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!

Ms Bronwen P C

In 1980 at the age of 20, I sent in photographs of myself to Vogue magazine for a competition they were running...'To Find A New British Face'. I had already attempted modeling in London, but had returned to Wales for a period of 9 months, after which the plan was to return to study the hisory of art at 'The New Academy For Art Sudies' based in Chelsea. As luck would have it, I was one of ten finalists in the model competition, along with another young woman called Anita A. In the September of that same year I started my history of art course with approx. 30 students of varying ages from various parts of Britain - it was a privately run enterprise - Anita A also started with me and we became firm friends.

ps3

got a second game the other day from asdas "dante's inferno" took it home turned on me ps3 and to my surprize see one of me mates playing it.....now its a old game and was not expecting that.

MR

Regarding the article in the Mail on Sunday, 15 Jan. 12. I would like to tell you about the following two examples of coincidence that I have experienced. Returning home from work one Thursday- evening in the mid-eighties, I left the A1 to enter my village. Parked on the slip road was an old Cortina towing an even older caravan decorated in a lurid lime green colour. That weekend, about 70 miles away, I was walking along a remote country lane in Norfolk. Parked on the verge was the same car and caravan. I was certain they were the same because of the colour and age of the van, the make of car plus the combination of the two together. I live in a village 175 miles from the town in which I had grown up. Some years ago a family moved into the house opposite. Introducing myself I realised that the woman had an accent very similar to my own. It transpired that she was indeed from the same town, and when I asked what area she came from it was the same housing estate where I had lived. When I asked the name of the road etc., I realised her mother was still living in a house about 50 metres from where I had lived, although I had never met this woman or any of her family before.

Worlds collide

When I was 21 and a student, I flew to Boston to stay with a penfriend. On the plane I sat next to a lady from Plymouth. We got on well, exchanged addresses, and once back in England I went to visit her for a weekend. After that, we lost touch. 7 years later, when I was living in London, a young lady who I had tutored privately for her French A -Level went off to Exeter to study. When she came home the first Christmas I saw her, asked her how she was getting on and whether she had made any good friends???. She said she had, her best friend was called Caroline, from Plymouth. I got goosebumps and asked her if Caroline had a twin brother called Peter. She said "yes". So then I was not surprised at all when I asked her my last question " ..and is her mother called Beryl?" and she said "YES" Imagine how flummoxed both of us were to realise that she had made friends with the daughter of the lady that I had made friends with 7 years previously on a flight to Boston, and with whom I had stayed..and that I had indeed met her best friend already.

P.O.Box 115 Rochester

In l966, newly returned from living in Tanzania, I ordered a wig (very fashionable at the time). it didn't fit, so I jumped in the car, drove from West Kingsdown to Rochester, looking for P.O.Box 115!! Yes, I know, stupid, but ignorant was my middle name! I arrived in Rochester at a T-junction with a huge dark brick wall facing, no signs of any description to be seen, and decided to turn right. Between the first two buildings was a large entrance with a man standing on the pavement. When I asked if he knew where P.O.Box 115 was, he soon put me straight that this was not a proper address, and did I have any further info. "Wigs", I said. "You're in luck, I think there are wigs being packed on the second floor through here" ......... The very place I needed to be. Luck? Coincidence?

Long time, no see.

I was waiting for my flow light to let me turn left when, looking at the oncoming traffic turning right, I saw my friends dad ( Papa Smurf as we called him ). I was just thinking, whilst waving, that I hadn't seen him for around 15 yrs when I realised, as he passed in front of me, that it wasn't him. My green light came on, I turned left and after travelling about 50 yrds a car coming towards me was been driven by, you guessed it, Papa Smurf ( my friends dad, not the real Papa Smurf ). Amazing!!

Borthday and weight

My daughter Holly (now 17) was born on 7th November and weighed 7 pounds and 11 ounces.

Horror story.

During my teens I experienced a couple of nervous breakdowns which involved me seeing psychiatrists. My first one was Dr.Franks, when I lived up north in Blackburn in 1991. Imagine how terrifying, during my second major period of (already heightened anxiety & paranoia) when I met my new psychiatrist in South East London later that year & discovered he was Dr Stein!

wrong number, but identical name

I needed to have a Gas Certificate for my tenanted property and asked a local Corgi registered person to call my tenant, Will Jenkins, to arrange a convenient appointment time. I gave the Corgi man the name and mobile number of my tenant. A day later, the Corgi man rang back and said he'd come to inspect the flat but my tenant was out. He'd then called the number I'd given him and spoken with a Will Jenkins who said did not live in that town and had never heard of me. I then set about contacting my tenant, who I'd always found to be cooperative and polite, to find out what had been going on. In the meantime the Corgi man realised that he'd incorrectly dialed my tenant's mobile by one digit, and yet still spoken to a Bill Jensen! What a coincidence.

"Two for the price of one."

1. My cousin emigrated to Florida in the 40s and lived there ever since. On his only return visit in the 90's I took him to visit Hexham Abbey 30 miles away where he asked me a historical question I couldn't answer. "We need my old history teacher Harry R. to answer that." I said. "Hello Tony" said a voice behind me and there was Harry R. who I'd not seen for many years. He lived far from Hexham and was only there for the day. 2. I told my cousin that I'd married a country girl from a remote Northumbrian village and he asked "Does Margaret P. still live there?" Astonished I queried "After 50 years in the USA how on earth do you know someone who lives in mid Northumberland?" "I was evacuated there from London during the war." he explained.

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