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.

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Well I Never!

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

One of my customers in Johannesburg

Got on a plane to return to the UK from Johannesburg, met one of my customers at the aircraft steps. I have a fishmongers shop in Reading, Berkshire, and didn't know this man socially. He went to first class, I didn't!

A Rainy Day Coincidence

A couple of years ago I made a train trip from Haslemere in Surrey up to London on business. When I reached Victoria Station I realised I lacked a vital piece of information and the only person from whom I could obtain that information lived in Southend. I rang his landline and his mobile but both were on answerphone. Undaunted I took a taxi from Victoria to the Old Brompton Road. It was pouring with rain, really hard. When the taxi arrived at my destination I paid the driver while still in the cab, got out of the cab a\d with my head down against the pouring rain, I sprinted across the wide pavement into the bulding. Half way across the pavement I collided quite violently with someone walking along the pavement. Yes it was the man who I had been trying to call in Southend who was in London on a different mission. Two seconds either way and I would have missed him. It made quite an impression on my brain!

Shopping

I was at home (in Devon) reading a fashion article in the Times about a raincoat on sale in Miu Miu in Covent Garden in London. My son lives and works in London so I rang him on his mobile to ask him if he should happen to find himself in that area to buy it and post it to me. His reply was that he was in Miu Miu at that very moment standing next to the raincoats I was referring to. He is somebody who is not very keen on shopping so that made it more of a surprise.! I got my raincoat. Isobel Langton

One of my customers in Boston, USA

Checked into my hotel in Boston, USA, turned around and there was one of my customers of my fishmongers shop in Reading, UK. The room he was allocated was next to mine.

"Indian" restaurant waiter in New York

Went to an "Indian" restaurant in New York, trying to get away from all that bland food they serve in the USA (or did then). One of the waiters greeted me with pleasure, he was a waiter moonlighting in New York, he usually worked in my favouring restaurant in Reading, Berkshire.

Mike in Sydney

We were going to be in Sydney, so was our neighbour Mike. He was on business, we were on holiday, so we didn't make arrangments to meet. We didn't stay in a tourist area. I went to a nearby bar (the only one that served anything but lager). I saw a coach draw up and decided to leave as I wanted a quiet evening. On the way out I met Mike, who introduced me to the crowd he had arrived with, they were all oil industry people having an after-conference drink - all different nationalities. They didn't believe we were neighbours back in England, until one of them, a Korean, said he had met us back in England at Mike's house.

Mustapha, Turkey

We had talked of going to Turkey for ages, and in the end we drove there (in a Mini Clubman). We talked of meeting up with our friend Mustapha, who was going to be in Turkey, but he wasn't a good friend, he was a customer in our fishmongers shop. But he did give us his phone number, in case we decided to meet him in Turkey. Once we got to Istanbul we drove around, got lost and ended up at a place near the sea where a lot of people were swimming. We saw a phone box, started to make the call, looked up and saw Mustapha swimming. We didn't know the suburb that Mustapha came from (it was called Pendik) and we didn't have a firm commitment to contact him. Kevin Little

a pea in a pod

My second strange coincidence ( after the one in Barcelona ) occured when I was in my early 20's and working with disadvantaged children in Newcastle. We had taken some children on a caravan holiday to Berwick-upon-tweed. I was out walking with one of the children ( J ) when I told him that I had a strong craving for peas in the pod! I then said why don't we scramble down this cliff to the sea ( it was a bit tricky but we both managed it ) Then we saw a small pile of stones that someone had obviously placed there and right in the middle, you guessed it, a pile of peas in their pods! J gave me a strange look but he couldn't explain it either. We sat and ate the peas and then walked back to the caravan where I had to endure lots of jokes about broomsticks for the rest of the holiday. To this day I just can't explain this peculiar event and probably no one believes me when I tell them! But it was true!

Meeting after 147 years

Families meet unexpectedly after 147 years and 10,600 miles apart In July 1980 I was with my husband, Philip O, and our thirteen-year-old daughter in the nave of Westminster Abbey, examining the memorial of James O (1715–1769), when we were approached by a couple from Australia who asked Philip if he could translate the Latin on the brass for them. Robert and Addie O were visiting England hoping to find out more about their family. Realising that we were related and astonished that we should have been visiting the memorial at exactly the same time, we invited the couple to join us in Cambridge a few days later. Philip was able to show them a detailed family tree and explain that neither he nor Robert were direct descendants of James O in the Abbey but that they did share an ancestor, William O (1744–1823), who was a first cousin of James. William had four sons; the second, John (1788–1848), was Robert’s great great grandfather. The fourth son, also named William (1795–1876), was Philip’s great great grandfather.

Minster meeting

We had gone to York to visit our son for Christmas and decided to go to the Nine Lessons and Carols Service at York Minster on Christmas Eve. You have to get there early because is gets filled up very quickly. I began to have a conversation with the man who I ended up sitting next to who I had never met before. He began to tell me that he and his wife were also visiting their children for Christmas and had so enjoyed it two years previously that he wanted to be there again. We chatted further and I found out that he was retired and had worked for the ICI paint division in Worcester. I new someone who had also worked for the same company and in the same division. I asked him if he knew a Frank Rumball to which he replied "You don't know him do you?" They had worked together in the past and was so surprised of the connection.

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