Two coincidences in print

Late November 1950 was a very wet period in Central Queensland with massive flooding. A distant cousin, Darcy McX was isolated on a patch of high ground by floods for several days with another relative and food was dropped to them from an aircraft. He survived well and is still living in the general district. The story passed into faqmily legend. In 1996 the Canberra Times newspaper published it's 70th anniversary edition with several facsimile pages from old editions. I bought the newspaper as usual and blow me down, there was a story about Darcy and the flood in one of the fascimile pages. </p> <p>Longer ago than I care to think about I worked for a few months in Ramsay Street, Cloncurry, in north west Queensland. The main business part of the street had an electrical goods and furniture shop on one side with a bank on its right. Across the street from the bank was a vacant patch of land where a pub had burnt down a few months before, while the left side of this vacant patch had a general business, men's hairdresser, billiard saloon and the right side had a Chrysler motor agency. </p> <p>Years later, we spent a few days at a resort, the kind of place where the rooms have a few old paperback novels. I opened one of them casually and found a detailed description of Ramsay Street applied to a ficticious Australian town. The writer must have been there earlier than I was there because the description included the pub. Even the bank and brand of car were named correctly. I cannot recall the author, but I suspect that it was Nevil Shute. </p> <p>