Many years ago I worked with a guy, his small company, just us two. He was always going on about his problems with his wife which got a bit tiresome. Eventually we parted as I set up my own company. Only about two months later I took my girlfriend on holiday. Went into a remote bar in Yugoslavia and there he was with his wife trying to sort things out. I don't know who was more surprised.

This story isn't about me but a former colleague.

I used to be assistant manager of a store in Manchester. The sales floor manager (Claire) and the store manager (Peter) hated each other, and really couldn't be in the same room together.

One year their holidays overlapped due to an oversight, mainly because they never talked to each other.

Claire was devastated when she arrived at her hotel in Goa and Peter and his family were in the room across the hall. Needless to say, the hotel was full so she had to spend a fortnight checking before she left the room or went into the restaurant...

I can never remember the names of the people I meet in all sorts of places. But invariably stop and talk to them. My partner then quizzes me about where I know them from. But I can't remember if it was in the golf club, the line dance classes, the pub I used to run, The Navy Club, the area I used to live in, any of the associations/clubs I belong to, the last holiday I went on and so on, ad-infinitum. It will not be long before I begin to wonder who the hell I am and what I am doing here.

On holiday in Portsmouth about ten years ago, I was walking along the front at Eastney reminiscing with my wife about the old days, when I thought I recognised a face of a man who walked past going the other way with a group of people. After about ten yards or so I remembered that he was one of my really good friends on board HMS Ceylon (about thirty years previously) for a period of about two years. So I turned around to catch up with him. But he had disappeared in the crowd on the seafront. So that was a co-incidental meeting that wasn't.

It used to be said that if you sat in the lounge of the Red Sea Hotel in Aden for long enough you would see every bloke you had ever served with (sorry girls, the only ladies in the Red Sea Hotel lounge weren't, if you see what I mean!).

I suppose you could have said the same about Crewe railway station in its prime.