Mystery Girlfriend

In the 1960s a friend of a friend, who lived in London and wanted to move to Cornwall, came to stay with us, when we lived there, for the occasional weekend. He spoke of his ‘gorgeous’ girlfriend but never brought her along, though he always said he would. We were visiting family in Berkshire when we decided to go into London, to see if any job opportunities were available. We went into a recruitment agency and were interviewed by a very nice young woman with whom we got on really well. She sent us for an interview and we were offered a super job, but we decided not to take it and returned home to Cornwall. A couple of weeks later the friend from London came to stay again and announced that this time he had brought with him the ‘gorgeous’ girlfriend (whose existence we had begun to doubt!). We went out to the van to meet her and…….out stepped the nice young woman from the recruitment agency! In advance of our trip to London we knew very little about the chap who stayed with us and nothing about the mystery girlfriend, except that her first name was Jackie - but as it was a not uncommon name, we made no connection with the Jackie we met at the recruitment agency. Imagine our surprise when she emerged……and his face was a picture as we walked straight past him and threw our arms around Jackie, who obviously already knew who we were! What are the odds against that happening? There were dozens of recruitment agencies in London at the time and we just picked one in the west end and walked in off the street. When we made the trip to Berkshire it was just a family visit and we hadn't planned to job hunt but it was suggested to us that it might be an opportunity so we gave it a whirl. The whole thing was totally random, that's what makes it so odd.