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Coincidences

(96 Posts)
BlueSapphire Thu 04-Jul-19 09:14:31

I have just had the weirdest experience. Still on the ship, but waiting to disembark.
At breakfast sat next to a couple I hadn't met before on board and found out we came from the same town. Not only that but the husband had worked in the area where DH and I lived. Turns out that he was my GP of over 40 years ago and had seen me through my first successful pregnancy!
Any one else had something like that happen?

benhamslc Fri 05-Jul-19 11:05:27

We were on holiday and talking to a couple that said they came from a small village in Oxford we replied we also used to live their and in the same road and it turned out the same house! Small world.

MaggieMay69 Fri 05-Jul-19 11:06:24

My son in law is a Paramedic, and he has saved plenty of lives over the years! Anyway, we were all going to Blackpool for a family holiday when our car broke down ten miles away from the campsite we were due to be staying at, and the breakdown guy who turned up turned out to be a man whose life my sil had saved ten years previously...(think he had been in a car accident!) needless to say he got the minivan up and running and said he would happily pay for it all himself.
Small small world! x

Atalaya Fri 05-Jul-19 11:06:27

When my children were small we went on a Eurocamp holiday in France from our home in Scotland. In the tent next to us was a family from Dublin with the same surname, and two sons the same age as ours with the same first names

sue01 Fri 05-Jul-19 11:10:23

This is so weird, I still can't believed it happened.

I was visiting Hadrian's Wall, it started to rain so, on impulse, I ducked into an English Heritage property... where the Curator immediately recognised me from 30 years earlier when we were neighbours.

She left following a particularly ghastly divorce... and said she often wished she could get in touch with her former next door neighbour... to tell him how much his support had meant at the time.

The following week, I had returned home to Northants, and attended an historical lecture at Northampton Guildhall.

We had coffee before beginning, and I sat down, at random, next to a guy I'd never met... and who turned out to be... yes, you've guessed it... the missing neighbour.

evianers Fri 05-Jul-19 11:12:04

We lived outside Jo'burg next to a woman of a similar age. One day over the fence, for whatever reason, started to talk about our fathers and what they did and where they worked. Amazingly, it seems in the same place {Marylebone Station}. Turns out her dad and my dad worked in almost adjacent offices on the same floor and had known each other for decades.

Riggie Fri 05-Jul-19 11:12:20

We went on a carribean cruise for our honeymoon. Someone at our table said they had met another couple from our home town on board. It was someone dh had been at school with. (Not a friend just in the same year group)

blueskies Fri 05-Jul-19 11:13:51

A tall rastafarian with dreadlocks sat on the empty train seat next to me. I remarked on his south London accent and it turned out that although much younger than me he had grown up in my neighbourhood. We had a good old chinwag and it seems that his dad was a Battersea boy as was mine. His mum was born in Guyana and married a London lad. I wish the journey had been longer as we had so much in common.

Reddevil3 Fri 05-Jul-19 11:15:58

A few years ago, I was living in a small village in Spain, was chatting to somebody I'd known for over a year, she mentioned where she was from in the uk, I said my brother lives there, is ENT surgeon, oh, is it X and added that he'd operated on her throat 15 years ago!

MandyRaff Fri 05-Jul-19 11:17:23

I don't have any remarkable coincidences to tell you - I just wanted to say how amazing all of yours were and I thoroughly enjoyed reading them. grin

nonnasusie Fri 05-Jul-19 11:17:45

I was at my mother in law's funeral on Monday (West Midlands) . The minister that conducted the service had a northern accent so after the service I asked him where he was from and it turned out that he was a minister at the church connected to my son's school and must have been there when son was there (20 years ago)!! Afterwards when chatting to my son we decided that he did look vaguely familiar!

Scottiebear Fri 05-Jul-19 11:19:27

We live in South Wales, though I'm originally from Scotland. We went on a break to Portmeirion, North Wales. Sat at breakfast and got chatting to couple at next table. They were from the town next to the small village where we lived. They knew the people who live in our former house and who we sold the house to over 25 years ago.
And couple of years ago we went for lunch on the Northern Belle, leaving from Cardiff. Got chatting to couple across the aisle who were from Oxford. Turned out his best friend in Oxford was an ex boyfriend of mine from when I still lived in Scotland.
So it is indeed a very small world.

GinJeannie Fri 05-Jul-19 11:24:34

New neighbours moved into the bungalow opposite our's earlier this year......when introducing ourselves and chatting, seems they regularly holiday in the same village in Cyprus that we lived in for 5 years till 2012 and were due back there the same weeks as us in June this year. Very odd meeting your new neighbours from Wales for lunch in a Cypriot village! Nice enough couple, too!

