Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Well I Never!

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Same Book, Same time

I was in my bathroom and saw a book on the back of my toilet. I had read the book before, and I enjoyed it so I thought I should read it again sometime. I then started running other books through my head that I’ve read that I would possibly want to read again. “Ooo, The Shack! That was a good one, I should read that again.” Then for some reason I thought “I wonder if Haley (a friend of mine) has read it? I think she’d like it. So I texted her and asked if she’d read the shack? She replies almost instantly in as much shock as I was. She was reading the book when I asked her this!! How??

Now Voyager

Now Finale' to The Shore Now Life and Love, Finale' and Farewell Now, Voyager, Depart After listening to a moving choral setting of these new-to-me Whitman lines, by Thomas Ades, I went to the Peabody Institute Library in Danvers to return some books.

On the Eve of Thanksgiving

One Wednesday night Donna was baking pies for the next day's Thanksgiving crowd of ten, and the heating-element of the oven disintegrated. In desperation I called Douglass Appliance in Danvers, where I bought parts for household items, on the slight chance that they were still open. Miraculously, someone answered. The shop had been closed for hours, but the owner had returned for just a minute to pick up some papers.

Were we meant to be ?

I met my future husband through local politics in London - he was a Councillor and I was a wannabe MP but for different parties. We kept meeting at hustings events and eventually went out for a drink. Anyway, various life things kept getting in the way and we didn't meet again. My day job was working for a corporate firm and we had a few suppliers to help with different things. A few weeks after I had met politucs bloke for a drink I got told by my boss that we were getting a new contract with a different supplier for something and told me the name of the account manager.

Small world

My sisters live 120 miles apart. Sister 1 went on holiday a few years back and discovered the travel rep lived literally round the corner from sister 2. Coincidence enough, but fast forward to 2020 and sister 2 is currently self isolating due to Covid 19. As she is reliant on grocery deliveries, she called a local voluntary group. The lady who came to help said she was among the first to lose her job and will be the last to return as she works in the travel industry - yes it was the same lady sister 1 had met

Three coincidences

I'm not sure whether I can have three but the first one's very short. My brother, four of my cousins (from different branches of the family) and my late aunt have birthdays on 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th of October = different years, obviously! The second coincidence is this. I had a peripatetic life with a father in the armed forces so I attended a lot of schools. I joined the WRAF myself and served as a teleprinter operator. I married an airman in 1972. More moving. In March 1974 he was posted to Cyprus.

Spear carrier

I spoke today to an old teacher of mine, Ron, now in his late 70s. He said he came to the school in 1969. One of the older colleagues who taught games had arrived in the 50s and in idle staffroom chat mentioned that he had once been supervising athletics when a boy caught a javelin in his leg. He had to transport him to hospital with the javelin sticking out of the car window. In the late nineties Ron was on a train and fell into conversation with an older man who, it transpired had been a pupil at the same school 40 years earlier.

Randomly finding old roommates credit card at gas station 90 minutes away

Yesterday on my drive back to Chicago from Michigan I stopped to use the restroom and get gas at a random gas station near Indiana . As I went to put my card in I noticed someone else’s card was left in there so I took it out to take it inside and something told me to look at the name . When I looked at it I couldn’t believe it was my old roommate from colleges card ! I called him and asked if he was still in Chicago and he said no he was on his way back to Michigan and I asked if he had stopped to get gas near Indiana and he said yes about an hour before .

Small group of 10

At a small course of only 10 people run by the U3A, by chance two members discovered that they were born in the same room! This was in Brocket Hall. At the same course two people also realised they had gone to the same school, which was over 100 miles from where they both lived now.

Missed a train abroad and ran into someone I knew of, but didn't know personally

My husband and I were traveling through Russia on the Transiberian train. My father had mentioned in conversation that his best friend's sister and her husband were also traveling through Russia at the time and shared a picture of them. We had never met them before and with Russia being a huge country, we didn't think much of it. At some point in our journey, we missed a train and had to book last minute tickets on another train at a later hour. There was only one cabin with two free tickets left, so we booked there. We caught this train on time and went to our cabin.

Pages