Highgate to Tanzania

My husband, Martin, attended secondary school in Highgate, London, leaving in 1961. He has had no connection with the school since leaving. When he retired, we took the opportunity to volunteer for 4 months in Tanzania, teaching and business development. On our first full night there, we attended a fortnightly meeting of other volunteers. After talking to a lot of other people, we eventually sat next to a couple of roughly our age and started chatting. It was their third visit to Tanzania and they offered all sorts of sensible advice. The lady told me that, as a church organist, she always got the chance to play in Arusha Cathedral during her visits and brought some music from England for the choir. I asked if she had brought any music by John Rutter, as he is very well known in my choral society. She said no, but that her husband had been at school with John Rutter. I was very surprised, as I knew from previous experience that MY husband had been at school with John Rutter. It transpired that Tony and Martin had been at school together, in the same year group, 45 years earlier, although they had no memory of each other in spite of studying the same subjects for A levels. Back in the UK, we located them both on a school photograph, seated about 20 feet away from each other. After that first shock, we went on to chat about our two different choral societies and discovered that they were both rehearsing Haydn's Creation to be performed on the same day in March back in England.