DeeDum Fri 05-Jul-19 11:34:39

We went to the Peterborough doll show the other week
There were 100s in the que to get in and we had driven up from Kent ..
Got talking to a lady and her daughter in the que they had driven from Suffolk.
I admired the daughters reborn baby doll in the stroller ! Few minutes later chatting and we realised she had bought the Doona Stroller from my eldest daughter two weeks before.
We couldn't believe all that way and we stood next to each other in that long que ... amazing ?

paddyann Fri 05-Jul-19 11:35:59

I went on a training course with a young man I'd never met 350 miles from home .On the first night we sat at the bar and chatted about where we came from .Turned out he was my Dads cousins son, dad was named after his mothers dad they had lost touch many years before ,we were on the phone to our respective parents instantly and they to each other as soon as we hung up.Happy coincidence .

dublingran Fri 05-Jul-19 11:36:38

In a Madrid hotel we got talking to the couple at the next table. I remarked that their accents reminded me of my parents; eventually it turned out they were living in my maternal granny’s old house!

pollynana Fri 05-Jul-19 11:36:48

Over forty years ago, whilst pregnant, was reading a book about an animal rescue centre in the South West. Went into hospital to have my baby and met a girl, who’d just had her baby. We got talking and I mentioned the book I’d been reading and said how good it was. She told me it was her family that had set up the animal rescue centre. I was dumbfounded. Another coincidence was when me and husband were on holiday in Scotland and had gone to the Glencoe visitors centre. As we pulled into the car park we were greeted by two couples who worked with my husband, they didn’t know he was going to Scotland on holiday! Again dumbfounded at the coincidence

Bigred18 Fri 05-Jul-19 11:36:51

I was on a private boat on Sydney Harbour with about 12 people - some had never met before. Turns out that three of us were born in the same hospital in Liverpool.

Marguerita Fri 05-Jul-19 11:49:59

We were travelling back to Gatwick airport from a holiday in Italy quite late at night. As we flew over the Kent coastline I remarked to my husband that Jeremy and Christine were no doubt fast asleep down there. On arrival in the queue for passport control just happened to turn round and found that the couple immediately behind us were our friends J and C.

luluaugust Fri 05-Jul-19 11:51:01

We were in North Wales on holiday, hundreds of miles from home. We went in to the hotel restaurant and there was only one other couple sitting there. The waitress said she would seat us together as we must know one another. We didn't. It turned out they lived just round the corner from us. The waitress couldn't understand how it was possible that we had never met. We also bumped into our next door neighbours in France, they had been staying further South than us and were making their way home when we both ended up in the same small village for lunch.

GrandmaCornwall Fri 05-Jul-19 12:00:45

My Dad used to travel a lot and one day he picked up a hitchhiker just outside London the man was heading to the Midlands. They chatted for a couple of hours then as they approached the Midlands my Dad asked whereabouts he was going the man replied Stafford. That was a coincidence as my Dad was headed there too, on further questioning it turned out he was the son of our next door-but-one neighbour !

Laurensnan Fri 05-Jul-19 12:08:20

My son bought his girlfriend home who he'd met at college. She told us she used to live in our area but her parents had moved when she was 9. Then my son asked what school she'd gone to as they were the same age. Turns out it was the same one that he'd been to. We looked at my son's school photo and there they were together standing on the same row. The next week he went to meet her family and he realised her mum had been his English teacher at his secondary school. They were meant to be. Sadly I lost my son to cancer when he was 26 but his girlfriend, now 36, remains one of my best friends.

Horatia Fri 05-Jul-19 12:12:21

I was at a party in Wiltshire and asked someone where they came from recognising a Scottish accent , he said I wouldn't have heard of the place but he told me anyway. We were raised in the next street to each other.

tuller Fri 05-Jul-19 12:14:37

Years ago I was on a short cruise from Cyprus to Egypt and at the dining table was a lady,she had come to Cyprus as her daughter had died through carbon monoxide poisoning in Cyprus, she showed us photographs of her daughter in body bag at the dining table, and she mocked my ignorance of gazpacho soup, I was very kind and obliging to her and understood her pain , but when I look back I wonder why she was on the cruise and so 'nasty'

Funnygran Fri 05-Jul-19 12:16:54

Went to Hong Kong a few years ago with DH’s sister and brother and partners. Hotel was nice but very pricey breakfast so on the first morning we walked to the end of the road and found a cafe. I was standing at the counter waiting to order and someone tapped me on the back - a man I had worked with. We had both retired recently and he and his wife were staying in the same hotel for a couple of nights en route to Australia.

Tamayra Fri 05-Jul-19 12:23:05

I was on a coach tour today f NZ Got talking to the man sitting next to me
Turned out he was my Father’s golfing partner from Bognor Regis in Sussex