Cambridge Coincidences Collection

In the late 1960's I was working as a young trainee stockbroker in the City. One day I wandered over to a colleague's office to suggest we went to lunch together. He was talking on the telephone to a client about Marks & Spencer shares. When he finished he casually remarked that his mother had worked in the Chairman's office of M&S. I told him that my mother had worked in the Managing Director's office as well. Not expecting any positive result we swapped our mothers maiden names. When I got home I asked my mother whether she ever knew somebody called Valerie ....... when she worked for M&S. My mother told me that Valerie had been her bridesmaid and a good friend with whom she had lost touch. After my father had died in 1958 she had tried to contact Valerie but she had married, moved away and she could find no trace of her, although she had tried on a number of occasions over the intervening years. As a result of a chance remark by a colleague of mine my mother was able to contact Valerie and, as far as I am aware, they remained in contact until my mother died a few years ago.

A young girl leaves her village in Somerset to spend a 6 month working holiday in South Africa. Once there she immediately meets a South African and they are married within 6 months. They set up home together and buy a house. Meanwhile back in the Somerset village the Church Jumble sale collection is underway. The mother of the girl who left the vllage has a box of jumble to donate. There is a knock on the door.

I live in a particularly remote part of Lithuania. On Saturday January 14th 2012 I was sitting in my flat listening to BBC radio on the internet. I heard Prof. Spieglehalter's interview about this survey. An hour later I listened to a recording of the previous day's 'News Quiz', and I was enjoying the story about U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mit Romney's time as a Mormon missionary in France. The doorbell rang - this happens perhaps once a month as there are very few people I know out here, and all of those people were at work. Imagine my surprise to find that my visitor was in fact a Mormon missionary! Now I know that back in the UK I see one of these characters perhaps every other year - and I never expected there to be an active mission deep in Orthodox Lithuania, only 5km from the Byelorussian border. But how strange a coincidence for me to be in the flat, having a visitor who happened to be a Mormon AND a missionary at the same time as I am listening to a story broadcast 15000 km away about....Mormon missionaries!

In 1980 I was a PhD researcher in the Energy Research Group at the University of Surrey in Guildford. Mick Patterson, my colleague was in the next office-22BC03 to my 23BC03. He lived in Godalming, and I lived a few miles further South so occasionally I would pickhim up on the way to work. Godalming is upstream of Guildford on the River Wey, that enters the Thames at Weybridge. I rowed and coached the University Boat Club (which I still do) and Mick was an active member of the University Sub Aqua club. During the Summer I sculled in the evenings from Guilford Rowing Club. The course is short compared with our then normal training location at Walton on Thames. There is about 1KM of relatively straight river at Guildford to the 'Red Door' and then for safety reasons you have to go around a couple of bends and turn just below St Catherines Abbey ruins. One Thursday evening I was doing some pieces and resting at the turninig point. I noticed that the river was full of rubbish-papers , envelopes etc. A small brown package, banged against the side of the scull and started to sink. So I grabbed it and threw it into the bottom of the boat.