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!

Crossing paths with close friends

We hadn't seen, or exchanged news, with some close friends in some months and had just arrived at our hotel in Menorca. We stepped out onto the main road and walked straight into our friends. The same thing happened, with the same friends, when we went for a day trip to Eastbourne - we walked into the same coffee shop as they were sitting in. The husband of the same couple worked for an electricity company and my husband and I went for a day trip to Marrakesh. There were a couple of hundred people on the plane/trip and we found we kept getting sat next to a particular couple, just by chance. In the end, we shared a horse carriage with them (just the four of us) and found out he worked for an electricity company and, guess what, was a close colleague of our friend, who he had been drinking with a couple of nights before the trip.

Down the Nile

We went on holiday to Egypt for a cruise up the Nile (just two weeks before the revolution!), and while we were in the luggage collection point, someone waved at me. I thought he must be waving at someone behind me (I didn't have my glasses on!). But no, he did mean me, and came over - I didn't recognise him immediately, out of context, but the penny dropped - we had met him and his wife two years before on a holiday in Crete, enjoyed each other's company and had met once or twice back home. We chatted, we were both doing a Nile cruise, different boats, so we shook hands and said 'Enjoy your trip' to each other, and parted company. We got to the boat, found our cabin, unpacked, then went down to dinner. Imagine our amazement when we saw our friends coming down the stairs! They had been transferred to our boat, as it was the middle of the heavy snow in 2010, and several planes had failed to arrive, snowbound in Manchester and Gatwick, so everyone on their boat had been shuffled about.

Crossing paths

We went on a cruise around the Canaries and Madeira, and wandered around Funchal in the warm winter sunshine. We turned a corner, and almost fell over the neighbours of one of our best friends, who live just two miles from us. They were doing a cruise of Madeira and the Canaries, anti-clockwise, and we were doing the same, clockwise,totally unbeknown to each other.

Saints United

We lost contact with a Breton student friend not long after he married, but, as we were going over to Brittany on holiday, I looked up his name on the Internet, found three with the same surname and initial, and wrote to the likeliest one near where he had formerly lived. It turned out I'd found the right Jacques, and he and his wife asked us to call and renew the acquaintance. We found the house, had a wonderful meal in the garden, with lost of chouchenn and wine and cider - a great reunion. Later on, in the house, Jacques asked where we'd been, and was puzzled by what seemed an eccentric itinerary. "Why those places?" he asked, and I told him I was researching for an article on the sixth century Celtic saint, Illtud, or Ildut in Breton, who was from my area in Mid Wales, and who had been very active in Christianising Brittany - we had wandered around visiting most of the sites connected with him.

Old classmates

My friend Tom was studying in Berlin, and his mother came to visit him. They were walking down Unter den Linden, whilst mother, worried that her son wasn't yet married, insisted on running through the names of all the girls he had known back in school in the Ruhr area of West Germany. Most of them were long forgotten, and Tom had no idea where they were or what had become of them. But on and on she went. "What ever became of Ursula ******? " she asked, and Tom put out his hand, stopped a passing woman, and said to his mother: "Here she is - ask her yourself!!!" Neither knew the other was in Berlin, and neither had seen or heard of each other in the intervening years.

New nextdoor neighbours; circa 1987

A family moved into the house next door and we introduced ourselves to them. During conversation we talked about several subjects including star signs and birthdays. The lady next door said that her birthday was the 10th February and I said 'that's strange so is mine'. She then asked what year and I replied 1943, she said 'that's very spookey so is mine'. She then asked where I was born and I told her 'Purley in Surrey',she then said thatshe was born in Croydon in Surrey which is only 3-4 miles from Purley

wedding date coincidence

My husband's parents and mine were married on the same exact date - 27th September 1937, although we never thought to check on the time! My father was in the RAF so my mother went out to Malta to marry him. Both families celebrated the Golden Wedding together at a venue which was roughly half way between Luton and Loughton, Essex, at a lovely hotel in St Albans, near the park. My parents thoroughly enjoyed the day, but my husband's mother was physically sick because of the excitement. Chris's parents reached their Diamond Anniversary, but my father, sadly, died of cancer before this.

Unpleasant but true

Around ten years ago I picked up an infection which made it necessary to see a doctor. He gave me a prescription which I took to a chemists shop. As I entered the shop I was glad to see that there were no other customers. Because the shop was empty the assistant was tidying shelves and listening to a song from a cassette player. The coincidence was that the infection I had was scabies and the song was Frank Sinatra singing I've Got You Under My Skin.

where I live

After my marriage broke up, I was living back with my parents until I sold my house and started again. The trouble with that was, I now lived in an area where I had not previously socialised so knew no-one locally. There are, as I found out, loads of internet dating sites and after Google came to my rescue, and a few false starts, I started a relationship with a lovely lady who lived 6miles east of my location. I also needed an income to continue paying my way and took a post as a nurse in a rural nursing home 20 miles west of where my parents house is. As my love life improved I moved in with my new lady and found that the house we live in is a former chuch house in King's Lynn. One day in conversation with one of the female residents in the home where I worked, it turned out that her sister also lived in King's Lynn and not only did she know the family of my lady friend, she was the previous occupant of the house where I now live and had sold the house to my lady 14 years before.

Mr M G Ellett

Darts evening Circa 1963 I was on an evening out playing darts with some pals at Chipstead in Surrey. One of the players brought along a friend and introduced him as Chas .During conversation I asked him where he lived, he explained that he had just returned from a short break staying with his uncle in Norwich. I said that I had never been to that area. He said that his uncle was a partner in a firm of quantity surveyors, I said that I also was a quantity surveyor. He said that his uncle had only recently opened the branch in Norwich, I said that I only knew of one person who lived in the Norwich area and said his name is Fred Chambers. Chas said ' that's my uncle !!'

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