Renewing my Driving Licence

Last week I received a form from the DVLA, telling me that my Driving Licence was going to expire shortly - its ten-year validity was nearly up.

The two alternative procedures for tackling this both seemed straightforward. I could do it online, paying £14.00, and they would use the photo on my passport. Or I could go to one of several main Post Offices in the county equipped to take a special digital photo of me, and the cost would be £21.50.

Given a free choice - and not really wanting to join a long queue at a main Post Office in the run-up to Christmas - I'd renew online. No doubt there would be an on-screen form to complete, but that was no big deal; and it would cost me £7.50 less than a personal appearance at the Post Office.

However, there was a snag. I had looked younger and thinner-faced back in 2010, with somewhat longer and darker hair. The picture used then didn't much resemble the modern me. I'd aged, got bigger bags under my eyes, and had gained a more rounded, chubbier look. I'd claim certain improvements in the past ten years - kinder eyes, more empathetic lips - and I'd swear that my big nose wasn't quite so agricultural as it used to be. But the 2010 photo definitely wasn't a faithful likeness any more. It wasn't fit for purpose. I definitely needed a fresh photo!

So this morning I drove over to Haywards Heath, popped into the main Post Office there, and joined the queue. After twenty minutes it was my turn, and the fun began. The chap dealing with me clearly hadn't dealt with many personal Driving Licence applications before, and another member of staff had to take him through the sequence of keyboard presses, screen taps, and instructions to myself. My part in this was to go inside a special photo booth (with a side window, so that we could speak to each other) and carefully do as I was bid.

It wasn't like the ubiquitous Photo-Me booths, where you sit down and get a strip of passport-sized snaps, all of them libel on the sitter's normal appearance. This was a newish-looking, clearly rather high-tech booth, in which I had to stand upright on a small square, to position me at the correct distance away from the camera. Facing me was a big lens, and several other gadgets which looked like controls, but they weren't labelled and I guessed that I wasn't supposed to touch them. There was however a small writing surface and an electronic pen. This would be for writing my signature.

I was told to stand upright, facing the lens, which the chap dealing with me had raised to my face height - and keep still. Those 'controls' lit up. I think I detected when the picture was taken, but in any event, the lighting subsided and the lens sank back to its resting position.

I was then asked to sign with the electronic pen. This needed two attempts. When I applied pressure, two or three millimetres of the metal tip of the pen partially retracted into the barrel, which was offputting. But the real problem was that I had to write on a black plastic surface, and couldn't see what I was writing. I had to imagine the result. I was effectively doing it blind. I realised after my first attempt that I had omitted the 'c' of 'Lucy'. Fortunately, making a second (and much better) attempt was no problem. This time the electronic signature (as displayed on-screen) looked very much like the ordinary pen-on-paper version, and would do fine. Then I had to leave the booth, and pay the £21.50 due.

I watched the chap snip the plastic part of my old licence in half. And he told me that from this moment the paper counterpart (which I could retain) was invalid. Gulp! I now had nothing to show to a police officer! (Visions of a humiliating roadside arrest, on trial as Prisoner X, indefinite incarceration on Devil's Island, an unmarked grave)

If I had felt belittled and subdued by the long queue, and by meekly having to obey instructions while inside the booth, I now scored a small victory by paying with my phone. I was quick and slick, and the DING from Google Pay cheered me up, reasserting my own tech credentials, and restoring the balance of power. I was no longer a woman manipulated and processed. That DING said 'I walk away undefeated! I am not a number! I am a free woman!'

I'd better say that, throughout it all, the Post Office staff dealing with me were most polite and friendly. It was the procedure that made me feel small and mildly idiotic. As you do when going to the dentist.

What the ever-lengthening queue behind me thought, I don't want to consider. I wasn't really very long, but I must have held things up somewhat. Still, it wasn't my fault that the chap was a bit rusty on what to do. And the only delay caused by myself was having to write my signature again. Nevertheless, I definitely consumed at least fifteen minutes of counter staff time - two members of staff at that - and there surely must have been grumbling and murmurs and some general unrest, restrained only by everybody Being British. But hey, it wasn't as if I'd turned up in the frantic week just before Christmas! And it was obviously an Important Official Matter. 

Two things had particularly unsettled me though. The chap had asked me 'How old are you?' - when my age must be apparent from the DVLA form and/or the old licence. Perhaps he had found it hard to believe that the old crone in front of him was really the fresh-faced nymphette in the 2010 shot. Had I aged that much?

The other thing was that while in the booth, he'd asked me to take off my glasses. I did so, and the picture taken was of me with no specs on. I said to him afterwards, 'I always wear my glasses, you know. It's my everyday look - not me without glasses.' 'Not for this purpose, I'm afraid,' was the reply. I'm guessing then that the booth was more high-tech than I thought. They wanted more than just an 'acceptable likeness' of me. They were taking biometric details of my face. Without glasses, so that nothing was obscured. It makes sense - this Driving Licence photo will almost certainly be used when I renew my passport in the autumn of 2020.

So my new Driving Licence - when I get it, sometime in the next three weeks - will feature an unfamiliar version of my face, looking like this (a reconstruction I made once home again):

My old licence made use of the colour photo taken for my passport, turning it into a black-and-white image. Will that be done this time? If it is, my new Driving Licence will bear this picture of me:

Would you recognise Miss Melford from this? Or would you demand to see additional ID?

Well, here is the real me, just about to drive to Haywards Heath, and looking both presentable and typical. But so naïve.

I do hope I won't be asked to take my glasses off every time I have to produce my Driving Licence or Passport in the future. What a drag that will be!