Passport from adolescence

It was a proud day in 1965 when, at the age of 15, I was issued my first British passport. Looking back, the stern instruction in elaborate cursive not to mess with the Queen’s loyal subject seems like the pompous posturing of a country that had surrendered its empire but was not yet ready to accept its new, reduced role in the world. I’ve held a US passport since 1991. With two passports, I have one more than most people but I am still a long way away from matching the collection of my passport hero, Jason Bourne, the CIA-trained rogue assassin played by Matt Damon in the action thriller movies based on the novels of Robert Ludlum. He has six.