Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Almost all my coincidences are around travel: In 1988 I went to Berlin and bumped into a departmental field trip from my university, including many people that I knew. In 1990 I crossed paths with a woman while I was travelling in Finland. I had met her four years earlier when I spent some time on the kibbutz near Jerusalem, where she had previously lived for 20 years. In 2005 I was stuck at the ferry port in Turkmenbashi and chatted briefly to a Japanese girl there. Two months later I found her in a youth hostel in Warsaw. In 2006 I travelled for some time, from Ushuaia to Cusco, with a woman and a couple. Two months later I bumped into the woman in Lima and a month after that, the couple in Ciudad Bolivar. In 2008 I travelled in Mali and discovered our British driver used to perform in a travelling theatre group based in the north west of England, for which my Dad did props and cooking. On the same trip in Mali, I met a couple from Brighton.

My wife and I spent a fortnight's holiday on the Italian island of Ischia in the Gulf of Naples in May 2008. Less than a month later we spent a week on Mainland Orkney. One very rainy afternoon we were in Kirkwall, about to drive away from a car park, my wife spotted someone getting out of a nearby car. Despite the rain and hooded anorak she was convinced that she recognised her as the lady who had sat at a neghbouring table in the dining room at our Ischian hotel. I was sceptical but decided it was too good an opportunity to miss so asked whether she had stayed at the Villa Durrueli a fortnight earlier. She confirmed that she had indeed been there, and remembered speaking to us. Following a brief chat we went our separate ways, not quite believing what had just happened.

In the 1970s I booked on a music-making holiday. At the time I was a trainee paediatrician in Sheffield. Also on the holiday was a trainee obstetrician from Sheffield who I knew slightly. "What a coincidence" we said. My next holiday was cross-country skiing in Norway. You can guess who was also on that holiday. I then moved to Liverpool and a couple of years later met a lovely chap from Staffordshire who worked for British Coal. We duly married and, there being no collieries in Liverpool, I moved to Staffordshire and took up a post at Burton on Trent. And you can bet who was by now a consultant obstetrician at Burton.

Our first child was born at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, on 30th November 1970. For no particular reason, other than we liked the name, we called him Adam (Smith). Over the next month or so, I came across an article or a book review about the 18th century economist and philosopher, Adam Smith. Although I knew about him, I knew very little detail about his economic theory or philosophical ideas, and decided that under the circumstances, perhaps I should familiarise myself with his work. I was a member of Marylebone Library at the time (convenient, working at St Mary's Hospital), and I guess some time in December 1970 or early in 1971, I took out a copy of "The Wealth of Nations". It was a fairly new Penguin edition, the cover of which had been laminated. It had been taken out by one previous reader - on 30th November 1970! - a coincidence which has amused us, Adam and our friends over the years. I was reminded of it while listening to your session on "The Life Scientific" last week.