What the hell is happening in Dover ?

[Jewell]

Have been lurking for a while, but this is my first post.

Not sure if one is supposed to introduce oneself, but have bought a small shack in Brittany with a view to spending several months a year there before possibly a permanent move. Hello, everyone.

I've been surprised at how angry people are about this. Someone messed up a staffing rota, queues are queues. I do understand the frustration, but these things do happen; do we need to read vindictiveness into them?

The last few times I've been over (Portsmouth to Caen and back) the queues have been longer, the security tighter - and not just on the French end but also getting back into the UK.

Mind, perhaps I shouldn't have declared that I was taking my precious kitchen knives on holiday with me. Would've got out of security a bit quicker...!

[Rabbie]

I wonder how many of those stuck in the queues voted for tighter immigration controls

[alittlebitfrench]

Jewell said...

'I've been surprised at how angry people are about this.'

Spend 15 minutes in the car with my kids and you will get the picture.

[NickP]

[quote user="Rabbie"]I wonder how many of those stuck in the queues voted for tighter immigration controls[/quote]

Probably the majority. Or as the Scottish actor Alan Cummings said the stupid English, a man who supports Scottish independence and lives in America like it seems lots of jocks who don't live in Scotland.

[chessie]

According to reports there was only 1 French border control person at work.

Mint - I too worry very much about the animals in transportation;  on previous occasions the police have managed to separate out the livestock trucks and have ensured adequate water etc for animals.   This time I've not heard if that has been possible - and there's been no mention of this particular concern in any of the news items.

As for the families - poor them.  Parents in the UK are fined if they remove their children from school out of term time.   So of course the minute the holidays start there's a mass exodus;  same in France and Germany isn't it ?

No-one has pointed out that the French border controls - are on UK territory !!   Maybe when/if the Agreement is 'changed' and border controls for UK travellers into France have to be checked IN France - that would mean queues to come off the Eurotunnel, off the ferries - can't see those companies letting such a situation develop - money, money, money talks - it would soon be sorted !!

Just shows how tolerant the Brits really are - other countries there would have been mass storming of the motor-way barriers ....

[Chancer]

[quote user="chessie"]
No-one has pointed out that the French border controls - are on UK territory !!  
[/quote]

 

No-one??????????

 

Try reading the first few replies.

 

Having read the report its almost certainly a reaction to Flamby saying that the Le Touquet agreement would remain, the French border control staff had been looking forward to (not) working back on their own soil closer to home, they would have heard Flamby and said "we will see about that matey"

 

Natacha Bouchart probably had a hand in it as well.

[PaulT]

Jewell wrote:

'The last few times I've been over (Portsmouth to Caen and back) the queues have been longer'

Gosh, longer than 12 miles and it was never reported on the news - obviously Dover is far more important than reporting on the 12+ miles queues at Portsmouth.

Welcome to the forum

[DerekJ]

[quote user="Jewell"] Hello, everyone.

I've been surprised at how angry people are about this. Someone messed up a staffing rota, queues are queues. [/quote]

Yes, amazing isn't it!  I'd just love to be stuck for up to 14 hours, I wouldn't be at all upset.

[Judith]

I crossed via the tunnel in April.  OK, I chose my time well, as I do, but this was the first item my passport was taken away and actually examined - and I weas in a French car ... both ways.  Not a problem, but security has been increased now for some time.

I know school holidays have just started, but do they All have to go away immediately - wait a week or two and it will calm down ... they DO still get 6 weeks holiday - surely??????

No sympathy - really.

[andyh4]

Judith wrote:

I know school holidays have just started, but do they All have to go away immediately - wait a week or two and it will calm down ... they DO still get 6 weeks holiday - surely??????

While I agree with the sentiment, there are groups of people who have little not no choice. From my own experience with UK teams we had shift workers whose summer break was fixed by the shift pattern. Typically the shift and school holiday patterns would not exactly coincide, so those whose shift holiday coincided with the start of school holidays would already be part way into their summer break, So if a foreign holiday was wanted they basically had to set off the minute that school finished - often literally. These days probably a relatively small group compared with the population as a whole.

The bigger group was the office worker group. In our situation we had 8 workers with school children and in order to provide continued service to our customers we could only allow 2 to be on holiday at the same time. With a 6 week school holiday the problem already should be apparent and someone had to have the first 2 week slot.

Would those groups be sufficiently large to account for the first weekend rush?? Probably not, but you can see how there is a concentration of movement - just as in France with the red and black weekends.

[chessie]

Chancer - sorry - of course you're right - me wrong - overlooked that one.   Short term memory loss again..............

[Chancer]

Read this in the Daily Wail!

 

French border guards relaxed the checks yesterday to ease the backlog – eventually resorting to waving travellers through the controls on to ferries without even glancing at their passports. Queues this morning were said to be down to 30 minutes.

