johnh Posted December 2, 2015 Report Share Posted December 2, 2015 For most of my secondary education in Liverpool I sat next to a lad, also called John, whose birthday was the day after mine. I left school in 1951 when my family moved to Leeds. I never saw any of my school mates again. I had my 21st birthday in 1957 on board a troopship in the middle of the Indian ocean. My mates organised a record to be played over the ships tannoy. The next day another 21st birthday record was played and it was the lad I had sat next to at school. There were about 1,300 troops on board and he took some finding but we had our 'reunion' in the middle of the Indian ocean. Never saw him again. Any more coincidences out there? MikeO and Matt 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeO Posted December 2, 2015 Report Share Posted December 2, 2015 Nothing to match that. But... When I was about eighteen I went on a camping holiday with some mates in Devon (long before I lived here) and we put up our tent in a tiny farm site in a tiny village called Ringmore which we had no plans to go to, we just stumbled on it. Came out of the tent after getting it up and there was a group putting up their tent right next to ours that we'd gone to school with, who were there to visit a lass who we'd also gone to school with (my first girlfriends best mate in fact) who was working in the local pub. Added to that it was near Burgh Island and when I got home my mum said she'd had a phone call from my godfather, who'd split from his family and we'd not heard of in fifteen years. He lived on Burgh Island and had phoned to tell my parents that he'd been told I was there and when my mum asked how he recognised me he said he didn't, his mum had phoned to tell him. But how did she know asked mum to which he replied, "She's psychic". Weird. I went down again and met him in later years and he was a cracking bloke. Another one was lying on a beach in Malta when a lass I'd got off with at a party a few months earlier appeared out of the blue and rolled out her towel right next to me (with her new boyfriend sadly). We diplomatically ignored each other. Then when I went the Gambia my brother's girlfriends best mate was staying in the same hotel as me at the same time. We got on really well. Lastly I was in the queue at duty free (Gambia holiday again) and the guy ahead of me was a lad I'd gone to primary school with. Not seen each other for twenty years but I knew him straight away and said, "Hi Steve" and he said "Oh hi Mike". Just thought of another one. Scouse guy who I met in Wimbledon, never famous actor called Paul Kelly (he was in Brookside a few times) who was a great mate for a few years but then he moved to America and I moved to Devon. Driving home with my wife and son from a holiday in Scotland we stopped overnight in Liverpool (Josh's first view of Goodison though he was only three or four at the time) and after looking round Albert Dock we were walking back to the city center when, right by the yellow submarine, he was walking towards us. Instant recognition and we had a great chat. It's a small world. Matt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lowensda Posted December 3, 2015 Report Share Posted December 3, 2015 I had sexy time with my partner for the first time, without a condom, last Halloween. I now have a 3 month old son. Total coincidence. Matt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hafnia Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 The girl who is now my wife lived no more than 50 metres away from me up till I was 25, only spoke to her the first time when I was 28 and didn't as live near. One night I was tempted to ask her out and bottled it, went home gutted like I'd lost something. Never bumped into her for a while, then on a stag weekend we went into a bar in Prague to watch the grand national, in she walked with her mates on a hen weekend... the rest is history. Married 3 years, a beautiful son and our second baby due in February. Lowensda and Matt 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 The girl who is now my wife lived no more than 50 metres away from me up till I was 25, only spoke to her the first time when I was 28 and didn't as live near. One night I was tempted to ask her out and bottled it, went home gutted like I'd lost something. Never bumped into her for a while, then on a stag weekend we went into a bar in Prague to watch the grand national, in she walked with her mates on a hen weekend... the rest is history. Married 3 years, a beautiful son and our second baby due in February. Second one, good man! Must've missed that one, congratulations mate. Sucker for lack of sleep, eh?` Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markjazzbassist Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Congrats haf!! So my younger brother wanted to know more about our ancestry so he looked up our family trees online. Turns out my mothers family and fathers family are from villages a mere 15km apart in Slovakia. Met in America and they could have been neighbors in the motherland. Lowensda 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnh Posted December 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 The first house we had when we were married was a semi with a shared drive. The neighbours who shared the drive were rather weird and while we got on with all our neighbours we kept the weirdo's at arms length. One Sunday in the mid 1960's we decided to take our two boys to Ilkley on the train. We had some lunch in Ilkley and then decided to walk the couple of miles to the waterfall. We walked up this track over the moor and didn't see another soul. Whichever way you looked all you could see was nature, it was as though we were the only people on the planet. There was a rocky outcrop with a bend in the path, round the bend was the waterfall. There was a bench to sit on and we sat and watched the boys playing. It was idyllic. We had been there about an hour when I said to the wife, 'who would you least like to see walk round that bend'? She laughed and said 'the weird couple'. I laughed and said 'snap, I was just going to say the same'. Within 30 seconds of that exchange the weird couple came round the bend. Absolutely true! (and scary). We moved not long after! Romey 1878 and Matt 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcopaulo Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Saw my ex in magaluf after not seeing her for 4 years cos she moved away. Called me a cunt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnh Posted December 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Saw my ex in magaluf after not seeing her for 4 years cos she moved away. Called me a cunt. Is she very perceptive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Romey 1878 Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Saw my ex in magaluf after not seeing her for 4 years cos she moved away. Called me a cunt. Did she call you that before or after you humped her again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeO Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Is she very perceptive? Got it in one . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcopaulo Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Is she very perceptive? Dad always told me you are what you eat ; )Did she call you that before or after you humped her again? She wouldn't let me touch her with brad pitt's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hafnia Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Second one, good man! Must've missed that one, congratulations mate. Sucker for lack of sleep, eh?` Thanks Matt, as you know it's life changing but gives you a purpose. Amazing experience being a dad. It is hard work but watching them learn is awesome. Be so interesting to see how he adapts to being a big brother! Matt 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cornish Steve Posted December 5, 2015 Report Share Posted December 5, 2015 My last name is very unusual, coming from the Cornish language. People with this name are mostly found in Cornwall, and in some places overseas where miners emigrated as the tin and copper mines shut down. In particular, there are a hundred or so in West Virginia with this name, and a handful in South Africa and Australia. On one of my business trips, I traveled to Jakarta in Indonesia. Since I knew I was going to be there on a Sunday, I contacted friends to see whether there are any English-speaking churches in the city. Someone mentioned All Souls, somewhere in Jakarta (which is a huge place). At 7:45 on the Sunday morning, after breakfast, I asked the concierge if he'd ever heard of All Souls. He grabbed my arm and pointed across the street. It took me about 10 minutes to cross the road (the political opposition were marching), but I arrived two minutes before 8 - and the service was due to start at 8. There's two coincidences right there. But get this.... That week, they had a guest speaker. He was with the East Africa Mission and had stopped over on his way from Africa to his home in Australia. And his last name? You got it! After the service, we chatted, and his great-grandparents had left Cornwall. Isn't that amazing? MikeO 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnh Posted December 7, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 7, 2015 Mentioned this thread to her indoors and she reminded me of this. Back in 1989 my sister, who lives in Konstanz in Germany, invited us to visit. The wife won't fly so I investigated doing it by train. I found that the Orient Express which runs from Victoria to Vienna (via a ferry across the channel then) had a stop at Zurich which is only 30 miles from Konstanz. I booked it and the blurb they sent asked us to wear black tie and evening dress for the dinners on the train. We spent weeks driving all over the south east trying to find a suitably posh dress for the wife. We found one at long last. At the first dinner on the train we swept into our section of the dining car which had six tables of four. The lady at the next table had the identical dress on. The atmosphere was rather chilly but I thought it was hilarious. Matt and MikeO 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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