It's a small world....

LilElvis

When my Mum was still a primary school teacher in Surrey we bumped into a group of her pupils on a trip at Plymouth Hoe. My old English teacher also met a group of pupils on the Yugoslav border when going on her summer holiday.

After finishing university I moved to South London and walked into a local pub one night to find 3 others I had studied with. They had moved there from Manchester and Liverpool.

The world often seems a very small place!

Ames

I was in a dorm in a hostel in Paris talking to an American backpacker. Another American came in and they started the 'so where are you from?'. Turned out they went to the same (US) university, had friends in common, but had never met until then.

sillyvixen

We met cousins on a beach in dorset (i think) - that my parents had lost touch with many years before. My uncles wife kept staring at us and eventually when dad went to get cold drinks she came over and asked mum if her husband was John? she recognized the family resemblance and we spent the rest of the holiday getting to know them.

We had never been to that area before and only went as we were late booking a holiday due to heath concerns over an elderly great grandparent and could not go to our usual caravan site in tenby - a family friend recomended a site in dorset.

splishsplash

melanzana wrote: »

Wow, what a coincidence! And a great story.

Here in Southern Ireland, it's like a village. Everyone knows everyone far and wide, as the migration to the cities from the country is huge.

I was on holidays in Egypt and I met a friend from my home town. Now I am glad I was on my best behaviour at the time!

We always say here when the gals are having a !!!!!y rant in our favourite restaurant..."are we safe to talk..have a look around first before we discuss X" lol.

You just never know.

I live in a very rural town, next-stop-America type of place in southwest Ireland.
Many, many years ago, long before mobile phones and internet, my friend rang me on a Sunday morning to fill me in on what I'd missed at the one and only nightclub by not going out the night before. Nothing earth-shattering, just the usual gossipy who-got-with-who debriefing kind of chat.

Thing is she was phoning from Paris, having spoken to her sister in Tokyo who got the goss from her friend in Australia who had heard it from her sister who lived about 100m up the road from me:rotfl:. The source of the stories then called in for coffee which kind of completed the circuit nicely.
Small world is exactly what we kept saying:T

melanzana

splishsplash wrote: »

I live in a very rural town, next-stop-America type of place in southwest Ireland.
Many, many years ago, long before mobile phones and internet, my friend rang me on a Sunday morning to fill me in on what I'd missed at the one and only nightclub by not going out the night before. Nothing earth-shattering, just the usual gossipy who-got-with-who debriefing kind of chat.

Thing is she was phoning from Paris, having spoken to her sister in Tokyo who got the goss from her friend in Australia who had heard it from her sister who lived about 100m up the road from me:rotfl:. The source of the stories then called in for coffee which kind of completed the circuit nicely.
Small world is exactly what we kept saying:T

That is Ireland for ya!

Everyone knows everyone else. In some ways that is good, in others it can drive you nuts. The amount of people I meet day to day that know me (even if I have never met them), and my Mother and family is unreal. I have to just get over it, and live the dream in a small country.

Nowhere is safe!

74jax

When my DD was about 7 she ran the junior north run. Fell and couldn't finish so a lad same age helped her and walked round with her. At the end we lost him as family came over and she needed her leg bandaged.

On holiday 7 years later in Turkey, we got talking to a family, spent the week together in the same hotel, they were from 300 miles away from us but had visited Newcastle once..... Yep their son was the boy who helped my DD and we only found out by chance at the end of the week.

melanzana

Wonderful thread.

But be careful out there!

elmer

A few years ago we went on holiday to Toronto from Scotland, and met a lovely man in the museum there who talked to the kids about all the exhibits.
The following year we went to Vancouver, where we met the same man at the aquarium, we said hi and he said we were a long way from home in Toronto.
We explained that actually we lived in Scotland and just on holiday in Canada and he was astounded that he had managed to meet us twice within a year a thousand miles apart.

barbiedoll

When I was younger, I used to visit Cornwall every few weeks, my best friend lives there, as did my boyfriend at the time.

One night, I was in the pub and a girl recognised my London accent and we got chatting. She was a student down there but she actually came from an area very near to where I lived.

It turned out that her sister was a girl who I had befriended after meeting at the bus stop on my way to work each morning. The student in Cornwall showed me some photos of her sister's wedding, to which I had been invited but I didn't go as I was in Cornwall (at another wedding) that weekend!

AntoMac

Enjoyable thread.

A couple of years ago a friend at work told me that a new guy in his team had exactly the same name as me. That was really wierd as I have an English first name and Scottish/Gaelic surname and live/work in Bristol.

Anyway, for fun I left my bank cards on the floor at my namesake's desk and asked him if they were his. He was totally flummoxed as he said that it was his name but not his signature. After I told him of our name coincidence we had a good laugh and I enquired as to where his family were from.

His family were from the same tiny village as my father's family, over 600 miles away in the Scottish Highlands. There are only around 40 houses in the village and until then I'd never met a Scot (outside of family) that had even heard of it.