I'm having an issue with fitting a new front wheel to my front fork ends. The forks are about 1-2mm to narrow to properly accommodate the front hub. It's an older (70's Raleigh) so I'm guessing that's just how the spacing was for them back then. I can force the wheel in by bending them by hand slightly but i'm unsure of whether this is an acceptable thing to do. Sheldon Brown has a good article about spreading a frame.

https://www.sheldonbrown.com/frame-spacing.html

would it be possible to apply this kind of idea to my forks? Has anyone tried it sucessfully? and if so how did you do it? thanks!

Older Raleighs like yours used 94mm front hub spacing, and all modern bikes use 100mm. 6mm isn't too big a difference. Either just spread it out to fit the wheel in like you've be doing, or you could also cold set it by hand by grabbing both fork blades, pulling them away from eachother, and checking with a ruler. Seems a bit brash, but it should work just fine.