Is the world getting smaller

[Shewie]

I had a very sureal experience on Saturday night whilst I was down in Bristol at my nieces 12th birthday party. The party was at a village hall which was filled with about 50 kids running about all hyper on fizzy pop, after an hour or so I`d had enough and thought I`d sneak off next door to the boozer for a quick pint. To cut a long story short I got chatting to an old lady who`d been at the rugby all day with her very very drunk husband, she made a remark about my accent as I ordered my pint and we got talking about Yorkshire life.
As the conversation went on things were starting to get a bit spooky. First I mentioned the area I came from and she said she knew it very well, then it was the street name and yes apparently she also knew it well. Then I told her the house number I now live at and would you believe it`s the very same house she was born in nearly 80 years ago. She even told me where the cold store shelves were in the cellar and that her brothers initials were carved into the the frame of the loft hatch. As soon as we`d emptied the suitcase last night I was putting it up in the loft and sure enough on the frame were the initials BRS, exactly as she told me. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on end as though somebody was stood behind me.
I`m not normally into this kind of pyscho babble but when the truth is there in front of you it`s hard to deny.

Another tale was whilst on our honeymoon in Canada a couple of years ago, the wife and I had just returned from a canoeing trip and were talking to a couple of guys at the centre. As we were about to leave a guy and his wife were just landing at the shore with a cat sat in the bow of their canoe. As Carol`s got a soft spot for cats she went over to give it a fuss and got chatting to the couple, after a few minutes it turned out the guy was from the same village where I was born and had emigrated with his parents in the 50s. So we`re on the other side of the world and I meet somebody from my childhood village.

Very wierd but Saturday was just bizarre.

Anyone got any similar stories ?

 

[andywinkk]

very spooky indeed

 

[VirusKiller]

As soon as we`d emptied the suitcase last night I was putting it up in the loft and sure enough on the frame were the initials BRS, exactly as she told me.

And there I was hoping that Paul Daniels appeared... That is soooo weird!

 

[wanderingblade]

More to the point - what were you up to chatting up an 80 year old?

During my travelling / busking days we met a nice couple in La Rochelle - they were there on holiday. We shared a few beers etc and went our serate ways.

6 months later we were in southern Germany busking away and who did we meet? the same couple who were on another weekend break away!

Small world indeed.

 

[BigShot]

Shewie - there's no need for psychobabble when sheer blind luck and coincidence are enough.

As any other fans of the genius that is Terry Pratchett will be able to confirm...
One-in-a-million chances succeed nine times out of ten.

Interesting one with the old lady.



An odd one for me was seeing a girl alone at a bus stop in a rough area (new friend of a not-friend of mine) so I offered her a lift.
Turns out she grew up a few doors away from my house...

...AND STILL LIVES THERE!
Haha.

Not as wierd as Shewie's, but certainly made us laugh. Neither of us knew who the other one was, having not actually seen eachother in about 15+ years (how, I don't know - but that's life).

 

[scrogger]

if he would have carved a bit harder you would have a bigger loft hatch!! just think what you could get up there with a bigger loft hatch!!!

spooky though I must admit.

 

[John Fenna]

Last year I was going by train to Devon..
I got on the train in West Wales and it was crowded.
I sat next to a pleasant looking teenage lad and we got chatting.
Turns out he is the son of my old Tai Chi instructor and I had met him once before - when he was 18 months old!
Changed trains and had to stand.
Next to an outdoorsie looking bloke.
He said "Are you John Fenna?"
When I said yes he explained that I had given him a first taste of canoeing when I was working for the Princes Trust....he then got off at the next stop.
Small world indeed!

 

[Justin Time]

Coming from a wee village in lanarkshire I was often amazed to meet someone I knew whenever visiting London. Biggest surprise was when getting on to a tube train, we decided to risk moving from the smoking carriage we got on (it was a long time ago) and then sat next to a girl I'd been to school with, and had also shared a flat with in Glasgow. If we hadn't moved carriages I'd have been sat a few feet away from her without knowing she was there.

Of course nowadays I bump in to people I know when I'm at the opera.....


Ooh 1,000 posts, and I've only been a member for five and a half years

 

[ol smokey]

I was introduced to BCUK, by JFW who I had newly met, and after knowing him for a month or two, he announced that he knew all about me now, I said How is that?
He said , I courted his mother for 5 years back in the 1950's when we were both single,
JFW and myself have become close friends through Bushcraft and meet up regularly for a bimble or at local meets or overnights in the hammocks. How is that for a coincidence.

 

[bushwacker bob]

I was introduced to BCUK, by JFW who I had newly met, and after knowing him for a month or two, he announced that he knew all about me now, I said How is that?
He said , I courted his mother for 5 years back in the 1950's when we were both single,
JFW and myself have become close friends through Bushcraft and meet up regularly for a bimble or at local meets or overnights in the hammocks. How is that for a coincidence.

when was JFW born? :sad6:

 

[ol smokey]

Ha Ha What's going on in that mind of yours,? He will be Forty in a weeks time.
Anyway in those days we behaved ourselves believe it or not.

 

[bushwacker bob]

Sorry OS, couldn't resist it!

 

[JFW]

when was JFW born? :sad6:

Yes the thought did cross my mind, but my mum and Stuart had both gone their separate ways a long time before I came along. You cheeky sod

Cheers

JFW

 

[firecrest]

great story shewie!

 

[DavidW]

I think these 'small world' encounters occur more often than we are aware.

I live in the eastern part of the USA - several years ago I made a motorcycle trip to Yellowstone Nat. Park via the Little Big Horn Battle Field Park. On the way to Cody , Wyoming ( eastern entrance to Yellowstone) from the Little Big Horn Montana I rode through Sheridan , Wy. across what is know as Medicine Wheel Pass in the Big Horn mountains. ( on the peak of the mountain there is an ancient formation of stones in a circle it is said the indians only say it has always been there, so constructed long before oral tradition )_ Anyway it was getting dark , I was running low on gas and no gas stations were seen anywhere only a few lodges with their lights on off in the trees.

When I passed a hotel with an above ground gas tank. I stopped to purchase gas got to chatting with a fellow who was good friends with a guy who lived within 5 miles of me, had been to his house many times and knew the road where I lived. From my house to Yellowstone is right at 2,000 miles. From Medicine Wheel Pass to Yellowstone was only another 150 miles or so. Odd.

A few years afterward I became aware that a guy , Jeff, who had been a crew mate of mine on a submarine 20 years ago lived about 4 blocks from a hospital where I frequently worked. And in fact had been living there about 15 years.

When we were on the submarine crew we lived in Hawaii, the sub operated out of Guam and on patrol made a large circle through the northern Pacific along the China, USSR coast and returned to Guam. At that time Jeff had no connection to the state where I live. Story was Jeff completed his service , got a college degree in the state where he was from, ended up taking a job as the rowing coach at a local small college, married a local girl and ended up staying here.

The second odd story with Jeff was that he told me that a few years earlier he had been spending some vacation time on the east coast near Virginia Beach . He sees a guy walking along the surf line who looked amazingly familiar , went over to talk to him and discovered it was was a Chief Petty officer from the old sub crew we had both served with. So after 15 years or so , and 6,000 miles or so difference Jeff by chance runs into someone at the beach he had both known in another life.

I guess the moral of the story is - you better be good where ever you go, you just never know who you will run into -