Total strangers, or so we thought.

I have a brother who lives in Australia and at the time of this story we were in the process of planning a visit to see him. Three of us intended to go, my wife and myself along with my mother who was a sprightly 78 year old at the time. Part of the preparations for the trip involved the obtaining of visas in order to enter Australia and the application for these visas had to include passport-type photographs. Some months before the Australia trip, my mother came to stay with us in Derby for a couple of weeks. She lived in Nottingham, we saw her regularly but occasionally she came to stay with us. The time came for her to go home so, one evening after tea, we decided to take her back to Nottingham. It occurred to us that there was one of those machines at Derby railway station which produces passport photographs. Knowing we needed such photographs for our Australia visas, we decided to call at the station on the way to deliver mother back to Nottingham. I make the point here that I very rarely visit Derby station, less than once a year. We found the photograph machine, inserted our money and posed for the photographs but it took quite a time for the device to cough up our prints. While we were trying to while away the time, we became aware of a minor commotion at the nearby ticket office. Being naturally inquisitive types, we allowed ourselves to overhear the proceedings. It transpired that the ticket office man was trying to explain to two American ladies the way to Derby bus station. They had just arrived by train and, since they had not yet set foot outside the railway station and had no conception of Derby’s street layout, directing them was proving somewhat difficult. They were also trying to decide, from the limited guidance he was able to give them, whether or not they would be able to manage the "ten minute walk" he was describing, carrying their suitcases. By the time they had finished their discussions they had enough information to be totally confused. Normally I would have listened to all this with merely a passing interest but it crossed my mind that, with very little trouble on our part, we could completely solve their problem. We had to pass Derby bus station on our way out of Derby towards Nottingham and it seemed only reasonable to offer them a lift. I mentioned the idea to my wife and at this point the machine decided to cough up our photographs. By the time I had the photographs in my hand, my wife was half way through making the arrangements for the transportation of the American ladies. They reacted to the offer in the way only Americans can, expressing their gratitude at some length and with great enthusiasm. Within a few minutes we had everyone in the car and all the luggage stowed in the boot (or trunk) and off we went towards the bus station. Once in the car, the younger of the two ladies explained how they had come to be in their predicament. They were mother and daughter and there was a brother who lived in a small village about five miles from Derby. He had married an English girl and had settled in the area eight years before. The arrangement was that when they arrived at Derby railway station they would telephone the brother and he would drive down to pick them up. They had come from London and had tried to ring before they set off. Unfortunately, they could not get through. They tried again when they arrived in Derby but after twenty minutes of trying they still hadn't made contact. Since they knew no-one else in the area and had no knowledge of local geography or transport facilities, they were in a bit of a fix. They had decided to make the journey under their own steam and this is where we had arrived on the scene. The village where the brother lived was in fact between Derby and Nottingham and very close to the route which we were about to take. The ladies had no information on bus time-tables, and the village they were heading for is very small and well off the beaten track - they could take hours getting there. I explained that, rather than dropping them at the bus station, I might as well take them all the way to their destination. This suggestion was again welcomed with true American gratitude. Instead of a couple of minutes drive together, we were now faced with a twenty minute journey and this gave more time for chatting. To start the ball rolling, I asked them if they were doing anything else during their visit apart from seeing relations. They explained that they had spent the last few days in London and before that they had stayed in Paris. They had seen all the sights and were now to spend a few days in Derby before flying home. They told us all the things they had seen and how impressed they were with the people and places. About eight months previous to all this, a colleague and I had visited America on business. At that point in time, it had been my only business trip out of the UK and was quite an experience. After hearing the ladies enthuse over their visit to Europe, I thought that I would get in my story about visiting America. “I was in America last year," I said, as nonchalantly as I could. They immediately wanted to know all the details of when and where. I explained that, being a business trip, there was little time to see much of the country but we did have a free week-end while we were there and we were able to squeeze in a visit to the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon. "We're from Utah," came the reply, “and we know that area quite well." "Actually, our business was in Salt Lake City,” I explained. “We come from Salt Lake City,” they chorused. “Well,” I continued, “the place we visited was a small town just north of Salt Lake City called Ogden.” “We come from Ogden,” they gasped, “which company did you visit?” I told them the name of the company and the younger lady said, "I know where that is, in fact my best friend works there. I don't suppose you came across him." She then came out with the name of the very man whom we had been to visit !!! “That’s who I went to see!" I exclaimed. None of us could believe it. We were dumb-stuck. The full impact of the situation took some time to sink in - unbelievable. Out of the two hundred million or more Americans, I had picked one who knew the person I had visited and out of the sixty million or so Britons, she had bumped into me. Australian visa regulations and British Rail had brought us together in the same place at the same time, the telephone system had played its part (twice over) so that we could actually meet and then they had to be visiting a village which was en route to my mother's house, whom I had to be taking home. The odds against are astronomical. Stunned silence was followed by exclamations of incredulity. The more one considered it, the more unbelievable it became. After the hysteria had subsided, the younger of the two ladies asked. "When did you come to the States?" "Last November," I replied. She then described how she and her husband were very close friends of the man we had visited and of his wife. Last November, his wife had told them that her husband had gone to the canyons with two English people. Unknown to either of us, she already knew about my trip to America. Finally we reached our destination and the ladies were delivered safely. The daughter made a note of my address so that she could relate the story to her friend when she returned home. She felt sure that, without my name to quote, he would never believe her tale. They thanked us again and we parted company. A couple of days later I received a telephone call. An American accent told me right away who it was. She wanted to call round and take a photograph of us together so that she could show her friend as proof of the story. She came round and took the photograph and decided that she would say nothing about it to her friend but would simply include the photograph with her other holiday pictures when she showed them to him. She would wait for his reaction. Since then we have kept in touch and I met her family during two further trips to the States.