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Post by nickr on Aug 24, 2023 11:33:40 GMT
And one last one. As students, my now-wife and I decided to spend one summer in Birmingham - I had a few things to do in the lab, my wife volunteered at a playgroup - Coronation Road Adventure Playground, in Selly Oak. All their sport equipment was marked with their initials - C.R.A.P.
Anyway, we found a flat in a house in Harborne, rather nice for students. The landlady lived above - a bit of an odd old biddy, who we for some reason nicknamed "Fanackapan" (and we called her cat "Potting Shed", as we could never remember the real and rather pompous name). A few years later, when we had started work and lived in a rented flat, she stood for parliament as a Green candidate in our constituency. She didn't get elected. But that's not the coincidence. A couple of years after that, my mum rang. "What was the real name of your landlady in Harborne, Fanackapan?" "Lesley MacKinnon", I replied. "Well she's died, I've just read her obituary, but did you know she was a schoolfriend of mine in Leeds? And she was Ramsay MacDonald's granddaughter."
And it was true. My mum and her had bumped into each other a couple of times over that summer, neither recognised the other.
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Post by Kath on Aug 24, 2023 18:11:26 GMT
On a camping hoiday in Normandy. I overheard someone calling for 'Erica'. Vaguely thought that my friend Lucy has a daughter called Erica but was too busy queueing to buy freshly made croissants to pay much attention. About six weeks later we're having a Summer BBQ at our house. My friend Lucy walks in and hands me a bottle of wine in a canvas bag bearing the legend 'Camping Le Brevedent'. I laughed, pointed at my identical bag hanging on the back of the kitchen door and expalined that I'd heard her but not seen her there.
Also in France. I was sitting outside a bar in Paris with a friend and having that conversation about how if you sit on the Champs Elysée for long enough, everyone you know will walk past when my neighbour walked past.
In London on a trip with photogrpahy students. Two of us found ourselves at a bit of a loose end and decided to play a bit of a game. Decide on an ISO as if we'd picked a film for our camera, split up and travel around the city while making no more than 36 images before meeitng for dinner in Soho where we could compare our shots. We could travel by any kind of transport we could find but the idea was to cover as much of London as possible before we met back up. We had the whole of London to choose from and where we went, and when we chose to take photographs was entirely up to us. We landed up in the same spots six times that day and on three of those, I found Colin talking to someone he knew. I was lightly teasing him about being Mr I Know Everyone Everywhere when my cousin tapped me on the shoulder to ask what I was doing in London. Not only that but we visited the same places at different times and took eerily similar photographs too.
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Post by dreampolice on Aug 24, 2023 19:25:09 GMT
Love all of these.
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Post by MJB on Aug 24, 2023 19:48:14 GMT
My dad worked with Martin Bone.
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Post by zou on Aug 24, 2023 20:03:47 GMT
My dad worked with Martin Bone. What are the odds? |
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Post by Ivor E Tower on Aug 24, 2023 20:38:41 GMT
Many years ago when my kids were at secondary school we were on holiday with my parents (we all live in Surrey) on Penang Island, Malaysia. We went to one of the "hawker food centres" for dinner one evening.... tables and chairs in the middle and various food stalls cooking to order around the perimieter. My younger daughter went to see what she'd like to eat and came back to the table saying she'd spotted one of her school teachers there... so we had to go and introduce ourselves. She was only there for a night or two visiting a friend who lived opposite the hawker centre.
A few years later we ere also all together on Penang Island and went for Saturday lunch with some friends of my parents. They happened to have a friend staying with them who was elderly and who lived in Australia. She was on her way to Kuala Lumpur. My mum started talking to her and the old lady suddenly said "I know you - you were my next-door neighbour when you lived in Singapore" about 65 years ago ! (and she was right)
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Post by lesleysm2 on Aug 24, 2023 22:25:10 GMT
48 years ago today as FB just reminded me I went to my first festival (Reading) and the first person I saw was a guy who was in my A level history class at college
A couple of years later walking down a pitch black country lane in Somerset on our way to Glastonbury, we heard some people in front us chanting "We're from the Cranbrook" and we shouted back "And so are we" turned out they were friends of ours from the aforementioned hostelry
The winner though.....Dave was living on the Isle of Dogs and hated it. We met at Mile End station to go to a gig at the Tunnel Club, which meant getting one bus then changing to another bus. This being the age of the old fashioned route masters somehow I got on and it pulled off before Dave could so I shouted at him to walk up the same side of the road and I'd meet him in the first pub he came across
It seemed quite a pleasant pub and we were talking about Dave getting a transfer off the Isle of Dogs (this was 1984 and it was a hellhole back then) and how this seemed a much nicer area and we noticed over the road someone was working on the building opposite and said it looked a nice building being end of terrace and not on an estate and wouldn't something like that be nice?
