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!

Holiday coincidence

In 1970 I traveled from England to Central Finland to stay with the Syrija family who were farmers. I had finished my first year at Exeter University and they had a son, Kari who was 19, 10 months younger than myself. After 4 weeks Kari and I drove to Oulu, "North" known for its market. Kari bought a reindeer skin for me. We were then approached by a Dutch couple who were jugglers working their way around Finland. They couldn't speak Finnish and asked Kari to negotiate a similar skin for them..which he did. Two weeks later I traveled by train to Helsinki to catch a flight to Heathrow. I arrived in central Helsinki in the early evening heavily laden. The flight was the next morning and I was lost, no hotel and scared of being mugged. I sat on a low wall and held my head in my hands and said "please god help me". I immediately felt a hand on my shoulder and it was the jugglers!!!!!!!!!!! They were staying at a flat in Helsinki and they gave me their bed. The next morning they drove me to the airport. This accidential meeting reinforced my belief in " a God!" I have another tale to tell!

Double Trouble

After I had married my husband I found out that not only was my name, all 3 christian names, identical to his previous wife whom he had divorced, due to her infidelity, but his mother in law, my mum's name, and the name of our first born which we had named without knowing what she had called her first born.

Isolated place visit, then on TV

On Friday 13.1.12 with 6 other mountain bikers I did a route around the Calder Valley. After lunch in Todmorden we climbed north towards Keelham Heights stopping for a rest at SD937261, a crossroads for several routes. As far as I know I'd never been there before and on this junction is a stone carving of a head 9 or 10 feet high which I photographed. On Sunday 15. 1. 12 I switched on the TV at just after 5pm, rare in my case, I usually put it on much later but I wanted to watch the end of a recording I had made. A mountain bike instructor called Stephen Hall was being interviewed in front of the stone carving on BBC1, Songs of Praise which was from the Calder Valley. Dave

Tim Wilbraham

Some years ago I used to pick up/drop off, on my drive to work, two colleagues. One evening Sue was a little late coming to my car. Val and I chatted for a few minutes, and when Sue eventually arrived she apologised saying that she was late as it was Phil's birthday that day (a person working in her department). I replied by saying, "Of coarse it is, Phil and I share the same birthday, exact to the day." It was my birthday that day. Sue said, "That's odd, it's my birthday today as well." (Half my age though). There was a "Hey you two, are you trying to wind me up?" from Val on the back seat, "It's my birthday as well today." Three people, in the same car, with the same birthday - of 14th September!!!

Holiday waiter coincidence

In 1990, I went on holiday to Majorca with friends. Whilst there we went on a night out (cabaret, dinner etc) and they had a waiter who would pour wine from a traditional bottle directly in your mouth and you could have a photo taken. I did this, and bought the photo. On returning home I showed the photo to my parents who laughed and said they had done that as well, back in the 1960s, on holiday with friends, also in Majorca. Mum went to see if she could find the photo they had had taken which she did. The waiter was the same man! Older, thicker set, but undeniably the same man! (I have the photos as proof if required but as yet haven't got permission from my Mum for them to be used)

A message from the grave?

After my mother died I was sorting through her papers and came across the rough copy of an amusing poem that she had written and sent to me about five years previously. One of the lines said that she loved me, not a statement that she often made. Where I'd put the copy she'd sent to me I'd no idea. I returned home to Turkey and took the poem with me. A few days later I went upstairs thinking about mum and picked up the poem and sat down and re read it. A little later I went downstairs and into the living room where I saw a piece of paper on the floor. I picked it up and opened it to find that it was the actual poem that mum had sent me. How it came to be in the dining room and on the floor at that particular time I've no idea, but I like to think it was a message from my mother.

Birthday coincidence

Neighbours both had visitors with toddler twins (one girl, one boy). I invited them to a twin tea party. It turned out that the two sets of twins were born on the same day of the same year - May 10th - and that happens to be the birthday of my son (aged 43)!

The other side of the world

Many years ago I backpacked around the world. Before I left I would regularly discuss some my plans, as much as they were, with friends including a girl who told me her boss was interested in doing the same and would I mind if she shared some tips with him. I duly agreed and for a while, through her, we swapped a few ideas, but never met him before I left. Some five months later I'm staying in an out-of-the-way hostel on the edge of Sydney, Australia when another backpacker arrives. That evening we get chatting and he discloses he worked for the same (large) firm as my friend back in the UK. A little futher questioning and he turns out to be the very man my friend was passing tips to. I'd never disclosed my precise itinery; exactly where I was going and when, and certainly not which hostels I'd be staying in as I simply didn't know myself.

Mr.

In 1976, at home in the U.K. on leave from Thailand, my wife and I visited a friend in Southampton, who was working in a restaurant. He suggested he leave work immediately and that we all go on a journey to Stratford-on-Avon. This we did - and decided to leave for Scotland the next morning, where another friend was on leave. We found him in Glasgow that evening. The next morning we all left for Oban, and in Fort William decided to have a meal. During our meal, my wife pointed to the door - and there were two friends from Thailand, who had been at home in Newcastle, and unbeknown to us, had decided to visit Scotalnd on the same day. My feeling is that such coincidences are BOUND to happen and if they happen to you, like lottery wins, they are happy chances of life!.

time stood still

My partner was killed in an accident in May, 2007. Two policemen arrived to inform me of the terrible news, as sensitively as they possibly could, together with some of the details. It was absolute hell. As they tried to explain the circumstances, they gave the exact time of his death as 11.40am. I glanced up at my clock, which had stopped at 11.40am.

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