To Absent Friends - Frederick Forsyth

INFORMATION  FOR LIFE DEPARTMENT

How To Secure a Passport Under a New Identity

• Go to a remote cemetery, preferably in a small out of the way village churchyard cemetery
• Find a headstone for a child who died within two years of his/her birth
• Said deceased child should have been born within a year or two of you own year of birth
• Go to local county/village registry and request a copy of the birth certificate of the deceased child; such things are public record and are available upon request
• Using "your" newly acquired birth certificate, go to the appropriate  government registry office and request a passport using your photo and the name of the long ago deceased child
• Vwah-LAH!  You now have a new and legitimate passport and a new identity, something like "Paul Oliver Duggan", born in the Village of Sambourn-Fishley, somewhere in England

How do I know this, you may ask?  I learned it from reading the terrific 1971 Edgar Award winning and best selling novel, "The Day of The Jackal" by Frederick Forsyth.  The novel was also made into a terrific Fred Zinnemann directed movie in 1973. 

Frederick Forsyth

1938-2025

Forsyth died this past week at the age of 82.   In addition to "The Day of the Jackal", Forsyth wrote a number of other novels of the political thriller genre, the best of which was his second one, "The Odessa File" about a journalist hunting down Nazis who are attempting to restore the Third Reich (it was set in 1963).  None, though, ever topped "The Day of the Jackal" for sheer can't-put-it-down thrills and readability.

The English born Forsyth was an international journalist by trade, and his obituaries describe a guy who just may have lived the life of, or at least been exposed to, many of the types of people about whom he wrote in his career as a thriller novelist.

Do yourself a favor. Find a copy of "The Day of the Jackal" and read it.  You won't regret it.  Then watch the movie.  You won't regret that, either  Oh, and "The Odessa File" is pretty damn good read as well.

RIP Frederick Forsyth.

Post Script.  In the 21st Century world of terrorism in which we now live, I'm not sure if the method of obtaining a new passport under a new identity can still be pulled off as it was in the 1960's world of Forsyth's masterpiece.  If there is now a more difficult way to go about the process, I am sure that Frederick Forsyth would have been able to describe it for us.