Coincidences

[dreampolice]

I love coincidences and over the years I have had quite a few. I experienced one this week. We were sat at an outside table of a restaurant in Avignon and a couple sat at the table next to us. She was one of those chatty types. She said she was from Swansea and my wife mentioned that I had relatives on The Gower and told her they were from a small village called Bishopston. On chatting she knew my cousins from when she went to school with them. What are the chances of that?

One of my favourites was from when I was at police training school near Ipswich. One weekend myself and a friend caught went from Ipswich to London for a day trip. As we were waiting to board a tube, the doors opened and off stepped my mum from that same door as I was waiting to get on. She decided to also visit London for the day from Cheshire with a friend. Neither of us knew that the other was going to be in London.

What are yours?

[davem399]

Many years ago while on a ship, I was chatting to the catering officer and his wife.  At sea, one of the first questions everyone asks each other is where are you from.  I told them that I lived in Ramsgate and his wife said that her aunt also lived in Ramsgate and that her next door neighbour was a seafarer.  It turned out that was me.

A second one from me.  A few years ago, me and my mate were on the Kennet and Avon canal on the canal boat in which I have a part share.  We stopped to top up with water and this chap came walking along the towpath with his dog.  “Morning Dave and Andy”, he said to us.  It was a mate from our cycle club who was holidaying in his camper van just a couple of hundred yards from the canal.

[John Farrell]

Here's one from a workmate...he was on holiday in Europe, and finished his travels in London. He was walking through the concourse of one of the city's railway stations, when he bumped into an English chap who had worked with us, here in New Zealand. The English guy explained that he was only in the station because his motorbike had broken down outside.

[gray1720]

Back around 2000 I went to the then-Public Record Office at Kew researching various relations, and intended to look up the Navy service record of one of them, who had been killed in WW1. I ordered the appropriate register, and was told it was out to another researcher but, as he had a number of them out, the chap at the desk would check with him and see whether I could look while he was busy in another register. A few minutes later, desk chap reappeared and said that was fine, he'd show me where.

So there I was in this room with a chap who had about thirty huge volumes - each probably bigger than A0 and a good 4 inches thick - and as he rummaged for the right one we chatted as you do...

...we were looking for the same man!


I was interested as he was family while Dennis F. was freelancing for the Submarine Museum, copying all the service records of submariners lost in .

[mick]

Two from me.
1. I live in Kent and was on holiday on the North York Moors. I visited the info centre and the first people I met were the parents of my Grandson's friend who live about 100 yards away in Kent.
2. I was living in Cardiff and working in Edinburgh for a few days. My sister was on holiday in Edinburgh so we had dinner together. When I got back to Cardiff my wife asked who was the woman I'd been seen with in Edinburgh. My sister and I had been spotted by a neighbour who didn't identify himself.

Mick

[peterob]

I have had two line managers who turned to have attended the same school as me (Watford Grammar) one of whom, at one time, lived in the same street as I did.   All years apart of course.  

[dreampolice]

On a train travelling in either Yugoslavia or Greece (we were travelling between the 2 countries) when I was 18. Got chatting to another group of backpackers. One of the lads in the same train compartment recognised me and my mate. He was at our school until he was 13 when he left to go to another part of the country.

Same trip, chatting to a Greek girl on a bus and she asked where we lived. Turns out she had a pen friend who lived next door to where he lived until a few years prior.

Stood in a square in Venice. Bumped into a guy who we knew from the pub back in UK.

On the overnight ferry from Greece to Italy (where we had to sleep on the deck) a lad stepped over us and he knew my mate.

On a motorway and my music was on random. As I passed a lorry the song The Messerschmitt Twins by OMD started playing. The lorry I was passing was a company called "Messerschmitt" and it was written on the lorries curtains.

In our village lives Peter Hook the ex bassist from New Order. Again music on random and a New Order song started playing at the exact time I drove passed him out walking his dog.

[zx9]

I am no good at recognising people out of context, so who knows who I have walked past in the street, whoever they were they probably think I am ignorant.
As a counter to this I try to not do anything on holiday that I would not do at home.

[dreampolice]

My current next door neighbour is a retired gynaecologist. When we spoke to them and learnt their names, my wife realised he'd seen her fufu many years previously. I don't think he recognised her though!

[nickr]

About 30 years ago, we walked the Dales Way with some friends. We camped in a field next to the church in Hubberholme, a hamlet in North Yorkshire. When I emerged from the tent in the morning, I bumped into a guy walking his dog. Who I worked with in Coventry. The guy, not the dog...
Later on the walk, we went into a pub in Sedbergh, and bumped into a couple we had met on Crete a few months before.

We bumped into the friends we did that walk with in Boulogne on one occasion, not knowing they would be there.

We found some other friends in Bruges another time - our son was wearing a T shirt they had bought him, and they had just been buying a gift for us.

My dad once bumped into his sister in Paris - my dad was supposed to be working in London at the time, my aunt was supposed to be at university in Holland.

[Fenris]

Aug 23, 2023 18:51:13 GMT dreampolice said:

I love coincidences and over the years I have had quite a few... What are yours?

This happened on a five week cycling tour around Belgium, Luxemburg and The Netherlands. The route was completely random, no planning at all the only rule was that we left the place we camped at by a different road to what we arrived on.

Late in week four of the trip we got to the campsite, set up our tents and went off to get food and drink. Got back to the site quite late and after checking the bikes were okay we went to sleep.

I awoke quite early and could smell bacon being cooked, so I open the door on the tent and looked out... My maths teacher from high school who I hadn't seen for at least 10 years!

[dreampolice]

I have no idea of how one would even thinking about working out the probability of those things happening, although as it happens to a lot of us, some several times, perhaps the probability is higher than I think.

[Fenris]

Aug 23, 2023 18:51:13 GMT dreampolice said:

I love coincidences and over the years I have had quite a few... What are yours?

Another one... At Brisbane airport on the way to Sydney for a few days, went to get a bottle of water from the shop and in front of me in the queue was the butcher from the village store where I grew up. Hadn't seen him for 20 years or more.

[John Farrell]

After we moved into our house, 16 years ago, my wife got to know the neighbours. She got on particularly well with one lady, who lived across the road. A few months after we moved in, my wife's mother died, and we asked the neighbour to look after our letterbox while we were away, and told her why. On the morning that we were leaving to drive to Christchurch for the funeral, the neighbour arrived, with a copy of the paper with my mother in law's death notice, and told us that having read the notice, she realised she was my mother in law's cousin.

[nickr]

Oh, and another couple. Some years ago when our kids were fairly young, we were travelling back through France, and reached Reims. We hadn't booked a hotel, and went to an Ibis on the edge of town. Fully booked. They rang round for us, and sorted a junior suite at the Mercure in the city centre - at the price of a family room. Very decent of them. We toddled along, checked in, admired the two story room, parked the car - the car park had a car lift! - and decided to explore and go for a meal. Right outside the hotel was the guy who interviewed me for the Graduate Training scheme some 20 years before...

We found a pleasant enough restaurant for dinner, and realised we were at the next table to the next-door neighbours of our walking friends. We n't sure what to expect next!