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Coincidences

(95 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?

Mapleleaf Thu 04-Jul-19 09:27:56

My goodness, that is a coincidence! ?

lovebeigecardigans1955 Thu 04-Jul-19 09:31:35

Not to me but my sister. She went to the cricket and was waiting at a bus stop with dad. A chap was also waiting there and they got into conversation.
The next day she began a new job - her new boss turned out to be the chap at the bus stop.

grannyqueenie Thu 04-Jul-19 09:35:38

Its a very small world! The only cruise We ever went on, sat down for dinner on the 1st evening introduced myself to the man sitting beside me, he was also Scottish. As conversation went on we discovered we were from the same city, same district, attended the same secondary school and had the same English teacher...in the 1960s!

M0nica Thu 04-Jul-19 09:45:31

We lived in Berkshire but went for a holiday in the Yorkshire Dales. One lovely day we decided to walk to the top of Ingleborough.

We climbed up the hill and as we stepped off the hillside onto the flat top. The first person I saw was someone I knew well from home, we had a shared interest. He had moved to Northumberland six months previously.

Anniebach Thu 04-Jul-19 10:24:35

Not exactly the same, my younger daughter lives in Lincolnshire, she visited a cats rescue, chatting to the chap who runs it he said ‘your Welsh my mother is Welsh, she use to live in South Wales, daughter said ‘so did my mother ,
near Merthyr, it continued , his mother lived in the same street as me, we were best friends , she moved from Wales when she married

ninathenana Thu 04-Jul-19 11:59:26

DH and I met in Italy. The first time he came to visit me (we lived 50 miles apart) after the holiday, we were walking down our High St. and he greeted a girl coming towards us. I looked at him open mouthed when he said "we met in Spain last year".
We also met our next door neighbour when we were both on holiday in Devon one year, we live in Kent.

downtoearth Thu 04-Jul-19 13:40:38

Last village we lived in,a nearby neighbour,I passed every day,our grandaughters friends with each other,used to speak to his wife and family,turned out to be a boy in my secondary school class over 50 years ago,and a 150miles away,we had been neighbours for 6 years

GrandadShaggy Thu 04-Jul-19 14:12:06

OK, sorry to break the thread topic, but what's DH?

Dear Husband?

sunseeker Thu 04-Jul-19 14:24:51

My DH was a very outgoing and friendly person and wherever we went we always seemed to meet someone he knew.

Once when on holiday in Crete we walked into a restaurant to find the owner was someone he had worked with some years before. Another time we were walking through an airport in Los Angeles and bumped into an old friend of his from school who he hadn't seen for 20 years!

J52 Thu 04-Jul-19 14:32:13

DH has just been asked to do some redesigning work on the house that had been in our family for a century until my grandparents died in the early 70s.
It’s 100s of miles away and has changed hands several times in the last 40 years. No connection with the present owners.

midgey Thu 04-Jul-19 14:34:21

I worked in London but was going home for the summer, my flat mates had an Australian friend who was going to have my bed. Turned out her parents had emigrated from a village 6 miles from my home and my brother had just crashed through her uncle’s hedge on a bad bend!

Daddima Thu 04-Jul-19 14:34:45

My brother met a Scottish fellow in a pub in London. Turned out he had lived in our house before us!

Mossfarr Thu 04-Jul-19 14:41:48

My Mum (83yo) sent a message to a complete stranger on FB who shared the same surname as her estranged BIL who she was trying to contact.
A year later I was visiting my son who was posted to Ilchester in Somerset, he had a BBQ and one of his guests was a pilot on attachment from the New Zealand Navy. You guessed it? He was the random stranger my Mum had contacted on FB! Very weird.

Pantglas1 Thu 04-Jul-19 14:41:52

We made friends with a young German couple in Fuerteventura in 1993 whilst on holiday but didn’t keep in touch. Fast forward to 2010 and we were in Thailand when I saw them in a store with their teenage daughter! He’d lost some hair and put on a little weight and she’d lost weight but barely altered facially. Unfortunately my husband refused to stop and let me say anything- he thinks it’s mortifying!

kittylester Thu 04-Jul-19 17:18:00

I have recounted this on gn before.

We were driving round Europe with 3 under 10 year olds. They were really fed up with being in the car so we stopped at a cafe on a hillside in Switzerland.

I let the children run riot let off steam on the hillside on the basis wed never meet anyone we knew there!

We went into the cafe and bought them icecreams. As we were leaving, DD1 dropped her ice cream on someone's shoe.

He was a patient of dh. blush

Oldandverygrey Thu 04-Jul-19 17:55:32

Some years ago DH and I went on holiday to Sorrento. Waiting in Reception we got chatting to two English ladies who were busily writing postcards. They said their friend who was to receive the postcards had just been widowed. Turned out the widow was my Aunt (she lives in the North - I live in the South) and the two ladies had attended the funeral of my Uncle as indeed so did we. Was completely shocked.

Lynker Thu 04-Jul-19 20:12:31

On holiday in Australia, my husband and I got into a lift with another couple....the man addressed my husband by name....they had apparently briefly worked in the same company 50 years ago.

Marydoll Thu 04-Jul-19 20:27:44

I was on a charter day trip (from Glasgow, yes it can be done!) to Florence with my husband and some friends. My friend said that she was sure that she heard someone calling my name. I told her that she was imagining things. The next minute, a lady came running up and grabbed my arm. It was the supply teacher who was going to cover my class the following week, when I was on my Italian teaching course.
We then went into a church and the lady next to me addressed me by name, it was my sister in law's headteacher, from the school in the next village to my school.

Floradora9 Thu 04-Jul-19 20:29:35

Going into the executive lounge at the airport and I turned round only to see my old boss and his wife behind us. We had not seen each other for 20 years . We all sat down together and discovered they were on the same flight as we were and going to the same resort in Italy. We met them several times whilw we were there.

ginny Thu 04-Jul-19 23:42:13

Sitting waiting while DH climbed a tower in India, I got into conversation with a chap who asked where I came from.

I told him the name of the nearest large town. He said he had been nearby the previous week in the small town where I live for a college reunion. I asked if it had been arranged by R* P****. Yes, he replied.
She is my best friend.

FarNorth Fri 05-Jul-19 01:30:08

I live in the north of Scotland.
On holiday in the middle of England, stopped at motorway services, I got out of the car and saw my boss. shock

Willow500 Fri 05-Jul-19 06:22:29

I got on the local train last year in a rush as I was late and sat opposite a man who was on the phone. He mentioned my home town in his conversation and I couldn't resist asking him if that was where he was from when he'd finished (I don't normally talk to strange men on trains!). It turned out not only was he from there but he had bought my parents old hotel which he had turned into flats. He then proceeded to draw the plans on his newspaper showing how he'd done it. He'd also owned one of the local fish shops - my parents had had a fish shop when I was a child! The weird thing was he shouldn't have even been on that train as he'd missed the earlier one. We were so deep in conversation we nearly missed my stop grin

Humbertbear Fri 05-Jul-19 07:48:16

We have American friends about to arrive to stay with us for a month. When I first met them in Denver , 25 years ago, she said ‘I only know one person in England’. You guessed it, she was in my babysitting circle.

Auntieflo Fri 05-Jul-19 08:09:24

When we went on a holiday to India in 1991, there was a young couple from our area. It turned out that our DD was covering for her holiday break in the bank where they both worked. In the same group there was the mother of the hairdresser of a close friend, and a man who ran the hardware/ wood shop in our town. Not sure if these count as coincidences, but it was strange in quite a biggish group.