiting one of their UK branches. But both the online and postal options involve getting certified copies of certain documents to prove my identity and confirm where I live. In other words, a great amount of hassle and considerable cost. For example, to get a certified copy of my passport would involve a trip to the British Embassy in Prague and the payment of a £25.00 fee 🙁 Therefore, I plan to use the third option, by revisiting the Nottingham city centre Barclays branch when I’m in the UK for nine days in mid-December.

By going in-person, I will just need to produce my passport to prove who I am, without the need for a certified copy. But it is the second requirement that is proving far more difficult. To quote directly from the Barclays website, ‘A document that shows your current full address, and is dated within the last three months, such as a bank statement, credit card statement, or utility bill. You can use a driving licence, if it hasn’t been used as proof of identity’.

I am back to exactly the same problem that delayed the opening of my new HSBC bank account. I don’t hold a credit card. The only utility bill I receive is for my electricity, once a year in June, meaning it is more than three months old. My Czech driving licence doesn’t show my full address. It just says Huntírov, the municipality in which I live.

The one thing that would prove my current address would be a statement from Barclays themselves, showing the current details of my now closed account. But despite requesting one, in-person, on Tuesday 23^rd August, as described in my earlier post, it has not materialised.

So having waited for nearly two months, on Monday 17^th October, I wrote to the Barclays address in Leicester from where the letter telling me of the closure of my account originated, and made a second request. I quoted back the text of that letter which states, ‘If you find you do need statements in the future, you can request them at any point’. And to be sure that the letter reaches Barclays, I sent it by registered post. Twenty days later, I am still waiting…..

Needing to have a printed paper bank statement sent through the post, in order to gain access to my money, when Barclays, several years ago, actively encouraged me to go paperless and rely on online statements, is to say the least, somewhat contradictory. I could use far stronger language! I don’t even know exactly how much is in the account as I was busy spending from it when in the UK in August. But access to online statements was cut off on 27^th August when my account was frozen.

There is one further absurdity in this ongoing saga. The debit card for my Barclays account which I was happily using in August when in the UK, expired at the end of that month, at the same time as Barclays were closing my account. But what should appear in my mail box in mid-September? A new debit card for my closed/frozen account! Unfortunately, the letter enclosing it is undated so I cannot use it to prove my address 🙁

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 🙁

Blog update

Wisteria flowering at the back of my house © Ricky Yates

I am very aware that it is now two and a half months since I last published a blog post. I am also aware that, either in the text of previous posts or in answering comments, I have promised to provide further updates on things I’ve written about. So this post is my attempt to kill two birds with one stone.

Back in late April I complained that ‘Someone keeps trying to kidnap Spring‘. Well Spring did eventually arrive as I hope is illustrated by this photograph of wisteria flowering at the back of my house, taken at the end of May. But it has been noticeable how much later plants and trees have been producing leaves or flowering, in comparison to previous years. The time lag has been in the region of two to three weeks.

I am pleased to report that after complaining that ‘It’s beginning to be a bit expensive…..‘, and that ‘There is a very big hole in my bank account‘, I have not incurred any further unexpected major expenses. I have however, had one that I anticipated.

I pay for my electricity by a monthly direct debit with my meter being read once a year in June. At that point, an invoice or refund is issued, depending on whether I’ve paid too little or too much over the previous eleven months. In June 2020, I received a small refund of CZK 750/GBP25.00. In June 2021, I received an invoice for CZK 6,985/GBP232.80 🙁

As I’ve said, I did anticipate that I would be asked to pay a little extra, though probably not as much as nearly CZK 7000. I was very aware that, because of the severe weather last winter, I’d made considerable use of the electrical heater in my study bedroom, whilst waiting each day for the wood-burning stove to fully warm the house.

But the other reason is the COVID-19 pandemic. In any normal year, I would spend at least three weeks away from my home. During that time, the only things using electricity would be my fridge and freezer. Everything else would be turned off. But after returning home from the UK on the evening of 27^th December 2019, I haven’t spent one night anywhere else but in Stará Oleška 44.

No direct debits were made in either June or July. But because of my increased usage of electricity, my monthly direct debit in August until June next year, will be CZK 600/GBP20.00 more than it has been in the past two years 🙁

I sadly have to report that I have had no reply to my ‘letter to Victoria Prentis MP‘, other than an automated email acknowledging receipt, despite sending it two and a half months ago. If there are any benefits from Brexit, then Ms Prentis has had more than enough time to compile a list and send it to me. Of course, there aren’t any benefits. But even if she knows that, she dare not say it because it would cost her job as a junior minister at the Department of Farming, Fisheries and Food. To remain in post and to remain as a Conservative MP, you have to be a sycophant to Bungling Boris 🙁

I do however, have one piece of very good news to report. On Friday 11^th June, I was vaccinated at my GP practice in Prague and received my EU Digital COVID Certificate. And because I received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, I have only had to have a needle stuck in me once 🙂

The final post about which I promised update was regarding the house now being connected to mains water. The new mains water supply has been completely problem-free. But getting piles of earth shifted and disturbed areas of ground made good has been a long saga which deserves a post in its own right. So I’m going to finish this post now and promise to publish a further one in the next few days.

A letter to Victoria Prentis MP

This past week, I have personally experienced the ‘wonderful benefits’ of Brexit. So I decided to write to my MP and tell her all about it. My letter to the honourable member for North Oxfordshire and junior government minister – Victoria Prentis MP.

Dear Mrs Prentis,

Although I have lived outside of the UK for over twelve years, I am currently still on the electoral register as a former resident of Finmere, in the eastern extremity of your constituency. So I am writing to tell you of my recent experience of the great benefits of Brexit.

On 10^th April 2021, I ordered online, an item of clothing, manufactured in the UK, from a UK supplier. I paid £75.00, together with a further £18.95 for shipping via Royal Mail Track & Trace. When the UK was still a member of the EU, the parcel containing my order would normally have been delivered to my home in the far north of the Czech Republic, some seven to ten days later.

However, because of Brexit and the wonderful Trade and Cooperation Agreement negotiated by your party leader and prime minister, my parcel was instead held in Czech Customs, upon its arrival in Prague. I then received a registered letter explaining various ways for me to receive my parcel, all of which would involve additional costs.

I eventually decided to collect my parcel in person, whilst having to be in Prague for a medical appointment. As well as having to make a difficult journey across a city with a population of 1.3 million, (somewhat bigger than Banbury or Bicester in your constituency), I was also required to pay tax and customs duty of CZK 696/£23.60, increasing the cost of the goods by over 25%.

So as you can see, one great benefit of Brexit is that I have been forced to make an additional contribution to the income of the Czech government. The second benefit is that the cost of goods ordered from UK businesses by any of 446 million people resident in the EU, has been increased by around 25%. I am sure you will see both of these things as being highly beneficial to the future well-being of the United Kingdom.

Yes – I am being very sarcastic. But please explain to me; what are the benefits of Brexit? Do not give me the line about regaining sovereignty. The whole concept is nebulous and my question in return would be, ‘What have you done with your sovereignty today?’

The truthful answer to my question is that there are none! The Emperor doesn’t have any new clothes. And that truth needs to be said loudly and clearly.

Yours faithfully

Ricky Yates

Postscript

I promise to report the details of any reply that I receive. However, my hopes are not high for a truthful answer from someone whose party leader and prime minister is an inveterate liar.