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!

Mrs Virginia Heredia

My great, great grandfather arrived in the north of England from Transylvania, in the 1800s. He married an English girl in the parish of Stockton on Tees in 1848. Three years ago, my son married a girl from Stockton on Tees and last year their son was born and registered in the same parish

The piece of puzzle

Every year when our family meets for Christmas we get out a large wooden hand-cut puzzle of the British Isles. This puzzle is probably 60 years old, about 3' x 5' and contains many hundreds of pieces. It is completed by anyone with a spare hour or so over the days that we are together. This last Christmas we discovered a few shreds of wood on the floor of the kitchen - a sign that my sister's dog had found a dropped piece on the floor and eaten it. This was sad as up until then, the puzzle had been complete. We had to wait until we had finished the puzzle before we found out which piece was now missing. It turned out to be a small piece from the middle of Wiltshire - and exactly where we were spending Christmas.

Death coincidences

My wife's father died on Easter Sunday 2002 of a pulmonary aneurysm. He went suddenly and peacefully and his death was totally unexpected. We had been to visit him and he died the following day. The fact that he was a vicar and died on Easter Sunday was a kind of reassuring coincidence, but a bigger one was that my own father died the following Easter of exactly the same thing. He also went suddenly and peacefully and it was totally unexpected. It happened the day after he had been round to see us. His last words, so my mother said, as she phoned 999, were "I don't need an ambulance".

Australian connection

About 30 years ago I did a 6-week locum in Brisbane, Australia (during a year's amalgamated annual leave from my normal job). As I was the locum I of course had to do the Saturday morning sessions in a clinic on the outskirts of the city. On the first Saturday I arrived fairly early as I did not know how long it would take me to drive there. The clinic was in a small shopping precinct which included an estate agency, so to kill time I was looking in its window comparing prices and properties with what I might find in the UK. A man rushed out and suggested I came inside. I explained I was no use to him as I was only filling in time. We both recognized the other was English and after comparing notes it turned out that until he emigrated he had been running the fish and chip shop virtually opposite the hospital in Carshalton Surrey where I normally worked (and in fact did so for the next 25 years).

Meeting in Turkey

About ten years ago I was on holiday on the South coast of Turkey with my partner. We made friends with a man who had a boat and went out a couple of times with him and out to restaurants a few times. After the holiday we had no further contact with him and seven years ago, my partner died. Four years ago, I went on holiday with my sister and brother-in-law, to Turkey, about 200 miles from the place I had been before. In a restaurant, I recognised the man my partner and I had met six years earlier. He recognised me. We were both very surprised to meet in a completely different location and I was able to update him on what had happened to me since our first meeting. We have had no further contact but I often think of this coincidence.

Birthday coincidence

Richard S our ex next door neighbour shares his birthday with his daughter Helen. Not very remarkable? His date of birth is 29th February 1952 and Helen's birthday is 29th February 1980. I would love to know what the odds of that are.

day trip to London

A few years ago ,with a friend, I planned a day trip to London. The day trip was organised by my union. I booked 2 tickets by coach planning to spend some time in Tate Modern and site seeing. My daughter, who was at home that weekend, then informed me she was intending to spend that weekend in London visiting friends and would leave on Saturday morning returning Sunday evening. The coach left Cardiff early Saturday morning and my friend and I settled down for a pleasant day out in London. On the way we stopped at a service station for coffee. 45 minutes after leaving the service station one passenger realised she had left her purse behind at the cafe. The coach obligingly turned around and went back to the service station where the purse was retrieved. We set off again. On getting to London my friend and I started our tube journey to the Tate, However while we were waiting for a train my friend then decided she would like to stop off at St Paul’s Cathedral on the way. So we swopped station platforms for a different train. In a couple of minutes the train arrived and we duly got on.

Holidays

Many years ago my husband and I met a couple from North wales while we were on holiday in Minorca. A few years later we met them again while on holiday in Cephalonia. We met them a third time when we were holiday in Fuengirola, One holiday was in May, one in JUne and one in Sptember and we had had absolutely no contact with them between holidays. Each time we were stayong in the same hotel

Chance meeting in South East Asia.

I was in Quezon City in the Philippines and on a quite Sunday evening standing at the house gate watching the world go by. A young Filipino couple not known to me stopped and asked me where I was from. I answered, from the UK. They said that they had a close school friend that now lived in London and perhaps I knew him. I replied that I lived in Leicester some 120 miles from London and that it was unlikely that I knew their friend, they looked so disappointed I said " but may be I do what is your friend's name? They replied "Emmanuel" before they had chance to say his surname I said " not Tagulinao by any chance" to which they replied yes our Mother taught us in the same primary school class. I had known Emmanuel some ten years earlier when he studied in Leicester for a few years prior to moving to London. I took the name and address of the couple and gave it to Emmanuel when I was next in London. Needless to say he was very surprised indeed.

Meeting people I know in odd places

I guess most people have run into old friends in out of the way places and it hasn't happened to me for a while, but I thought the following might be of interest. I’ve met people from my old class at Weavers Comprehensive School (in a little town called Wellingborough) whilst walking through Lavender Hill London and also whilst waiting at a taxi rank in Oxford. Big deal. Well I also spent ten days at a Buddhist retreat in Hereford with a vow of silence for eight of those days. On the tenth day I got chatting to a guy who said he was from a little town I wouldn't have heard of...Wellingborough. Apparently he lived on the Kingsway, that's interesting I said, I live on the Queensway. And I also shared a taxi in London with guys from the Middlesex Uni rugby team. One particularly gi-normous guy starting talking about how 'his' team was doing, the Northants Saints. 'Are you from near there?' 'Yes, a little town you wouldn't have heard of ...Wellingborough.' He was pretty damn distinctive too but it just didn't register I'd seen him before. But the best was during a 9-month stay in Australia.

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