old schoolfriend

My parents both went to school in Cirencester, which is where I was born. They moved 2 weeks after I was born ( though I don't think it was my fault) to Gloucester 22miles away. (The maternity hospital where I was born has since been pulled down, but I don't think my being born there was the real reason behind that. ) When I left school. I joined the RAF and intended to move to Norfolk when I'd finished my training, Coltishall in particular took my fancy. With the usual efficiency behind forces' decision-making, I was posted to Coningsby in Lincolshire. After a year in married quarters and 4 years in a semi in Boston, my wife and I decided to buy a bigger house at Wyberton, just out of Boston but 16 miles from Coningsby. A short time after the move we were chatting to our new neighbours from 2doors away and his accent caught my ear. When I enquired as to the origin of his accent, he told me he had grown up in Cirencester (143 miles from Boston) but that he too was in the RAF but based in Norfolk, in particular Swanton Morley. He had, however been educated at Cirencester Grammar and when I mentioned my mum's maiden name, he remembered going to school with her in the 50's. I just wondered what the odds were of being posted to different RAF stations 80 miles apart, but buying a house nearly next door to each other in Wyberton, actually engaging in conversation, recognising the Gloucestershire accent when we spoke, and asking the right questions to find that, over 30years previously, this chap had been to the same school as my mother, nearly 150 miles away and that he actually remembered her.