I had spent the last few years wondering when exactly the UK had had blue passports. I’m 40, so my passports have always been red (and said “European Citzen” on the front). My parents have some of their old ones from the 60-70’s, and I remembered those as being black.
I had just assumed that at some point in the 70’s they were actually blue and that’s what all these people were talking about, but no. Like practically everything the brexiteers voted for, it was a mis-remembered fantasy.
It’s even better than that. It’s being produced by a joint French-Dutch company and the actual printing will be done in Poland. You couldn’t make it up.
I’m currently waiting for my new passport to arrive (it expired last month so I didn’t have much choice), got my fingers crossed that I get one of the last red ones. although now I’ve seen them, black is pretty cool.
I have one of my old ones which is a dark navy blue, it is old and battered and has certainly faded from the original colour, I don’t recall it being a black but the ink must have included blue in the mix.
The company I work for uses Polish printers too for some jobs, very easy to work with and short lead times, and obviously good for logistics to most of Europe, post-Brexit we will have to wait and see but I imagine it will continue.
I see both, but on different screens. The laptop I’m using now is white and gold, but my desktop is blue and black. Both screens are set up correctly, so I don’t know why this happens.
Not to go too far off-topic, but I love Jo Walton’s essay on this:
Worst of all, that wonderful bit you always remembered, the bit where they swim into the captured city under the water gate at dawn, and when they come out of the water in the first light and stand dripping on the quay, it all smells different because the enemy’s campfires are cooking their different food—it turns out to be half a line. “Next morning we went in by the water gate.”0
(Hmm. That paragraph isn’t as great as I remembered it.)