One driver claimed that when he and his family finally reached the checkpoints at the Channel port, there was nobody there to take their documents.

Solicitor Luke Harrison, 35, from St Albans, said: 'We did see French police – one was having a cigarette, one had his hands behind his head, and there was another who didn't look particularly busy.' 

 

So seems like they worked to rule on one day during 12 years, that is to say do their job instead of just smoking and waving people through, that they chose to do it on the busiest day of the year,  - coincidence?

 

Anyway soon be back to normal, I went to and from the UK for 3 years on an expired passport before renewing it last time, it was picked up every time by the UK border force, no problem with me returning but I should never have been allowed to travel (back) to France, I probably did so 20 times.

[Gardian]

Don't use Dover. End of.

500+ cars every hour out of there + the freight traffic + the migrant problem on the way back. No thanks.

If I'm driving, then anywhere else but there.

[mint]

[quote user="Jewell"]Have been lurking for a while, but this is my first post.

Not sure if one is supposed to introduce oneself, but have bought a small shack in Brittany with a view to spending several months a year there before possibly a permanent move. Hello, everyone.

I've been surprised at how angry people are about this. Someone messed up a staffing rota, queues are queues. I do understand the frustration, but these things do happen; do we need to read vindictiveness into them?

The last few times I've been over (Portsmouth to Caen and back) the queues have been longer, the security tighter - and not just on the French end but also getting back into the UK.

Mind, perhaps I shouldn't have declared that I was taking my precious kitchen knives on holiday with me. Would've got out of security a bit quicker...![/quote]

Jewell, as no one has said Welcome to the Forum, I wish to say WELCOME Jewell[:)]

People are angry about all sorts of things but they can also be amusing, charming, helpful, friendly.  I do hope you are not put off posting again by some of the abrupt responses to your post which I found to be perfectly reasonable and mildly-phrased.

I think some people on here are a bit tetchy on account of the heat[I]

Do come back and tell us about your shack in Brittany or about your kitchen knives because I do like good, sharp kitchen knives![:)]

[Jewell]

Mint - thank you! I think Paul said welcome too.

Not at all put off, I like a good debate.

Just to reiterate, I get the frustration. I once sat in a queue for six hours on the M25 on a blazing hot day, and I had my dog with me, and it was a right pain in the bum to try and keep him shaded and with enough to drink. I do get it. But these things happen. People mess up. People call in sick, quit on the spot, get planning wrong, etc. Doesn't have to be some sort of sinister Brexit punishment.

Before we bought last year we'd always stay in a gite, and however well-equipped no gite is going to have a selection of sharp knives to cook with that fit my hand as well as my own. So I take them with me. (along with my favourite wooden spoon and sauté pan and oven dishes...)

[NormanH]

I've been surprised at how angry people are about this.

You will find quite a few people on Anglophone Fora who dislike the French and their ways, although they don't speak the language well enough to read or listen to what the French themselves have to say,  but who claim to "love France".

I suspect that what they really mean is that they love French property prices.[6]

[alittlebitfrench]

Hay Mr Norman. My kids are French. You certainly do not want to be in a car with them singing the marsillaise for 14 hrs. Or 'Chica Vampiro' for that matter. I was quite respectful in my response.

Anyway it is 'Black Saturday' this weekend (as the Independent calls it)......

DO NOT DRIVE ANYWHERE IN FRANCE THIS SATURDAY.

You have been warned.

BTW, property is just as expensive in France as the UK. The trouble is the British have not worked that one out yet.

[mint]

[quote user="Jewell"]Mint - thank you! I think Paul said welcome too.

Not at all put off, I like a good debate.

Just to reiterate, I get the frustration. I once sat in a queue for six hours on the M25 on a blazing hot day, and I had my dog with me, and it was a right pain in the bum to try and keep him shaded and with enough to drink. I do get it. But these things happen. People mess up. People call in sick, quit on the spot, get planning wrong, etc. Doesn't have to be some sort of sinister Brexit punishment.

Before we bought last year we'd always stay in a gite, and however well-equipped no gite is going to have a selection of sharp knives to cook with that fit my hand as well as my own. So I take them with me. (along with my favourite wooden spoon and sauté pan and oven dishes...)[/quote]

Jewell, I find myself yet again in total agreement with what you have said.

As the Americans like to say, "Life happens" and, of course, it's not necessarily to do with some Brexit punishment.  What apparently is "true" is that there are stats to prove that post Brexit, there have been more "hate" and racially motivated crimes in the UK.  They have even set up a "unit" called Post Brexit Hate Crimes or something like that though I might not have got the wording exactly right.

Seems like paranoia is the order of the day!

Still, if we didn't moan, sound off to the more trashy sections of the media, blame the "authorities" for everything (even unforeseen things), we wouldn't be Brits, would we?[:D]  We do have one saving grace:  when the chips are down, we are supposed to have a stiff upper lip......lol

Anyway, it's not as though we are escaping war and certain death like migrants, we are merely going on holiday to have a change of scene.

