Cambridge Coincidences Collection

In February 2009 I went to see a comedian at the Arts theatre near Leicester Square (LS), London. Afterwards we left, walked to LS tube where my friend went into the tube and I started walking up Charing Cross Road to Tottenham Court Road tube. There were lots of people walking towards me so I crossed the road to the other side and continued walking. I passed an Aberdeen Angus steak house (AASH) and noticed outside 5 or 6 business cards lying on the floor as if they had been dropped. Some face up some face down. I walked past, then decided to return to them. I picked up one that was lying face down....turned it over....and it was my business card!!! It was very eerie indeed. I checked out a couple of the other cards and didn't recognise the names but did see they were of different people. Some were from the (insurance - ironically) industry that I worked in at the time. I worked near St Pauls - so not near the AASH. And I had got to the comedy club by a totally different route that night so had not passed the AASH on the way. I hadn't even given many business cards out. It still seems wholly unlikely even now.

In the late 1980s The Observer newspaper asked people to send in their coincidence stories. These stories were then collected and published. I read an article about the book and, though interested in the subject, I didn't make a note of the title. Over the next few years I tried in vain to find this book. I never found it. In 1991 I was working for the Edinburgh Science Festival. One of my tasks was to drive someone around Glasgow. My boss sent me off to buy a map of Glasgow. I walked to the nearest bookshop and, on my way to the map section, stopped at a trolley stacked with discounted books. I spotted a book about the occult / unknown and had a look to see if my elusive book on coincidences was mentioned in the bibliography. It wasn’t, but the bibliography did contain a book called “A sense of Something Strange” by someone called Archie E. Roy. It looked interesting so I made a note of the details, bought my map of Glasgow and headed back to the Science Festival office. When I got back to the office my boss was on the phone. The conversation seemed to be drawing to a close. “O.K. Archie…….thanks…yeah…..

Fifteen years ago I met a girl in a nightclub in Central London, we talked for 10mins and she told me something that made her distinctive and an interesting character. Saw her once again a few weeks later but we never spoke. Ten years ago I was at a comedy pub in Greater London and there was a girl heckling the first act from the front row. During the break I was stood next to her and thought she seems an interesting character I ought to speak to her, but we never spoke. Nearly three years ago after breaking up with my ex I decided on new year eve that I would like to meet these two interesting characters again. But how, as I met one once but did not know her name or could not remember what she looked like , I never spoke to the other and could not remember what she looked like either. But I decided I would goto the nightclub again and goto comedy nights .... and leave it to chance/fate/whatever. But I didnt have the money to go out (newly single), until it got near valentines then I had an urge that I must go out. So I went to an anti-valentines night.

In the late 1960s I was sitting in Nottingham Eye hospital with waiting for my injury to be attended to, when the clerk came out and called "Mr Teale", and the man next to me got up as well. We have never met before or since; I was originally from Worcesterhire, and he was from Hucknall. Same name, same place, same injury.