Coincidence Continents Apart

In 1980, I spent a weekend at a hotel in Long Melford, Suffolk, a town I had never visited before, and, during my stay, I had some friendly chats with a girl who was serving behind the bar. A week later, I had to visit Kano in Nigeria on business. I was met at the airport by a work colleague, and, as we were travelling into Kano, he suggested on the spur of the moment that we call at the home of a British expatriate he knew who worked as the local Inspector of Taxes. While chatting to the Inspector's wife, I asked where they lived in the UK. She replied, "Long Melford in Suffolk - do you know it?". She was astonished when I told her about my first visit to the town the previous week, and added that her daughter worked in a local hotel. Pointing to a framed photograph, she said, "That's her"; and it was the girl I had been chatting to in the bar (who had not told me anything about her parents).