Wing Commander Fowler, you are living in the past mate... ex-employers these days are vindictive and out for revenge that anyone could dare leave their fantastic company...
Most replies on here are missing the point however. The reference is not the 'he's a good egg' type, it is a reference to satisfy the idiots at the ID issuing department at airports. These people just do not seem to understand that many employers these days are not nice people.
I had a dispute with a former employer and on discussing it with the new chief pilot of said outfit he flatly refused to fill out the BAA form (which is a stupid irrelevant form anyway), but when I pointed out to him that all I need is confirmation of dates of employment he agreed to provide that and did so within a few days which was ok for me.
I could not care less about his opinion of me as he did not even know me, but he was quite prepared to ignore the request for a reference based on false information from his predecessor.
I was also under the impression that legally ex employers have to at least provide confirmation that you were employed from x date to y date, and I think this legislation is written into the Aviation Security Act when they started to ask for the last 5 years of information.
757manipulator maked an interesting point. I used a mate of mine to provide a reference to cover the time I was overseas for a couple of months, maybe a friend would be able to provide a statement that they knew you for the time you were with that former employer. If BAA accept that, then you are sorted...
Just another thing to illustrate how this industry is at the mercy of idiots and *****...