Two stories

Hello - I heard the article on Radio 4 the other morning. Perhaps you were swamped with emails after that! I’d also be interested to know the results of your research when they are published. I have two coincidences that stick in my mind, and would be happy to provide more details if you need them. About twenty years ago I was on a business trip to Bombay, and got in the hotel lift on my last day. There was a small Japanese girl in the lift, and as I turned to press the button, she said “Mel, is that you?” It was a colleague from our Tokyo office, whom I had met for the first time three weeks earlier in London. We had had dinner in London but neither of us had mentioned India. She was there on holiday, arriving the day I was leaving. Considering the number of times that lift travels in a single day, I was amazed at the coincidence. About ten years ago I had a small lunch party at my Lincolnshire cottage. Guests included people who had met there before, viz. a neighbour who was a few years older than me and a former girlfriend from university days and her husband visiting from Hastings. None of them from Lincolnshire originally. Somehow the conversation got round to the Second World War. Neighbour, Liz Broadbent, said she was born in Burma and her father walked out of Burma when the Japanese invaded. Girlfriend said her older brother was born in Burma, and her father also walked out of Burma. After a couple more questions, neighbour said “Good heavens, you’re not Betty Chapman’s daughter, are you?” Neighbour’s mother and Betty Chapman had been the closest of friends, and been evacuated to Australia together, but lost contact 50 years earlier on returning to Britain. These events sometimes make the hairs on your neck stand up, don’t they? Best wishes, Mel Montgomery.