reunited and a matched experience

The two most significant coincidences in my life date back to 1966. 1 My father was dying of cancer. He was an Irishman, living in Bristol since the war, and he had been out of touch with his family for more than 20 years. He received a letter from a sister who said that she was not sure if he was her brother but that her son was about to start at Bristol university and because that was were she had last heard where my father was living they had looked in Kelly's street directory and found the only person with his name and initial living in the city. Hence the letter. As a result my father met 7 of his eight surviving siblings in the 4 months before his death. 2 I was a student at teacher training college in Leeds in 1966. One sunday morning I was in the bath when the police arrived to tell me the not unexpected news that my father had died. We were not on the phone at home and neither were any of our neighbours. I caught a train from Leeds at about mid day not clear how long it would take me to get home because of engineering works on the line and I was relying on the police to let my mother know I was on my way. On the train I met a student from the domestic science college in Leeds who was also travelling home to her family in Bristol. She told me that just a few weeks earlier she had been called to the Principal's office to be told that her grandfather, who lived with the family, had died and she should go home immediately. When she got home she found that her grandfather was alive, but her father had dropped dead of a heart attack whilst mowing the lawn. 2 I did not get to my house in Bristol until 10pm. My mother had been told that the police had not been able to contact me! One of my father's brothers, who I was meeting for the first time, was left to tell me that my father was not dead but that my 19 year old brother who was an undergraduate at Cambridge had died the night before of an asthma attack.