1.
We live in a semi detatched farmhouse in a small village in rural Bedfordshire. Our previous neighbours moved out and another couple moved in. Talking over the fence a week or so later I explained that I had orginally come from London. They said that they had previously lived in London for a few years. I asked where: they said Teddington. I said that, although we had grown up in the Brixton area, my older brother had lived in Teddington for a few years before he moved to Cape Town....whereabouts were you? Oh a little terraced side-street called Railway Rd. Ok-ay..what number? No. 17.
My (STEP)FATHER WAS BORN ON jANUARY 26TH. I am the eldest of my mother's three children, but the only one not related by blood to him. MY ELDEST SON, HIS FIRST GRANDCHILD, WAS BORN ON JANUARY 26TH. MY HALF BROTHER'S ONLY SON WAS BORN ON JANUARY 26TH. Significantly, on my father's 65th birthday, my son was 21 and my brother's son was 18.
Some time ago I was working in Cambridge and needed to make a call from a public phone box (pre mobile phone days). As it had been some time since I had used the BT credit card I had forgotten the PIN code for it. I decided to call the help phone number to see if they could provide it for me. The phone was answered by a young man whos voice I thought I recognised. He ask me my name and when I told him he repied with "Hello Dad". I appears that unknown to me he had taken a part time job at the BT call centre in Bristol where he was attending university.
I was on holiday in Aug 1970 in Istanbul with 7 student friends we decided to go to Pireaus after a week or so of roughing it
I became ill (street food) and needed medical attention
The group had a bust up and didn't wait for me, they decided on Crete but my friend and I missed the boat, we got the first ferry available to the Cyclades and stopped off at Milos.
We didnt stay in the town and walk to a deserted beach a couple of kilometers away, there was a single tent on the beach.
We pitched camp and approached the other couple, the conversation went something like this
Me Hi do
Many years ago I worked with a young woman who I discovered was having her 21st birthday on the same day as me (29 March 1952). We were discussing the probability of meeting somebody with the same birthdate, but then discovered that our mothers were also born on the same day (2 March 1925)!
Back in the 1980s and living in Chester I sent a letter to the local Chester Chronicle taking issue with Labour politician Ken Livingstone. That weekend while on the way to visit inlaws in Stoke on Trent I was sitting in the refreshment room on Crewe Station where I waited with my wife for about 20 minutes for our connection. Over a cup of coffee I opened the Chester Chronicle that I had bought on the way to Chester Station at the letters page to see what had been published. Lo and behold there was my letter taking issue with the said Mr Livingstone.
I have a slightly unusual first name and an an unusual spelling of my surname. If I Google myself, I only expect to find myself. Until one day I found someone with exactly the same name. Not only that but he lives in the city where I was born and works as an engineer at the same factory where my parents met, when they were engineering employees there. My mother decided someone had stolen my identity, but it turned out to be a harmless genuine guy from Essex!
About 20 years ago we took our kids on a camping holiday in France, which was to end with a couple of days at a site about a 45 minute drive from EuroDisney, which we planned to visit. My in-laws had booked a mobile home on the site and we were due to rendezvous with them on our return from the Aveyron. We arrived, found the in-laws and were invited in for a cuppa. While mother-in-law was putting the kettle on, she said "Who are those rude children, looking in the window and pulling faces?" We looked and it was our next door neighbour's children from back in Lancashire.
My grand mother, father (her son) and step mum (dads wife) all died of natural causes, in different years on July 27. we all now check we are still alive at the end of that day!!!!
