Cambridge Coincidences Collection

As of the 23rd May 2022 this website is archived and will receive no further updates.

understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

Many of the animations were produced using Flash and will no longer work.

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Chance(?) meeting Coincidence 1/24

It was a Thursday in October 1975 and I was packing the car to take the family for a week’s break in London. One of our neighbours, Zoe Hudson, stopped for a chat and it turned out that she and her family were going to London for the day on the Saturday. Naturally, as we parted, Zoe said, “ See you in London, then, Don.” On Saturday we went to visit The Tower of London: we were about to leave by one gate, changed our minds and as we came out on to the Embankment, there sitting on the nearest bench having lunch was the Hudson family !! (A few years later we spent a holiday in Devon. The Hudson's had moved to Barnstaple. We went to the swimming pool in Bideford and there they were again!!!)

So Strange

I was a poor inner city kid in the fifties. My father had died and left my mother with three small children. We were the poorest family in the street. I went to Lambeth Road Secondary School in Liverpool. In that school there was a teacher who really didn't like me. She called me the 'Dead End Kid'. I used to day dream of one day showing that teacher I was not a dead end kid. I used to fantasise about meeting that teacher as a grown up, sometimes I would be driving past her in a car (any car would do because at that time nobody owned cars in our neighbourhood) Or I would meet her and tell her about my art exhibition. I left at school at fifteen, got a job, met a boy, and forgot about this teacher, and forgot about those day dreams. We married and left Liverpool. My husband became a Hydrographic Surveyor and we went to live in Portugal. We were doing very well, and I had my own car, we were both very young I was 23 and my husband was 25 and the year was 1972. One day I drove to Barcelos. Barcelos was a little market town north of Oporto in Portugal, not far from where we lived in Esposende.

an unfortunate choice of client

There must be at least 50,000 inhabitants of Wrexham. There are about six or seven taxi companies in that town. The one I work for has around ten drivers available at any one time. So why did the father of my daughter's ex-boyfriend, (and by 'ex' I mean a potentially nasty piece of work that none of this family wish to have any further contact with) manage to get me as his driver when he needed a lift into town? Fortunately he did not recognise me.

Let the right one in

Celebrating a big birthday in Berlin, renting an apartment for 10 days, I was given a DVD of the Swedish film "Let the right one in". The next day my two daughters, artists in their twenties arrived, and I showed them the DVD on my laptop. The day after that we signed up for a Street Art Walking Tour. There were about 20 people on the walking tour, from all over Europe and the Middle East. Two guys in their twenties, from Germany and Denmark, both lived together in Stockholm, working as computer software designers. "Dad showed us a great Swedish film last night, "Let the right one in", one of my daughters said. The two guys replied in unison "We live in the housing estate in Stockholm where that film was shot".

Death Announcement

I had just received a text telling me a friend had died and immediately informed my wife, who was sitting in the same room and, at that very moment, doing a crossword clue which was "notice of death" !!! How weird! Colin

iPod synchronicity

I thought I'd try some candle meditation. It made me feel quite relaxed so I thought I'd try it with music after reading an article suggesting it. I always have my iPod set to random and it contains about 3000 tracks. The Finn Brothers song "Where Is my Soul" came up as the 2nd song during this meditation. The first verse is as follows. "wick in the candle what lies beneath look in the shadows and the spaces in between a vision ghosted appearing on my screen". This was so profound that I literally broke down into tears of joy and I'm was a 46 year old male who very rarely cries. I felt somewhat disconnected from my reality as I knew it. Quite hard to explain. Now I realise that the chances of the song coming up are 1/3000. But the chances of it coming up when I'm meditating to a candle? This was only the 2nd time in my life that I had tried candle meditation. Since then I have noticed a lot more of these so-called coincidences when listening to my iPod. It appears to have 'knowledge' as to what I'm thinking or what is happening in the world around me at the time.

Glove loss

In the 2009/2010 football season whilst living in south London I decided to go and watch Lincoln city play Barnet at Barnet. I travelled to Stockwell and took the northern line to high Barnet, travelling on the very front carriage. I got off the tube and arrived at the football about five minutes into the game. On arrival I realised I'd left my gloves on the tube. After the match (and with cold hands) I walked back to the tube station and got onto a tune (different platform) on entering the carriage I saw that my gloves were where I'd left them. As distinctive leather gloves they were definitely mine. I can only conclude that the tube had travelled the entire length of the northern line and back again without anyone helping themselves!

Teacher/Pupil Reunion

When we were children in the 60s my father worked for British Rail where staff members were often peripatetic and so we moved twice in two years - from Stevenage to Mansfield, then Mansfield to Nantwich in Cheshire. The son of some neighbours in Stevenage was a friend of my brother and in the same class at school. My father started working in Crewe and one day, by chance, met this friend of my brother and it transpired his father was also working there. Not that unusual really, as the friend's father also worked on the railway and, as a railway town, lots of people came to work in Crewe. My father took the friend's address and phone number and promised that my brother would contact him when our family moved to Nantwich. In due course, David came to visit us at our new home (as it turned out on only that one occasion). I had got into the habit of borrowing my brother's bike and riding it around the small council estate onto which our house backed. There were lots of small culs de sac on this route which I used to cycle up and down.

Unexpected Guest Book Entry

While visiting the Left Handed store at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, USA, I was about to sign the guest book; to find that the last person who had visited and signed their name in the book, was a pastor of a small church in the little village I grew up in in New Brunswick, Canada. San Francisco is on the opposite coast of North America .

Uncanny Parallel Names

When researching for a book in 1992 on the spiritual care of people with dementia, a hospital librarian left a journal article on my desk; that was written by a music therapist in the USA. The librarain had no information about who my grandmother was, or that she was the principle inspiration for my writing this book. When I looked at the author of the article; the female music therapist had the same first and last names as my grandmother who died in 1990.

Pages