Cambridge Coincidences Collection

I have many reassuring and quirky coincidences in my life, particularly at times of major change and stress. When we bought our current home, the morning after we put a small deposit down to secure it, I was anxiously leafing my way through, what I thought was the classified directory looking for creche listings as I knew I would need to increase my hours of work to help pay for the mortgage and would need extra childcare. I was actually looking through the "C" listings of the residential telephone directory, which was spread out on the kitchen work-top when my husband phoned me from work. As I spoke to him my eyes were drawn to my left index finger, which was pointing to a telephone listing on the open tel directory. The listing had an address on the street where we now live. There are only forty houses on our street and it is in a city of a population of more than a million. The people at the address had moved house by the time we moved in to the street. I knew that their surname began with "C" but as they were no longer listed in the telephone directory for many years I thought I might have imagined the episode.

Sometime between 1970-1972 I was reading the Iris Murdoch novel 'The Nice and the Good'. For some reason I didn't finish this book and thought no more about it. 10-12 years later I got on a tube train in London and sat down. Opposite me was one of the female characters, even though I knew that she was a fictional character and only one I had imagimed there was some intensity or buzz to this recognition - it was her! But the weirdest bit was when she got off 1 or 2 stops later and a guy got on and sat in the seat next to the one she had vacated, got out his book and of course he was reading 'The Nice and the Good'.

I started my nursing training last year, while on my first placement, I visited an Electric convulsive treatment (ECT) suite at another hospital to do escort training-to prepare for the event of taking a patient to ECT (I had only recently realised while on placement that this treatment is still used-and was a little skeptical about it, but interested at the same time). while in the training (with other team members who accompanied me from my placement) there was a door open in the room that lead to some beds where patients would have the treatment. I looked up and saw my brother wave at me from that room!! I was very shocked at seeing him, then he walked past with a doctor-and said to me mums in the waiting room. One of my collegues noticed this interaction and said 'do you know him?' -I said yes he's my brother. I hoped that he wasn't having the treatment, and through the rest of my training this is all I could think of. My brother had been depressed for a while but seemed to be improving slightly, I had no idea he was being offered or wanted ECT.

I lived above a married couple for four years. They had a baby during that time and would often have a nanny come around during the week. We sold our respective properties at the same time, nearly a year ago, and moved away to different parts of London - without knowing where each other had gone. I moved into a large building, split into six flats. A fortnight ago I was off work ill and heard a car come onto the gravel drive. I looked out of the window and recognised the make and model as the one my previous neighbours had owned. The car stopped and after a while the driver's door opened. Out got my former neighbour. She entered the building and I heard voices. A moment later she came out of the building, so I went out to say hello. We had the usual "what are the chances of this" chit-chat and I asked what brought her here. It turns out the woman who lives in the flat opposite mine - who I befriended upon moving in - was my former neighbour's nanny. It was she that had been around to our old flat those years ago.