A mate told me this a while ago.When he was doing a stint on the coaches for a West midlands firm-just gone under I believe.Anyway,while doing a ticket and passport check this one chap showed a very thick double passport,which were secured together with pinkish(?) ribbon.When my mate asked about this,the man said ‘Used to be a Middle East driver’ Sure enough,when with permission,he looked at the stamps-it was chock full of ones with Arabic like writing.It was a trip to Rimini in the early '90s.We’d both like to know if it was any of you legends on here.Ta. 
Sorry mate was it his , the passport would not have been valid work it out new style passport has been out for over ten years
Rita ex ME
Browncow
Sorry mate have re- read your post in the 90s you say I have several of these passports and they would only be joined if the old one had a valid visa say for Saudi which lasted for 6 months can your mate describe the driver how old was he ETC may be able to help
Cheers Rita
How now Browncow, I don’t think that it would of been a pink ribbon 
, I only ever saw navy blue ribbons.
Like Sinbin said it was used to keep the two passports together when a visa was still valid in the old passport which had run out of clear pages.
I can’t help you with the name of the coach driver but it’s good to know that Roger is still around 
.
Regards Steve.
Just out of intrest how long would a passport last a m/e driver. I suppouse back in the 70s and 80s they would have been stamped through western europe too.
On average you could fill a 94 page passport in a year albeit most of us had two Passports on the go at the same time and therefore filled each one annually on average.
Just out of interest my last Black and Gold expired in 1998, I just held onto it as long as I could and even now I have my EU Passport in a leather Black & Gold cover…
sinbin31:
BrowncowSorry mate have re- read your post in the 90s you say I have several of these passports and they would only be joined if the old one had a valid visa say for Saudi which lasted for 6 months can your mate describe the driver how old was he ETC may be able to help
Cheers Rita
Just spoke with him now,all he remembers is that this guy was quite solidly built,about 5ft8 or 9,and very pleasant(it was a long time ago).Also,he would have lived in the Midlands.Thanks for the replies.
kr79:
Just out of intrest how long would a passport last a m/e driver. I suppouse back in the 70s and 80s they would have been stamped through western europe too.
I had occasion to obtain a new passport on my way back from Saudi on one trip.I realised that I would not have enough pages in the passport i had with me to get me home even though I had a second passport at home that was having visas put in for future trips.
I stopped off in Amman and called in at the British embassy,and I must say they were very helpful,despite what you sometimes hear about our embassies abroad.They pulled out all the stops to get my now passport issued within hours.
Because I had valid visas for other countries,my new passport was fixed to the old one by having the back page of the new one fastened to the front page of the old one,with a blue ribbon,with the ribbon ends sealed.
The fixing looks like this:
My first passport,the normal thin one,lasted for about two trips.The larger ones lasted much longer,but as almost every visa took up a whole page or,with entry and exit stamps almost another page,even those were not expected to last very long.
One method of getting the most out of a passport was to get,where posible,a multi entry visa,even for the Eastern European countries.That would usually fill one page,but when one entered or left that country you only required an entry and exit stamp,so hhopefully you could make your passport last a bit longer.
Here is an example of a multi entry visa for Saudi,as many entries as you could make in 6 months.
I started off with the small passport,then went over to the 94 page ones,and managed over 11 years with 6 of the 94 page type.
At the borders,officials were never fussy where they stamped your entry or exit,not always on the visa page or facing it.Likewise,in countries where a visa was not a requirement,a stamp could be put anywhere,nowhere was sacred,as on this example,there is a Greek entry stamp below the Saudi visa!
Yes its all true but the ribbon was blue this is a passport that I uneathed from the British Embassy Doha