All roads lead to Hackney

18 years ago I travelled from Hackney, where I live, to Hebden Bridge (Yorkshire) for a small folk music event involving former members of cult psychedelic folkies The Incredible String Band. I went back to London on the train with the two only other Londoners at the event. One of them, Deena, turned out to have the same favourite author as me (Tom Robbins) and to have stood almost next to me at a small open-air concert by The Jam in 1981. She was also born and had grown up in Hackney - and I was working in the same small team as Tina and Barbara, two of her best friends from school. What’s more, a few years previously she had been interviewed for a job in a Deaf video project by the same person who I spent 10 years sharing a house with. The friendship might not have progressed much further than the train conversation, but it then turned out that her companion Arlette was on the same PGCE course as me, at the same university site, on the same day. This of course led to me, Arlette and Deena meeting up socially.... Deena and I have been together since then!