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!

Parallel Montage

In 1975, I travelled to Namibia with two colleagues, Peter S and Kate M, for the purpose of covertly filming a documentary for SWAPO the liberation movement, conducting a struggle against South African occupation. Kate was the director and Peter and I were responsible for shooting the film; he and I had been working together for a couple of years prior to this. We eventually completed the film. It was distributed by SWAPO and fulfilled their needs, at that time; it was shown at the Edinburgh Film festival that year. Kate was later injured in a serious car accident and became wheelchair-bound. Over the years, she and I maintained occasional contacts, when I would go and visit her, but I completely lost contact with Peter. Every year or two, Kate would contact me with some development relating to new interest in the film, which held very little appeal for me but I knew to be important for her. In the late nineties - and I would have to check exactly when this occurred - Kate phoned me to say that the National Film Archive was interested in viewing a print of our film to decide whether they wished to introduce it into the archive.

birthday coincience

October 27th 1973 my 41st birthday. I was travelling in our car with my wife and two children on the A25 at Riverhead when - never having seen a JKS registration before we passed JKS 41 SPOOKY ?

Lesley L

How do I do that? I do not wear a watch. When out walking and about on various lengths of local footpaths it is not unusual to loose track of the time. There are no visual clues such as clocks on churches and the like yet I frequently estimate the time on my husbands watch within 5 minutes or less.

South China Sea...

In 1983 I stayed with friends of friends who were working in Singapore. One weekend, on my own, I went across the border to Malaysia and got a taxi to the port of Mersing on the East coast to then passenger on a supply boat to the resort island of Rawa. The boat trip lasted, I think, about an hour. There were other passengers and, while sitting on boxes of bottled water, I got chatting to a woman who's husband was on a short contract in Singapore and they were weekending on a neighbouring island to Rawa. I was living in Richmond, Surrey, at the time of this holiday. We both asked where in England we were from and she said they were living in Dorset. It is not a county I know well but I said I had a good friend fom Dorset, although she no longer lived there but her parents still did. When I asked where she lived, she said the name of a town. I replied that was near where the friend's parents had lived, and I'd stayed with them for a long weekend, and asked her if it was near Chideock. The woman said it was, but in fact they lived in a tiny hamlet with only a couple of houses and a farm.

In Australia 1976/77

I was going by myself to Australia and met a Canadian friend in we met on the way to Tasmania on the Quay. She with a Canadian Flag on her back pack and me with Everything in a Huge Backpack almost the same size as me!! I said are you going my way round Tasmania and she said Yes we met up with a couple of her friends and travelled to across the Nullabor together and couldn't believe that the view out of the window was the same for three days!! Then we decided to hitch hike down to Augusta and see the killing of the Whales that was allowed in those days!!! Horrific. We got a lift to Derby and waited for the Flying Doctor to come in which he did and we both too got a lift to the Kimberleys, she on one cattle station and me on another one owned by the Quilpy family. I was brought up in the country but nothing had prepared me for the size of the farms there! We spent some time rounding up cattle and cooking corn fritters! My Canadian friend was on the other station I felt that my father wasn't that well as I left so I felt I should go home. So we both gave in our notice and left.

All at sea.

I took a ferry from Kos to Patmos and was chatting on the boat to a woman who happened to be sitting next to me ( we were not with the same holiday company and had not met previously). We talked of this and that and the holiday in general and she asked if I'd found any good shopping or bought anything. I said I had indeed bought a very nice necklace, adding "But don't tell my bank manager." (It's phrase I never, ever use and in fact, as I said it, I wondered why on earth I'd said that of a £40 necklace.) As we continued to chat we got on to the subject of where we lived in England and what we did for a living. She WAS my bank manager.

A Night at the Royal Opera House in 1989

A lady friend had been given a ticket to a special performance of Ondine at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1989. The evening was arranged to celebrate the life and work of Sir Frederick Ashton the famous choreographer who had died the previous October. She asked me if I would like to partner her for the evening, but was unable to obtain a ticket for me. Nevertheless I managed to buy a promenader's ticket for five pounds. She took her seat in the stalls as I took my place standing at the back. We agreed to meet in the bar during the first interval, after which we returned to our allotted positions. As I was taking my place at the back of the stalls in readiness for the second Act, a young lady, previously unknown to me, came up and offered me a seat next to her in the stalls, explaining that her companion had suddenly been taken ill. I naturally agreed and followed her down the aisle. To my amazement, her companion's seat was immediately next to that of my friend who had initially asked me to accompany her for the evening. The theatre was completely full to capacity that night, with every ticket sold.

grandparents picture/ indian meetings

My brother found a waterclour of a house in the loft by previous tenants. I thought it looked familiar so took it to a friend as I thought it might be his grandparents house. It was not. I left it in the boot of the car and went on to other friends. On getting my case out of the boot, they said 'why have you got a picture of granny's old house in your boot?' I met a indian business man on a plane flying to Delhi from Bombay. We became friends and I visited him and his wife in Bombay. One year later I met him on arrival in Bombay getting off the same plane from Ahmadabad. His wife was meeting him and was not amused! A year later I bumped into him and his wife in Udaipur. She was still not amused Four years later I bumped into them again in a hotel in Jodhpur. His wife was very pleased to meet my new husband! I have many stories of coincidence in India. If someone I lknow is travelling there I always seem to meet them somewhere by chance , in that enormous country.

Andrew Sandor

Tory donor David Allen's ornamental garden was to have the HS2 line going through it. David Allen, who gives around £50 000 to the Party threatened to withdraw his donations to the Tory Party. The HS2 line will no longer go through David Allen's ornamental garden. What are the chances of that???????

A WEEK IN ITALY

About thirty years ago we took one of two apartments at a remote farm in Tuscany for a couple of weeks. We arrived to find that the other apartment was occupied by people who had, until about 18 months previously, lived in the house opposite to us. In the intervening period we had lost contact. They had been at the farm for a week by then. They told us that they in their turn had been equally surprised to find, on arriving there, that the apartment that we were now occupying had been occupied during the previous week by a couple who had lived in the same street as ourselves until about two years before, with whom both we and our neighbours had been on good terms. When our neighbours left the next week I awoke from a particularly satisfactory lunch to find that they had been replaced by someone who had been in the same barristers' chambers as myself. It was no surprise in the circumstances. I should add that during the same holiday we met two members of my chambers at roughly the same place in Florence at different times on the same day during our first week at Tuscany.

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