As for your taking everything except the proverbial kitchen sink when you go on holiday, you are now putting ideas in my head.  I normally take my rubber gloves and apron but not generally my knives or saucepans, etc.

I do take my favourite pillow though[:D]

Edit:  oh, oh, just remembered about the knife attack on tens of disabled people in Japan[:'(]  So best leave your knives behind next time, eh, Jewell? 

[Jewell]

The Japan news is horrible. :(

I take pillow, duvet and sheets as well. And washing-up liquid & cloths. I think it's a hangover from renting gites when the idea seemed to be that you brought pretty much everything.

[NickP]

So Mint now we are talking about hate crimes in the UK, aren't the terrible atrocities that have taken place recently in France and Germany hate crimes, or is it only in the UK that this is worthy of such a news byline?

[mint]

[quote user="NickP"]So Mint now we are talking about hate crimes in the UK, aren't the terrible atrocities that have taken place recently in France and Germany hate crimes, or is it only in the UK that this is worthy of such a news byline?[/quote]

I thought we were talking about Dover and traffic queues and we were talking about moaning Brits going on holiday?

Then the conversation became one of blame of the French authorities.  Jewell talked about things happening (as they do) and that they might have nothing to do with the French "punishing" Brits on account of the Brexit result.

We weren't talking about France as such at that point.  Yes, do talk about hate crimes in France and Germany if you wish, nothing stopping you?

I was having quite a civilised exchange of views with Jewell, as it happens.  Plus I was going to tell Jewell that only last month, I stayed at a French-owned gite where we still had to take everything including tea towels.

We were car-sharing, Jewell, and so I took my micro-fibre sleeping bag and my travel towel etc.  I have only stayed in British-owned gites (twice) and those were much better equipped than this latest (and only) French-owned one I have stayed at.  However, we were a party of walkers and we were out all day walking.  The gite was just adequately equipped but it didn't matter to us as we enjoyed mucking in cooking stuff to eat (my contribution being mainly cleaning the salads!)

[Judith]

While I agree with the sentiment, there are groups of people who have little not no choice.

This I understand, but they do have options ... not to go abroad, to stay at home, to do many other things than go on the busiest day of the year (the French are just as bad).

When we were little we did not go abroad ... we were pretty well adult before we got the chance, and even then, I was in my 20's before I went abroad in a car. 

So we all have options, we do not always take the more sensible one.

[NickP]

Mint I was merely replying to your comment about hate crime in the UK. What that has to do with Dover and traffic queues, you tell me?

[ebaynut]

Funny old world, the huge tailbacks at Dover caused by the French

tightening security in the wake of the latest attacks, do they really think that

any terrorists are traveling  from the UK to Frame?

 

If ISLAMIC STATE get their guys into the UK, then the attacks will be in

the UK, they will not travel back to France, they have already passed through

there.  Besides, there are already enough of them in France that they can now

hold the whole country in fear.

And the answer to clearing the tailbacks  after making people wait in their

vehicles all that time, why, wave them through of course with little or no

checks, you could not make it up.

Still its election year in LBF next year, time for a change at the top me

thinks, MLP anyone???

 

On the bright side, I wont have to drive a couple of thousand miles later

this year.  Mrs EBN and myself were going to have ten days around 24 this year,

never been in that area, and was looking forward to a visit there.

Unfortunately, flying with Mrs EBN disability's is now too difficult, so we were

going to drive over, but I think the Dover fiasco is the final nail in the

coffin for the trip, so that's ten nights empty beds with no income for the

hotel owners, tolls not being paid, food not paid for, the crossing etc. the

list goes on.

 

As tourism is one of the main incomes of France, I fear it is going to take

a hammering from now on as I wont be the only one not visiting now for the

foreseeable future.

When you add up the cost of France for a holiday, it is expensive compared

to many places, but its huge draw was the peace and beauty of the country, but

when you throw terrorism into the equation, you can count me out.

We have now booked up to visit Turnberry on the west coast of Scotland, for

a few rounds, well we must support those who support us.

 

[Chancer]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

And the answer to clearing the tailbacks  after making people wait in their vehicles all that time, why, wave them through of course with little or no checks, you could not make it up.

[/quote]

 

But that is all they have ever done in every one of my journeys in the last 2 décades. As I said earlier I travelled on an expired passport for 2 years, it never got looked at even once.

 

They did their job once, one day only, working to rule and we see the result.

 

As you say there was no substantial fear from the UK given that all Frances other land borders are free of any restrictions, I am convinced that it was a backlash against the announcement that the Le Touquet agreement would continue, that their border posts would not be moved back to France saving them the commute.

 

When France went into lockdown immediately after the Bataclan attentat the ferries were not delayed.