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!

Same first name, school etc.

On my first day at work in a library in London I was introduced to everyone who worked within the organisation. However, in the reception area I noticed someone who looked familiar. On asking certain questions to her, I realised she had the same first name, attended the same school at the same time as myself as well as sharing the same religion! When we were at school in the late 1970s/80s, I noticed that she was on her own in the playground, the same predicament as myself. In time we became quite friendly.

A surprise meeting

My wife and I attend a dental practice 12 miles from where we live. We always exchange pleasantries with the receptionist but have never spoken more than that. On a weekend coach trip to Bruges in Belgium we saw the dental receptionist looking in a shop window and spoke to her. I don't know who was the most surprised.

You never know who will spot you!!

It was probably 1980, and we went for the day to Southend. The first time we had ever been there. A week or so later, a new colleague at work in North London asked if I had been to Southend on a specific date. She knew I had as she had taken at random a photo of the road running along the sea front, and captured our car driving toward her at that very moment. The registration number was clearly visible!

1955 missed train

It was in about 1955 and I was a student living in Leeds and took a girl friend to York for a day travelling by train. We missed our train back and I said that we could have a snack whilst we waited for the next train. WE went to the only eartery open and I spent all my money. I realised that we would have to catch a tram from Leeds station to her home but I did not have any money left at all and was too proud to tell her. I was struggling with an explanation as to why we should walk [a long distance] when the next train came in. We got into the carriage door in front of us and there, sitting in the carriage was my father. I did not know that he was coming to Leeds but he could and did give me money. What a coincidence!! Jerry P

Licence plate and road marker

In 1994 I travelled with a local coach company to Ireland from Fishguard to Rosslare for a holiday. On the return journey we stopped at a hotel near the Irish port and the coach parked on the road ouside. Next morning we set off and crossed to the UK and while on the M4 the coach juddered to a halt. The driver said that despite filling the tank with fuel the night before, it was empty. The fuel having been siphoned off while we were asleep in the hotel. The driver set off on foot to obtain fuel and the passengers congregated on the hard shoulder. Someone pointed out to me that the rear of the coach had stopped by a concrete marker with the number '975' and the coach's number plate was YSU 975. If the coach had gone 10 yards farther I would not have noticed the coincidence.

Chance meeting

After the 67th time of my asking her my wife agreed to marry me. I told friends of this and, naturally, they were surprised at her decision. One of them was a friend who was General Manager of the Shangri La Resort hotel in Fiji. He suggested we got married there. We agreed and arranged our trip which included a stay with friends in San Francisco. Whilst there they took us to Carmel, a resort South of San Fransisco. We spent a while walking around Carmel before going to the beach to relax. I lay on the beach with my eyes closed when I became aware of someone standing between me and the sun. A lady spoke and asked "How did the wedding go, Huw?" The voice belonged to a receptionist from a small surgery in Pencoed, Bridgend, whom I had told of my trip to Fiji. She and her husband had stopped at Carmel by chance for lunch and petrol en route from San Diego to San Francisco. Their trip was arranged after mine and they had decided to spend a few extra days in San Francisco. Is it not strange that you can never find your children on the beach and yet she came across me almost half-way around the World?

Bizarre reunion

I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa with my South African parents and family. I went to the local school, and I had close friend throughout most of my school years. Her parents had emigrated to South Africa from England and although she only lived a few blocks from me, for various reasons our parents had never met. With our houses being fairly close to each other we would generally walk to visit each other. When we were about 15 years old around 1974, I was at her house one afternoon and there was a terrific storm. I rang my father and asked him to come and collect me in the car. Later, we heard the doorbell go and knew that it was my father, but my friend's father answered the door. We heard a shout and sort of scuffling noises, and rushed to see what it was, to be greeted by the most extraordinary sight of our two fathers in an embrace and crying! The story behind this is as follows: both our father's had been prisoners of war in Stalag 8. My father was a South African soldier and her father was a British soldier.

Chance meeting

It is several years ago when we were touring with our caravan. We were staying on a small certificated location in Wales. When we awoke, parked beside us was a mobile home with an AUS sticker. Of course we said hello and how quiet they must have been when they arrived not to have disturbed us. During our conversation my wife said that she had relatives in Australia living near Sydney in a suburb called Penshurst. "That's where we live", said the Australians. My wife continued to tell them how her cousin had been killed duruing an electrical storm whilst surfing on Bondi beach and how his friend had survived but had been blinded. "We visit that young man every week", they told us. We hurriedly wrote a postcard which they promised to deliver (they were returning to Oz later that day). This they did and we received a reply to say that it had been successfully delivered.

Will S

A WW2 Coincidence My father gained his Emergency Commission in 1942. His room mate at Sandhurst was a chap called C. Their kit was packed up by the College batman. My father fought in the tanks in N.Africa, Sicily, Normandy, Belgium and France. He was invalided back two or three times. At the end of the war he was taken in his wheelchair to Lord's to watch the cricket. He felt a tap on his shoulder, turning round he saw C. Putting his hand in his pocket and pulling out a handkerchief He said "I've got a handkerchief of yours" the handkerchief had C's name on it and spookily had survived all the war.

Surprise meeting

My sister and her family were killing time in Covent Garden while their son took his girlfriend to Waterloo Station, Sunday 21/12/08. As the girlfriend caught an earlier train they were rushing through the crowded market toward their parked car on Waterloo Bridge when they bumped into our "country cousins" who hardly ever venture out of the Forest of Dean.

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