where am I from?

I was quite literally thrust onto this planet several years ago now in a ward in a hospital in Morriston, in Swansea, in Wales, which is in the United Kingdom.  Or is it Great Britain - I never know?

(An aside: it wasn't the done thing for fathers to be at the birth of their children back then.  In fact I think mine was playing darts in his local pub when news came through that he had a new son.  I like to think it put him off hitting the double he needed to win his darts match.  He might have bought a round of drinks even.  I also think he'd have preferred a new motorbike but I shan't hold that against him.)

The only people present to witness my wonderous appearance on Earth then I would imagine would have been a midwife, my mother (obviously) and my grandmother but as my memory of the event is a little sketchy I can't be 100% certain.  And they'd have all said the same thing.  "He's British."

Even though the maternity ward where I was born has long been demolished and replaced with a corridor, what I am absolutely certain of, however, is that I was born in the UK.  My mother and grandmother, and the midwife for that matter (were they still alive) would be able to confirm that fact.  It also says so on my birth certificate.  "Place of birth: just over there by the bins, Morriston hospital,  UK."

I've always lived in the UK and I am the proud holder of a UK passport.  I know this to be the case as I have used it on a number of occasions to leave the UK to go on holiday.  By the way, my longest absence from my homeland was a two week stay in Italy.  I could have stayed there forever and become incredibly fat but I digress.

In the main then I am proud to call myself a British citizen.  A card carrying member of the good old United Kingdom.

Anyway, so what I hear you ask.  And I would be asking the same question myself under normal circumstances.

But a couple of weeks ago I was advised to make an application for a social security benefit called a Personal Independence Payment.  This provides a small sum of money to help fund extra equipment or care that a person in my predicament might need.  I didn't want to claim it but then thought no, I've paid my taxes and my national insurance contributions so let's see if I can have some of it back.

So for the first time in my life I found myself telephoning the social securiy people to see if they could help me out.  The call was very brief.  They didn't even want to know what was wrong with me - that comes at a later stage apparently when you have to fill out a 639 page application form.  No the purpose of the initial call was to register my claim and get some preliminaries out of the way.

Imagine my surprise then when a week later a letter arrived from the social security people.  They'd made a decision about my claim.  In what must have been record time.

Their decision: they told me that I can't have any money because I am not a UK resident.

They haven't given me any clue where I am supposed to be from either.  Outer Mongolia, Kazakstan, Glasgow?  I think ity only fair that if they are going to make a sweeping statement about my citizenship that they at least tell me where they think I am a resident of.

I have of course appealed against their decision and I have asked them to elucidate on my supposed whereabouts.  I eagerly await their response.