Cambridge Coincidences Collection

The coincidence to which I refer happened to me when as a fourteen year old boy I lived in Plymouth and the incident occurred at one of the military defences constructed to the North of the City during the war with France in the early eighteenth century. At this time a chain of forts were constructed, each fort being linked to the others by a high defensive bank of earth. The incident of which I write occurred at a defensive bank close to the entrance of the fort known as Woodland Fort, which is located in the Plymouth district of Honicknowle, on the Crown Hill Road. At the time a section of the bank existed some 50 to a 100 metres long and some two metres plus high. It ran parallel to the tarmac carriageway with some 4 metres of rough unkempt land, between it and the carriageway. It was 1944 and as street cleaning was somewhat in abeyance in wartime Plymouth this wide road side verge was filled with wind blown paper debris of every kind, in those days there was no footpath on that side of the road. The Crown Hill Road was my rout home from school, and of course as children would do we often took the high rout and walked along the top of the bank.

I did a poetry reading for the W.I and after the secretary said `I know you` I had arranged her engagement party to one of my lodgers in the pub I kept 48 years ago..

I traveled to London in the summer of 2010 to attend the showing of a 1920 silent film that was thought to have been lost forever until I tracked down a copy in Montreal. The morning after the film was shown, I was searching the Internet to check some facts for a thank you email to the organizer of the screening when I came across an archive reference to a 1917 letter by the author of the book the film was based on. I ordered a copy from the archive and was astonished to find that it was about the author's latest book -- the one the film was based on. The author's letters are extremely rare and I had only been able to find two others after extensive research. Another strange coincidence linked to the film: I discovered the 1917 letter while staying in a B&B just around the corner from Knightsbridge tube station (an area of London I had never stayed in before). I later discovered that one of the actors in the film had died in the same station in 1933 at the age of 51 after having a heart attack and falling down the steps.

Whilst serving on HMS Ark Royal in 1988, I was given 7 days shore leave from Brisbane, Australia, and decided to use it travelling down the east coast to Sydney, where I would meet the ship at it's next port of call. I took the overnight train down from Brisbane and arrived at Sydney at 6am. Desperate for a bite to eat and a coffee, I went into the only open cafe opposite the station. I placed my order with the waitress, and on noticing my English accent she asked where in the UK I was from. When I said Bournemouth, she remarked that her family had emigrated from there 15 years earlier. I told her the district of Bournemouth, which was Queens Park, to which she asked "Which Road? I told her Richmond Park Avenue. Yet another match. So the first person I spoke to in Sydney.. 1 Came from the same town 2.Lived in the same road just 20 numbers apart 3. Born in the same hospital 4. Went to the same junior school as me, tho 3 years later. 5. She had dated one of my Sunday football team team mates as a teenager.