A few months later Dave got the transfer agreed and the first flat he was invited to view he accepted on the spot...yes it was the one we'd seen from the pub
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Post by lesleysm2 on Aug 24, 2023 23:24:18 GMT
And that's reminded me of another coincidence..when Dave lived on the Isle of Dogs most of the pubs were horrible, look I don't mind a bit of a dive if it's got character but they were the sort of places where if you weren't a "regular" you were left with the distinct impression the locals would like nothing more than to kill you*
There was one pub that wasn't too bad and when I started working at UCLH one of the senior PA's remembered serving Dave and me in there
(* true story I had a friend on the Isle and for some reason we were meeting at his local the "George" and I got there a bit early well I am not the sort to be uncomfortable about going in a pub at my own and I had a book so in I went. I am not kidding the whole pub fell silent, the barmaid served 3 people before me, 2 of whom had come in after me, I got the impression if I had not kept a careful eye on said barmaid she would have spat in my pint. I sat down and I could feel the burning glares I was getting. Door opened and it was my friend Mick, barmaid was "Hi Mick what can I get you?" Mick replied "I'll have a pint and Lesley what do you want?"
Atmosphere immediately changed suddenly everyone smiled at me and the barmaid said "You should have told me you were waiting for Mick")
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Post by lesleysm2 on Aug 24, 2023 23:35:01 GMT
Another couple my brother moved to Hastings and the accountant his company used turned out to be married to someone I used to game with in London
And again, in the smoking area outside the "Black Lion" and there was a guy wearing a Hawkwind T shirt so we got talking I asked if he lived around there
"No I live in Hastings"
I said the only thing I really know about Hastings is there's an area called "Bohemia". He then told me he'd just had his double glazing done by a company based there "The guy who did the job he was amazing and so helpful, Jim Madigan, couldn't recommend him highly enough"
Reply "He's my brother"
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Post by spinno on Aug 25, 2023 7:17:05 GMT
Coincidences- related to football, went to the Forest v Wolves League Cup Final (shall we dance Mr Shilton, Certainly Mr Needham) met a lad from school who I hadn't seen since leaving school, and then Ajax v Forest European Cup Semi Final met another lad from school...amazing in crowds of 10000 or more (well I think so)and there was another at Coventry v Forest 22nd April 1978
Our neighbour works with a lady who I used to run the church hall disco with back in the mid 1970's
There is another David Spencer who shares my birthday who had to have reconstructive surgery when I was in the hospital at the same time for the same op back in the 1960's
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Post by Kath on Aug 25, 2023 8:53:36 GMT
My dad worked with Martin Bone. We used to work with somone called Martin Bone. For a while I thought you might be one and the same but it turns out no. |
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Post by Fenris on Aug 25, 2023 10:10:17 GMT
Another strange coincidence... There have been several times when I've been to Cambridge, London and Oxford when I've bumped into Nickr ! He was even at my Stag weekend   |
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Post by geoffr on Aug 25, 2023 12:01:56 GMT
Another strange coincidence... There have been several times when I've been to Cambridge, London and Oxford when I've bumped into Nickr ! He was even at my Stag weekend How could that possibly have happened? |
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Post by nickr on Aug 25, 2023 12:48:38 GMT
Another strange coincidence... There have been several times when I've been to Cambridge, London and Oxford when I've bumped into Nickr ! He was even at my Stag weekend Even stranger, beer seems to have been involved... |
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Post by dreampolice on Aug 25, 2023 16:07:23 GMT
One from the old AP days. Fen posted a portrait of lady called Anne. I saw it and recognised Anne as a woman I knew. She was the sister of my brothers now ex wife.
not seen her for a while now unfortunately since it all went tits up with my brothers marriage!
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