Mistaken Identity Card

Doris Hancock was my best friend and we worked together at the Old Mill, Congleton making bullets during WW2. She had a sister, brother-in-law (who was in the Fleet Air Arm) based in Gosport, and a little niece named Shirley and they all lived there. During the war Doris' sister died leaving the little girl by herself and Doris had to go down to Gosport to look after her. My husband was away fighting with the Army in North Africa at this time and I was unwell and away from work. I had caught a bad chill through putting my hands and fingers into oily and icy water expelled by the bullet making machine I used. Doris asked me to bring her mother down to Gosport and we stopped a week or two until her brother-in-law went back into the Fleet Air Arm. I travelled with Doris' mother from Congleton by train but we had to cross London to get to the correct railway station for Gosport. This meant using a moving staircase, of which Doris' mother was terrified, but fortunately a railway porter took us up to the station entrance by using a lift. When we arrived in Gosport,I was frightened by the noise of the sirens day and night but amazed by the floodlights that lit up the sky. In the air raid shelters at night the sky was picturesque and one night I opened the shelter door a bit to see but the warden shouted at me. The authorities didn't know it, but I had travelled to Gosport without an identification card and from Gosport using my sister-in-law's identification card. This was because the trip was arranged in a hurry and I couldn't find my card at the time. While at Gosport, I wrote to my sister-in-law May who lived with me in Congleton to ask her to send my identification card to Gosport for use on my return. Unfortunately, she couldn't find mine so she sent hers instead. While travelling back home to Congleton, Doris' niece Shirley, who was about 5 years old, overheard Doris and myself talking about me not using my own identification card and was in her glee. She threatened to tell the authorities when we went through the Red Caps check at Portsmouth. As we went through the check Doris had to grip Shirley's hand tightly with one hand and put the other one over her mouth as the offence warranted three months in prison. Doris later married her widdowed brother-in-law and they lived in Congleton.

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