Deidre Savidge... What A Coincidence!

I have never been a great believer in fate, although many people think my meeting my now husband was fate. I had been drinking at the Christmas Party at a previous employer’s from lunchtime and at midnight my assistant decided we must go to GAY. I wasn’t up for it to be honest. However, there my eyes met (over a sticky dirty drunken dance floor) Mr B’s and something fizzled. Mr B himself had been dragged out for his birthday by his friends when he had wanted a quiet night in. I guess both of us being dragged to a place we didn’t want to go and meeting is a kind of fate. Fate however is meant to be quite romantic and not contain the sentences of ‘sorry, who are you?’ or ‘seriously you don’t have to call me or swap numbers’ the next morning, but Mr B persisted but I have gone off on a slight tangent.

I am a believer in coincidence and I dont mean the 'what a coincidence' of Muriels father and Deidre Chambers. For example the fact that when Polly (my best friend of 23 years) and myself became best friends at school we found out my Mum and her Dad were at the same school together in Matlock, more of Matlock later. If I hadn’t been a believer in coincidence before this week has proven it.

On Saturday I went to see Blowing Whistles (which was ok not great, I do now have a large crush on Paul Keating though) and whilst Mr B took time to have a fag in the interval, I was reading my book when I heard ‘Simon!’ I looked around and there was the delightful Mr Burston and his husband Paulo. Now myself and Paul have bumped into each other at Spamalot and Joan Rivers on press nights, yet this wasn’t a press night it was just a random Saturday show. In all the theatres in all of the West End they had to walk into mine… what a small world but a beautiful one as I love Paul and Paulo and we had a lovely chat on the way to Leicester Square.

We waved them off as they descended into the Northern Line, whilst it was my call that Mr B and I have a Burger King, I am mid-ordering my Bacon Double Cheese meal when I hear a shriek of ‘Simon!’ and its my friend Holly Rose (she’s also a popstar, her version of Minnie Ripperton’s ‘Inside My Love’ is amazing and out next year) who lives in Hertfordshire and I haven’t seen for ages, well since the wedding. I think our ‘mutual love in’ and shrieking camped up Burger King no end.

However what has pushed coincidence into new heights was Tuesday. I had an interview booked with the lovely Christopher Green aka Tina C/Ida Barr. At work I am known for doing my research on the day or the night before as I like it fresh in my mind. So when looking on Wikipedia I see he is from Matlock, my home town, though I am technically Matlock Bath - believe me up there the valley dividing the two makes all the difference. So I phone my aunties and ask them if they went to school with anyone called Christopher Green? Now before you say ‘how rude, he is only in his 30’s’ can I add my mother is the eldest and she is 42, so it’s not that rude it actually makes sense. By chance when I spoke to Alice (she’s just had twins) she had and not only that, they were best friends at school.

So armed with this knowledge I met Christopher and told him and after saying ‘do you know how old you have made your interviewee feel’ and me explaining my mother was the teenage gymslip pregnancy the whole of Matlock talked about, we got on like a house on fire and best of all I have got them both back in touch, see it really is a small world. But is that fate or coincidence? You decide.

Oh and my biggest ever case of coincidence? It has to be when I bumped into my ‘big sister’ at a Post Box on Charlotte Street carrying a Chihuahua puppy and looking gayer than gay after having not seen her for about 4 years, that’s another story though.