Cambridge Coincidences Collection

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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!

Hospital Coincidence

After getting married, my husband and I bought a flat in a small block of 6 flats. Shortly afterwards a new couple moved into the flat above us. It turned out that the wife (who was a retired nursing sister) had been a sister at the private hospital where I had had an appendectomy some 12 years previously, and she remembered me as a patient and I remembered her as the kindest nurse who looked after me.

Cosmic Synchronicity

In likgt of the recent Ship disaster I note that it is exactly 100 yaers to the day - 3 months since the Titanic sank . It should also be noted that the Titanics tradgedy was written about some yeasrs before On the subject of editorship there was an article on the Titanic in last saturdays express newspaper I doubt that this was put in purposely as most saturday editions would be worked on on Thursday also I think the ownwers of The express would see that it would be in Bad taste to publish htis story in light of the Italian sinling We may decry Astrology and Intution but perhaps there is a sort of cosmic clock or one might say it is just the marker of mankinds repeated stupidity and Hubris

Mr

I have 2 coincidences to share. The first one concerns ............ Entrance to Cambridge University in the 1960s. In July/August 1962, on completion of my O Levels at Midhurst Grammar School, West Sussex, I obtained a job in a bar in a camp site in south western France. There, in early August that year, I was contacted by an English tourist and his wife who were having car problems. I put them in contact with the local agent for their make of car, it was a British Austin something I remember, the part was obtained and the repair made and they went on their way. 2 years later, on completion of my A Levels, I applied to Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to read Modern Languages. I was successful. That same British tourist from the French camp site in 1962, turned out to be my Director of Studies at Fitzwilliam although he was on leave at the time of my interview and I was seen for interview by the Master of the College who was also a linguist. We therefore didn't actually meet until I came up in October 1965.

Mrs Chris Gough

(1) A lady came to our WI meeting and joined on her first evening (there are around 70 members). She sat next to me and, as she is blind, I offered to put her name in our birthday book so that she could have a birthday buttonhole in the appropriate month. Amazingly, her birthday is on the same day as mine (20 August) but we are a number of years apart! (2) I had received a circular from a dress shop about 10 miles away which advertised a pre-season sale. I went to browse and, apart from two other customers, was alone in the shop. One of the other customers complained to the manager of the shop that she hadn't been notified of the sale and had heard of it from a friend. The manager checked the circulation list for the mail shots and said that she had two people with the same surname - Gough. So there we were, together in one place! (3) We live in Chipping Sodbury, about 12 miles from the centre of Bristol. We parked near the centre one evening, only to find when we returned to our car - 5 years old by then - that the car in front had a registration number only one digit away from ours - WP56 rather than our WP06 with the same three last letters.

Double Trouble !

April 1997 I was admitted to Papworth Hospital for an angiogram. Whilst waiting in the ward prepared for this procedure I was first told that it would be about 12 noon. Later the nurse came in and said that it would be 1.00p.m. Obviously there was some confusion. On arriving at the theatre on the trolley, the Porter said " we had another Peter Redman here about an hour ago" .Before he could elabourate however I was wheeled into theatre and forgot about the comment. The following day a friend came to the hospital to collect me . He was directed to another ward where he found the name Peter Redman on the nameplate. Knocking on the door and walking in he called out that I should get my ass in gear and get out of there. He was amazed to find that the other Peter Redman was sitting in his dressing gown looking bewildered. With a name of Redman this has to be some coincidence.!!

AVRO - A PILOT'S STORY

I grew up in a pub in the East End, its back door opened on to the tow path of the River Lea The Lea Marshes were on the other side of the river and about half a mile upstream a railway crossed the river. Circa 1909 young man named Alliott Verdun Roe used the railway arches as a work shop and here designed, built and flew the first all British aircraft to fly off British soil. The local council, Leyton, thought he was a crank and asked him to leave. He returned to Manchester and there built the first factory designed for aircraft construction, AVRO's This was in 1912. I was born ten years later in 1922. Circa 1932 a Flying Circus arrived on the Marshes. It was owned by Alan Cobham and here I saw my first AVRO. Another 10 years on to 1942 and I got my Wings as a Pilot in the RAF. The aircraft I qualified on was an AVRO Anson. In 2002 I was asked to give a talk on the Berlin Airlift. During research I discovered Sir Alan Cobham's company was on contract to fly AVRO Lancastrians. I was flying Dakotas when the lift started but 'converted' to Yorks for the lift. Yet another AVRO aircraft.

colleague's home

My husband and I live in Oxford, and decided to have a walk in the countryside. We chose the only walk nearby in a book of walks we have that covers all of the UK. We started our walk in the town of Charlbury, where I know one person - a colleague. I didn't know where in Charlbury she lived. Ten minutes into our walk, down a farm track on which there were only two houses in site, the door of one of them opened and my colleague Sarah walked out. She hadn't come out in response to my walking past, just happened to be coming out of the house at that time. It was ca. 11:30 am on Sunday 15th January 2012.

Address

My sister lives in a little place called Yanchep, in W Australia, at 6 Nautical Court. A friend in Wirksworth, the small town in Derbyshire where I live, had a relative in W Australia. Her address? 7 Nautical Court, Yanchep! It turned out that she and my sister were celebrating their Golden Weddings one day apart, and that both had 6 children. They had recently had a trip back to Wirksworth as a Golden Wedding present from the family, and had extended their stay slightly to go to a niece's wedding. The officiating minister? Me!

meeting the neighbours

we were on holiday in florida and we were in a q waiting to get a table in a beach cafe when a couple came up behind us and were told it would ta ke about 30 mins for a table i suggested as we had a table in 5 minutes they could join us which they did.we then discovered that they lived 6 doors away from us on a golf course in an out of the way road,we also had many joint friends. several years later in florida i went shoppin g to a mall 30 miles from our flat.i left my wife and sat on a bench as i was tired and started talking to a lady who wa s staying in the same flats as us,not only that we went for a meal that evening about 5 miles frm home and met the same lady and her familly. about 10 years ago when in china my wife persuaded me to meet her in hkong.we met and when shopping and a friend who i had not seen for 30 years was walking behind me with a customer who i met 2 weeks before in portugal. there are many other time when these things have happened to me where the odds seem millions to1 but obviously they are not .

fear of flying

I used to enjoy flying to sunny places for holidays but after my brother being involved in a plane crash and the birth of my children I became very fearful of flying and had reached the point where it was impossible for me to fly. My parents had a house in Majorca and after a miserable winter my husband said that we were going to go for one month that summer and it was up to me to decide to go or not. My only option other than traveling by bus for 2 days alone was a fear of flying course, so I signed up for the one in Bristol Airport. I arrived very anxious but soon fell into conversation with another anxious lady and it turned out she lived in the village in Wales next to the one I had grown up in, it also turned out she was married to my first love (I did not tell her this) we got on really well and went into the room for the presentation. The key speaker was called Tim Lloyd, which was odd because my brother is called Tim Lloyd. Eventually we got to the airport and the security guard called me over and it was Sarah a lady I had worked with in a school for 3 years but had lost touch with.

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