Thanks for the proxy best wishes for DW. I'm actually amazed that she hasn't just chucked it all in and persuaded me to go back to Germany. Of course, we do consider this now and then, but it's been 40 years and we have neither friends nor family there any more. Our life, friends, and children are here.
And we're fortunate, in that we can afford the time and expense of all this. We've met many who can't. The Dutch chap I mentioned previously who was administering the English Proficiency tests hasn't taken the test yet because he's so poorly paid he can't afford it. The poor woman who was refused permission to take the Life in the UK test because of a minor and readily correctable error was distraught at having to pay again. £50 is a lot to lose when you're strapped for cash in the first place. And the piddling little error she'd made on the form shows how easy it is to reject people out of hand, rather than helping her to correct it. Whatever happened to the milk of human kindness?
At every turn, you're made to feel, not exactly unwelcome, but certainly challenged to run the gauntlet of petty obstructions, daunting forms, need to produce reams of old documentation (with no gaps), prove you haven't been out of the country for more than a certain number of days in the qualifying period (difficult without passport stamps or a truly photographic memory), constant additional costs and so on.
For the next stage of the saga, I filled out the online form (including parents' dates and placed of birth for some reason - are they really going to check the parish register in Elbing, which has probably been destroyed in the war anyway?) and contacted the Nationality Checking Service for this area (who check to ensure all the documentary evidence is there and take a certified copy of your passport, otherwise you have to send the original for however long the Home Office takes to process your application). They told me they couldn't check the accuracy of the online form (hadn't had the proper training, apparently) and would only do it if I downloaded and printed out the form and filled it in manually.
Luckily, I'd already done that late last year, so I filled in the 28-page form again. It was only by chance I found out that the form had been updated and changed in February 2018, so I had to do it again! We now have an appointment in early May (£98, please), after which the finishing line should be in sight.
I really feel for all those people involved in the Windrush fiasco. How on earth are they supposed to get their hands on old documentation from back when they were children? How long do you have to work and pay taxes and be good honest citizens before it's grudgingly accepted that you belong here? It will have cost us well north of £2000 and there are so many people who can't afford it - and why the hell should they even have to? I can only imagine the costs if you need to get an immigration lawyer involved with no prospect of legal aid.
The whole processs stinks and it's no surprise that the Home Office is going to be hiring armies of unelected bureaucrats, sorry civil servants, to process the coming avalanche of applications for "settled status", which is now being proposed instead of Permanent Residence. Goodness knows why they want to make this change - why should you have to apply for settled status if you've already got permanent residence? Kafka would be laughing himself silly.