Two Catherines

I was a college in the 60s and met a new friend called Pete. I also met my future wife, Val. We were married in 1970 and my best man, Richard, was an old school friend who had no connnection with our college. Although Pete was at the wedding if Pete and Richard met it would only have been in passing. By the late 70s both Richard and Pete were married, and both subsequently had daughters, in the same school year. Both were called Catherine. One lived in Bristol, one in Poole. 18 years late both Catherines applied to study opthalmics at university. They met at one university whilst awaiting interview, and remembered each othe because they had the same name. Some weeks later they met again, awaiting interview at a different university. (This is probably not a coincidence since I imagine interviews are scheduled on the same day). On starting university, they discovered that they had both chosen the second college, and they became firm friends, to such an extent that they decided to share digs during the second year and visited each other's houses during the vacations. One day one Catherine said to the other that she was going home at the weekend and her parents' long term friends, whom she had met whilst growing up, were coming to stay. She mentioned that these friends were Vincent and Val. The other Catherine commented that her parents also had friends called Vincent and Val. Because they were close friends, when they each got married they asked the other to be their bridesmaid (more accurately in one case Maid of Honour). At the wedding of Catherine R, her parents and Catherine P's parents met for the first time and confirmed (what I suspect they already knew) that Vincent and Val were indeed the same couple. At the wedding of Catherine P we (Val and Vincent) were invited and for the first time all three couples of the our generation were in the same place at the same time.