When I worked in the local Public Library system, I had been there for about 14 years and had known a work colleague through moving around to/from different branches and departments. We had worked briefly together in one department but not really sat down together and talked much.

She came to work at the branch I was managing and was there for a couple of years before we had our serendipitous conversation.

We knew we both came from the same town, 20 miles north but we were in the lunch room together and she started saying that her grandfather had owned and operated a "cordial factory" (which is Oz-lish for a soft drink factory) there. I suddenly sat up in my chair and asked what his name was. It turned out that he was my father's grandfather's brother, so she and my father are cousins. They had both lived in the same town all their lives, and it is not a really big town by Oz standards, and yet they never knew each other.

By coincidence :-) yesterday at work another one of those coincidences occurred. It is in my home town as well.

I have only worked at this place for a couple of months, but yesterday two of the women were looking out the window talking about something else, and one of them commented on the well-laid out garden outside. The other one said that her father would be very upset about its run-down condition because he had done the work to establish it and look after it.

The other one asked what her father's name was and found out that she had lived in the same street as this man and his wife, had had meals at their place, and she said she was really fond of them both. Neither of the women knew each other and have also probably lived in that town all their lives. They have worked together for nearly a year.

Another story: I went on a coach trip to the Oz Outback about 10 years ago and we had only been on the road for a couple of days, with about 40 people on the trip. The faces and names were only just starting to resolve themselves into my brain as a coherent whole and I think it was the same with most of us so not many of us took much notice of this conversation at the time.

We had arrived late in the afternoon at a place called Wilpena Pound, an unusual landform which is an extensive almost-circle made of two cresecent shaped overlapping ridges, forming an interesting valley in the middle. It is roughly in the middle of Oz.

We went for a walk up to the lookout and were all standing around enjoying the scenery and chatting. Then we went back down to set up camp and prepare dinner. When we were all sitting around after dinner one couple told us that they got to the top of the ridge and walked straight over to another couple and said "What are you doing here?" The two couples lived in the same street in another state, over on the east coast and met at Wilpena without knowing that each couple was going to be there.

We were not meant to be there at that time because there was flooding on the road we had planned to go so we turned left and headed in the other direction on our planned route.

The thing that amazed me was how calmly the two couples chatted and accepted the coincidence. No one nearby knew about it.

But, I have to introduce some healthy scepticism here: Oz is really just one big country town spread out over thousands of square miles. Six degrees of separation is only about three degrees here. ;->

Helen