Saved by the bell (and the Courier)

After an agonising two weeks of frantic panic that her daughter might be deported from England, Ballito’s Bess Morgan was finally issued with a correct marriage certificate last Friday.
She received a call from home affairs to pick up her certificate in Tongaat two days after the Courier published a story on how her daughter’s future was hanging in the balance because of the faulty certificate  they had previously issued (“Ballito woman is married to herself”, Courier, January 24).
“After a week and a half of corresponding back and fourth with home affairs, it finally took an article to put enough pressure on them to do something,” said Bess’s daughter Kathryn Clarke-Mcleod.
Bess applied for her unabridged marriage certificate at the Tongaat home affairs centre in August 2013. However the one she was issued two weeks ago was riddled with mistakes and even had her married to herself.
Bess wanted an unabridged marriage certificate for her marriage with her first husband, Peter George Clarke-Mcleod, for their daughter Kathryn.
Kathryn’s British citizenship depends on the  marriage certificate and she could have been deported to South Africa if the matter had not been resolved in time.
Kathryn’s grandfather is from England and her mother has a British passport. For Kathryn to get hers she needs to have lived in England for five year and being deported would have cost her the four years she has already accumulated.
“I cannot express how stressful the past two weeks have been but I could not be more happy now that the correct certificate is on its way to Kathryn,” said Bess on Monday.
Both Kathryn and her mother said they received a lot of support from friends, family and people who were strangers to them after the Courier published the story and expressed their undying gratitude to the Courier team.
“I have to say though, that even though the story was about a facet of South African life that often frustrates us, an unexpected side effect was that the article reminded me of how special it is to be South African. So many people offered support and commiseration and advice, South Africans really define community spirit,” said Kathryn.
She said she was disappointed though because they did not even receive an apology from home affairs for all the trouble they had gone through and for having them wait until the last minute.
“It is also hard to know who in home affairs to thank for finally resolving the matter, because we bombarded everyone with emails and phone calls after the article came out but we are thankful to the Courier and to whoever it was that eventually assisted us,” concluded Kathryn.