Coincidences

How does it happen that we all have those odd meetings or things happen that seem so unlikely.

Yesterday after various delays and time changes I helped move a table out of the church hall and so just happened to be walking past the churchyard and noticed someone dawdling there. Maybe just a 15 second window of opportunity that might have been different by an hour or even day but for various little changes in timing.
He turned out to be someone I had worked with for a decade or so but not seen for some 25 years after we both left the company. He was filling in time while his wife was at the dentist which they still use despite moving a few miles away years ago. So he does come to the village a couple of times a year but I have only just retired to be occasionally out and about during the working day, though not normally at that place.
So in theory yes we can expect to meet but what are the chances?

A few years ago at the Ally Pally show I found myself looking at an exhibit and standing next to a contemporary from school whom I had not seen for 30 years. It was his first and only visit to the show though I have been to all of them,

Throw in another oddity - both the above men have daughters who had been in their college rowing eights at Cambridge at about the same time.

Well, coincidences happen I guess, a few weeks ago when I was out for a walk I met my former boss who I hadn't seen in a decade.

Thor

On the other hand...

I think most of us lose contact very often and quite rapidly.

I retired almost 6 years ago. Since then I have met less than half a dozen former colleagues.

It is a bit worrying though when someone greets you by name and you stand there desperately trying to identify the individual, or even just recall his or her name although recognising the face; probably from some work-place in the distant past.

Nigel 2

Tell me about it!

Long Service Club Outing, warmly greeted by two former colleagues, faces familiar, but could I remember their names as we drank coffee together? NO, and still cannot recall the names.

Old age brings problems, but damages memoiy

Howard

And I thought it was only me who was so notorious I was remembered by ex work colleagues, whereas I can never remember names, never have been able to it's very embarrassing at times

In the early 60’s I joined the Air Force and in 1967 was posted to Sharjah, a desert airfield in what has now become the UAE. I was at lunch in the airman’s mess one day and an army lance corporal sat down opposite me and when I looked up it was a school friend of mine that had been in my class and we hadn’t seen each other since leaving school five years previously, strange coincidence. Dave W

It must be a "Webster" thing Duncan. I have a mild case of prosopagnosia. Yes, it is a real word. It is also known as "face blindness". I sometimes can't recognise people who I have met previously. I was at a friends birthday party once and this couple came up and started talking to me as if they knew me. After several minutes of a blank baffled stare from me they reminded me that my friend and I went to their house for dinner the previous week, just the four of us. Brad Pitt is also a sufferer. It affects as many as 1 in 50 Britons.

'Intro'

In 1962 I joined the army. On the train from Waterloo station to Aldershot I got talking to a young chap about my own age from Melton Mowbray . When we got to Aldershot he got up as I did - it turned out that not only were we both signing up but we were both enlisting in the Parachute Regiment. Needless to say we became good friends and stuck together throughout the arduous training. In the platoon behind us was a young guy called Dave Jeffries who had recognised my Lowestoft accent. Along with another Dave we four were really great mates and we were all posted to D Company 3 Para in Jan 1963. Amazingly all four of us were in the same platoon - No11 - too.

Eventually Army life saw us go our separate ways but Dave Jeffries and I stayed in vague touch over the years.

He moved up this way to Norfolk and had a job as Head groundsman at a Holiday camp in Gt Yarmouth.

'Situation'

One morning he is cutting a hedge in front of a chalet. Holiday maker comes out and begins to chat. Tells Dave he's from Melton Mowbray, Dave mentions being in the Army with a guy from MM. What were you in asks the chap. When Dave says 3 Para he responds with "It wouldn't be a Mick Naylor would it by any chance ?

So after some forty plus years three of the four of us met up again.

As Bazle says a window of opportunity so small as to be unimaginable but occasionally it happens.

Here we are just after joining 3 para on a bit of leave during a winter training and exercise in Winnepeg Feb 1963. L-R Dave Jeffries, Dave Taylor, Myself and Mick Naylor

Dave W mentioned Sharjah - I found this pic passed to me of our battle camp there circa 1964/5. Apologies for the squaddie annotation. Just the way it was back then. No showers but a tiny drop of fresh water daily for shaving in - the sea for everything else

Best - Tug

With me it is names, I see the face, fine, but cannot remember the name. This comes of shifting about tyhe world from unit to unit, not staying long enugh to remember a name.

One other thing that comes to mind is, ESP, I could leave Germany, drive to the ferry and arrive at Mothers house and she would open the door, saying, 'I knew you were coming'.

My fathers mother passed away unexpectedly in 1943, my father was stationed in Ceylon and said he knew she had gone before the notification arrived.

Mike

Tug

Thanks for the photo of Sharjah, needless to say I recognise the sand. Dave W. 🤪