It was a scene straight out of a spy movie, as Catherine Galley, of Basildon, exchanged passports with a stranger.

The Passport Office had inadvertently swapped the documents in the post. Rather than wait for the wheels of bureaucracy to crank, the pair sorted out the problem in their own straightforward way.

The rendezvous point was Pitsea market, which used to advertise with the slogan: "Everything cheaper."

Even a change of identity?