Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Les deux Pierre

Pierre Nolen, Free French pilot, and Pierre Aymard, Free French navigator, flew bomber missions together during the war. Returning from one in a damaged condition their bomber crashed and burst into flame. Pierre Aymard pulled his unconscious pilot from the wreck and got him to hospital. Pierre Nolen spent weeks in hospital with crushed vertebrae and when allowed out in a steel corset was not allowed to fly. So he transferred to the Canadians as an interpreter, went in with them on the D-day landings and fought his way to Berlin.

Co-incidence on a pontoon in the Indian Ocean

I live in Notting Hill and I work in Central London in film and television. A few years ago, I was in a meeting at my office with a film producer, who I knew, and his colleague, a young girl who I had never met before. Their offices happen to be in Notting Hill. A week later I went on holiday to my favourite hotel in Mauritius, 6000 miles away from London. It's a very private hotel and in general the guests keep themselves to themselves. The day after I arrived I swam out to a pontoon that the hotel has tethered in the ocean off the hotel beach.

My landlady

I was living near York attending college and 2 Australian girls I knew were on holiday, got my landlady's tel no from my mother and rang her. She said I was at college and would be home at 16:30, but left them the address. She then went to York shopping. When she returned and when I got home, she said she was approached in York by a young lady who asked her if she knew how to get to the village and house in which she was resident. My landlady asked if she was one of the girls who had phoned her earlier. Of course it was.

Two Mums

In 2007 my mother, who was then 87, had a hip replaced at our local hospital. When she went into a medical ward to recover I was putting her clothes in the cupboard by her bed. In the drawer I found a list of clothes headed with a name I recognised. This was my friend's mother-in-law whom I have never met but as her name is quite unusual I checked with my friend and her mother-in-law had been in the same bed immediately before my mother and had forgotten to remove the list of clothes she had taken in for her stay in hospital.

Stellar!

I have always had an interest in coincidences and have noticed them over much of my life - one day I was sitting in a downstairs conference room at work talking to some colleagues about this interest and explaining that in there is a whole galaxy (as in large and impressive collection) of examples when a lorry stopped outside the window bearing the name 'Galaxy Removals and Storage' - this really made an impression!

Friends

As young person I liked to visit my cousin Alan. When I turned up he wasn't often there. My Auntie would say "He's gone to see his friend Peter." How I hated this Peter who, even after Alan had arranged to be there when I turned up, could still persuade him to abandon my visit, in spite of the fact it was across the other side of the city and two long 'bus journeys. As to Peter, I ended up being married to him. Ann.

Jo Mango and Ludwig

Cycling holiday with my son from Barra in the South to Stornoway in the North of the Outer Hebrides. On the third evening in a bar in Leverburgh, South Harris, I told him about a song entitled "Ludwig" by Jo Mango. At her concert in Edinburgh she had said "this isn't about Beethoven, he gets enough praise. It's about my favourite philosopher, Wittgenstein". I thought this was quirky and funny - and the music was haunting. The next day cycling along the dramatic, sparsely populated coastal road on the East of Harris we saw a sign to the Skoon Art Cafe.

Egypt /Clocks

Coincidence 1 I was born in Egypt. I heard Julian Fellows on Dessert Island Discs - He was born in Egypt. I had a DVD of an episode of Downton Abbey I had been unable to watch when broadcast. I had moved equipment into our large old country kitchen to be 'green' by cutting the house heating and relying on the AGA. I was disappointed to find the TV seemed to give the Downton cast jaundice, as everything looked rather yellow. I checked the Sony website for a phone number for technical advice - was it worth having the TV fixed or should I get another set? I phoned the help line.

Ed Miliband

As a prelude to this story, you should know that I am neither a member of the Labour Party, nor have taken no previous interest whatsoever in Ed Miliband! A year ago, I dreamt one night that Ed Miliband was my new partner and I was accompanying him on the campaign trail. I awoke and was very struck about how vivid the dream had been. Later that same morning the post arrived. I opened a letter addressed to me, and was shocked on pulling the letter from the envelope to see it headed `Ed Miliband'.

A day in court

In 1971 as a teenager, I fell in love and ran away with a man I had met at work in Birmingham -my but not his, hometown. We shacked up together in a miserable room in Bedford. It wasnt working out, and after a few months I went back home, understanding that M was also moving on - he was something of a hippy drifter. It became clear after a while that i was pregnant. My son was born in December 1971 and having no support I claimed state benefits. I was told in order to do this I had to co-operate in identifying the baby's father.

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