Coincidences

My OH grew up in the same road as my ex-husband!

The biggest coincidence I know is that my husband and his brother who were born and lived in Wales both somehow met and married girls from the same northern English town (who were unconnected.)

A colleague divorced, then met and married a man with exactly the same name!

When I was 19 an ex boyfriend would not leave at me alone so to get rid of him I made up a new boyfriend. Told him lots of info including that he drove a red Cortina. The following week a boy I had just met offered me a lift home from a work do and led me to his car - a red Cortina. We have been married for 46 years.

When my father, a policeman, went to a house to take a statement from the owner over an incident he noticed a photograph on the mantlepiece. He thought he recognised the person in the photograph and asked her who it was. She said it was her son, he was in the Navy and he had died in hospital in South Africa during the war. He was able to tell her he was in the bed next to her son and was the last person to speak to him before he passed away.

A huge coincidence happened right here on gransnet for me.
I hope one day to share.

My partner, who's now nearly 70 was born in a small village in Singapore, where he went to a small school back in the 50-60's.

A friend of mine came round for a chat recently and it emerged she went to the same school at the same time as him.

Yes several times to me. Bumped into an ex boyfriend o. Hols in Poros (Greece). More recently on a Croatian cruise. Chatting to a couple from Yorkshire an area where some old friends had moved to (but subsequently moved a few times and I lost touch. In our 30s. ) Turned out this couple had been their neighbours knew their new address. Allowed me to get in touch - it was amazing (now aged 60s). But sadly she had cancer and now has died.

This may be a bit long. Having identical twin sons now in their 40s. Have never believed in the twins feeling the same as each other etc. But, last year was being driven my one son from an event in Midlands to his home on the south coast. He started to ask me how far it was to this town then the next and the next until he eventually drove into a garage to fill up on petrol. He told me he had been driving on fumes!
Two days later speaking with my other son he told me how on the same day I was with other son he was making his way to catch a ferry. He had been basically freewheeling down hills, crawling along little roads fingers crossed he would make it to the ferry and have enough fuel to fill up once he was off. Later spoke with his wife and asked what time of day all this was happening. Left cottage to catch ferry at such and such a time, filled up at xxx. Was exactly the same time I was experiencing the same driving on fumes with my other son. Checked the time on the petrol receipts. Scary or what.

My husband and two of our neighbours lived in the same street when they were children - in a different town. @Jane43

My daughter and SIL moved to a neighbouring county when they married, cheaper county and they had no jobs.
Just had exactly the right amount of money as wedding presents to pay for their first two months rent.
Then they got jobs. She needed a new passport for school checks.
Were looking for the 'right church' at this time too but mentioned to no one else about their finances or the need to go to Wales to get new passport asap for which they borrowed £110 from us for passport and fuel.
On the Monday they went to get the passport. Total cost £108
On the Wednesday they had coffee in a local cafe with local community church minister who had invited them, to get to know them better ( he knew nothing about their circumstances .and nor did anyone else in their community/ county)
During the chat he asked them about their week.
They told him about their Monday.
He then produced an envelope out of his pocket, that had been posted through his front door on the Monday morning
On the front it read "Someone will be needing this, this week."
Inside were notes totalling £110 !!!

I was flying to Mauritius from Heathrow to visit my parents. When we stopped in the Seychelles, I thought it would be nice to stretch my legs. As I got to the steps, a voice said “Hello, Mattie”. I turned to see a very dear friend from Mauritius who I had lost touch many years before. He lived in Brussels. It was so nice…. But my goodness, of all the flights to all the countries of the world, to have met him! We also shared the same flight back!

When we adopted our son 42 years ago I took him to the clinic to be weighed and met another lady with the same name as me who had also just adopted a baby - except hers was a girl.
On another occasion I met a chap online who had lived in the same army flat as I did in Hong Kong but several years later! We laughed at the fact that we had probably slept in the same bed!

I met my best friend on the first week at University. We went on with our careers all over the country and kept in touch. Many years and marriages later, she met my old art school lecturer from when I was at college, mentioned my name and he remembered me. They’ve been married 15 years now.

Whilst on holiday in Australia me and my daughters were waiting at a bus stop in Queensland when a woman joined us, we started chatting her birthday was exactly the same date as mine and we were both born in the same hospital. Nursery mates from 1948?

I wanted to phone my children when I was working one evening and misdialled the woman who answered turned out to be an old friend who had moved away some years ago (we'd not kept in touch) and recently returned to the local town.

My initials used to be JB. Just coincidence, I think

I’ve just started a new job and the chap sitting opposite to me has just told me his father used to live in my house which used to be 3 little cottages in my village! Love these sort of threads ?

A few times. Once I went on a course in Melbourne from (old) South Wales, got into a lift in the hotel and a chap was already in there who was in the same year as me in Uni, a good friend of my neighbour in hall of residence. He was also visiting Australia with his work in a totally different field.
Another time I had travelled to Edinburgh to start a new job. DH was staying in our old house in Wales as he hadn’t been able to find work yet, and having driven up with me was, I was seeing him off at the bus station on the way back. We bumped into one of 2 brothers, who had carried me between them around the village night clubs on a skiing holiday in Italy when I broke my ankle a few years previously. Didn’t know a soul in Edinburgh otherwise (and never saw him again all the time we lived there either)

Was visiting my sister in the USA.
She took us to a garden in Baltimore where we stopped by the young gardener ,who faked us if we were British.
We said yes ,we came from a place that he’d probably never heard of ,Solihull.
He went to school there before training at Kew Gardens !

asked not faked

on honeymoon back in the 80s in Corfu a couple walked past us on the beach, my husband stopped to chat and then informed me it was his exgirlfriend. She and her husband had got married on the same day as us and gone on their honeymoon to the same place. When we got home our wedding picture appeared in the local paper, in the picture next to ours was the same couple.

On a beach with my son who at the time attended a school for pupils with disabilities. Saw a lad sitting in a wheelchair up on the sea wall and thought "he looks familiar" and then told myself not to be silly. A few minutes later a woman (who Id never seem before) was walking along the beach, saw my ds and started shouting and waving tohim by name. Yep. The lad I had spotted was one of his schoolfriends!!

Same beach, another holiday we met one of DHs colleagues!!

I lived in Italy in my twenties and was friendly with a couple, she English, he Italian. We kind of lost touch when I came back to the Uk..

About 20 years later I was in Venice with my mother and we walked down a side street with tables outside cafes. Heard a voice and there were this couple….they did not live inVenice and were only there for that one evening !
(She has a spectacularly famous nephew by the way?)

On our annual Scottish hols many years ago, my husband trotted down a wide deserted beach with our five month old son on his shoulders to give him his first view of the sea. There in front of them, exactly where they stopped, was written in the sand: 'Ian and Ruaridh' in large letters. My husband's name is Ian and our son is Ruaridh. We just had to photograph it!

A man I know was clearing a graveyard for his local church and found a grave with his initials and surname on - not a common surname, either. Made even spookier by the birth date - exactly 100 years before the man clearing the grave.