A mother has warned other parents to double-check their children's passports after an admin error forced her to leave her five-year-old son at home while she flew to Croatia for a friend's wedding. Penny Moyses, 37, discovered just days before departure from Stansted Airport that her eldest son's passport had expired the previous October.
Penny rushed to secure an emergency passport but was told that children's passports require at least a week's notice due to safeguarding regulations. 'Fear totally went through me – I felt sick to my stomach,' she said. The error meant she flew to Croatia with her youngest child, while her husband James and their five-year-old son stayed behind.
Fortunately, James managed to obtain an emergency passport for their son, and the pair joined the group at the port just in time for the wedding. 'My eldest ended up missing the first two days of the holiday,' Penny said. 'Luckily we managed to intercept the passport at our local sorting office and they arrived just in time for the wedding.'
The incident has prompted Penny to take control of what she calls the 'silent load' of life admin. She now uses an app called Fyio, a digital filing cabinet for important documents. 'By using Fyio I can now keep track of my important documents; if I had the passport expiry dates in there, I would've completely avoided the Croatia disaster and saved myself hundreds,' she said.
