Mr Derek

Unexpected Encounter In the 1970s my family always took our caravan abroad, but in 1973 we were persuaded by some good friends to go with them to the north of Scotland. We set off from our home in Kingsbridge, South Devon with only a vague idea of where we were heading. Almost a week later we pulled into a very basic campsite - no more than a crofter’s field – on a single track road not far from Lochinver on the NW coast. We had just parked and were having a drink outside the caravan when we heard a loud crash from the road and saw that a family car had run into a ditch. Luckily no-one was hurt. We were amazed to see that the people in the car were close neighbours of ours in Kingsbridge; we often met socially and the husband was also a colleague of mine at a local school. None of us knew that the other family had any plans to visit Scotland that summer. The husband who was driving was so staggered to see us in this remote part 700 miles from Kingsbridge that he had taken his eye off the road. Luckily we were able to pull them out of the ditch and provide them with a hot coffee! If we had not been outside at that particular moment they would have passed by without incident and there was no chance that we would have met again on holiday, as they were heading in the opposite direction.