A PENSIONER stranded in the war because he couldn't get a passport has lent his support to a Swindon woman fighting to become a British citizen.

The plight of grandmother Alicja Bolton, refused a British passport despite living in the country for 53 years, struck a chord with 72-year-old Roy Derbyshire from Park North.

She was featured in the Evening Advertiser at the beginning of November after finding out she could not go on holiday because she is classed as an alien, despite working in England since she left school as well as paying British taxes and national insurance.

Mr Derbyshire was born in New Zealand but brought to Britain when he was just a year old by his father.

He never had a passport but served in the Army and Navy all over the world because troops would travel by sea and documents were not checked as stringently.

But all that changed in the 1950s when air travel took over.

He managed to get a New Zealand passport but wanted to move to Britain permanently and needed a British one.

He was helped by a military advisor to secure the right forms from the Home Office and had to write to a church in Shropshire to track down his birth certificate before finally being awarded nationalisation and a passport in the 1960s.

"I had to do a lot of hard work it was ridiculous," he said.

Mrs Bolton, who lives in Liden and is working as a warehouse operator at WHSmith in Greenbridge, is now being helped by South Swindon MP Julia Drown.