when myself and my thai wife arrived at gatwick, id heard stories on here, about people having medicals, and x rayed etc, we qued up, quick look at the passports, i stayed in the que with her, even though i have a british passport,one question they asked, when did you get married, stamped the passport, and walked through the green channel, bingo, welome to london, cold ,raining, expensive, and as for the people, well, im happy really, honest

It was pretty much the same for us there, back in 1999, except that we only entered the M25 for the bus stop at Heathrow. The marriage question did have me worried, though. The immigration officer looked at the translation of the marriage certificate, and asked something like,

"It says you 'registered your marriage'. When did you actually marry?"

He accepted my explanation that the Thai for 'marry' was 'tabian somrot', literally 'register marriage' and that what he was taking as the mere 'registration' was the actual marriage. In retrospect, I think it was as well he'd accepted my offer to translate - especially as they didn't have any Thai translators on hand!

In retrospect, I think it was as well he'd accepted my offer to translate - especially as they didn't have any Thai translators on hand!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

When I worked at Gatwick a rather pompous Brit strode up to my desk with his Thai wife and contemptuously said, "You won't get a word out of her unless you speak Thai and what are the chances of that?" Without deigning to reply to him I interviewed his wife in Thai and deliberately asked more questions than necessary just to &lt;deleted&gt; him over.

Scouse.