winter lights at Oxford Circus

Oxford circus reminds me something curious. I visited London for the first time in my life in 1969. I was in my first year at university then... I was walking just here, the streets were crowded with people as only In London centre can be, when I met face to face with a fellow student of my University... what chances you have to meet someone you know in London? And from Sardinia? It's like to win a the lottery...

I hope it was someone that you liked, or you would have had to quickly cross the street and pretend to be an English double!

Actually, it's not as unusual as you think, as most people seem to have had one of these amazing chance encounters. My parents first met when they were evacuated to a country village during the war. They never went back to that village until 25 years later, when we were touring on holiday and they had a spur-of-the-moment idea to go there.

We parked the car at the top of the village and walked down to the centre. Of course they were talking about the people they had known in the past, and my mother pointed to a couple walking in front of us, "Doesn't that remind you of Arthur Miller?" So she quickened her pace to overtake them, and sure enough, it was the Millers. They now lived two hundred miles away, and like us had spontaneously decided to revisit the village whilst on holiday. They had arrived a minute before us, and we had parked our car right next to theirs.

"They had arrived a minute before us, and we had parked our car right next to theirs."

This could not have been a mere coincidence... the odds are too little... I think there is a kind of bond which links people and makes things like that happens.

I can tell you another example, always in London, the same summer or the next one. While sailing in Sardinia our boat stopped in the marina of a V.I.P. tourist town (Porto Cervo). I was just a young crew of a rich man yacht. We went to dine in a restaurant. A very expensive one I could never have afforded - but the boss was paying... I made acquaintance with a lovely American girl sit in the table next to ours. I told her I was going to London later that summer and she promptly told me: "Oh! I live in London, come and visit me when you are there". And she gave me her address. I realized that she thought I was the owner of the yacht or something...

When I was in London I had lost her address and anyway being shy I would have never gone to disturb her... but one day I was passing through Piccadilly Circus (another very crowded place) and I was stopped by a girl... it was her!!! Another coincidence? Impossible!
She asked me: why didn't you come and visit me? So I told her I had lost her address... she invited me for dinner at her home for the next day... Oh my! It turned out the she was the daughter of an American millionaire, the owner of oil wells,. You can imagine they were rolling in it...

What followed could be the plot of a soap opera...