Posted by After 42 years of residency in the UK, 74-year-old Nelson Shardey was informed by the UK Home Office that he is not British.
The BBC reports that the Home Office requested a further ten years of waiting before granting him permanent residency.
Shardey, who was born and raised in Wallasey, Wirral, believed he was officially recognized as British for a long time, until he found out differently in 2019.
Despite paying taxes throughout his adult life, he now faces the prospect of spending thousands of pounds just to remain in the country and access the National Health Service (NHS).
He originally came to the UK in 1977 to study accounting on a student visa that also permitted him to work. Now 74 years old, he is a retired newsagent.
He explained that his family was unable to send him the necessary funds for the expenses following a coup in his home country of Ghana.
He worked for several companies in the UK, including Mother’s Pride Bread and Kipling’s Cakes in the Southampton area and Bendick’s Chocolate in Winchester, and he said that nobody ever questioned his legal status.
After Shardey wed a British woman, he established his own newsstand in Wallasey named Nelson’s News.
Jacob and Aaron were born to him and his second marriage to a British woman ended in divorce.
“I did everything in my power to provide them with an education that would ensure they would not rely on social services or anything else,” Shardey stated.
His sons, who he advised to “learn hard, get a good job, and work for themselves,” followed his footsteps and became research scientists and public relations executives, respectively, after attending college.