A series of coincidental accidents

My mother and father went to school together in Whithorn, a small town in south west Scotland.

They were aware of each other’s existence, but my father was a year older than my mother and in a different class, so they did not really know each other and were not friends.

My father ran away from home to join the Royal Navy, but they told him he was too young and sent him home again. A year later, when he was old enough, he did join the Navy, just in time for the Spanish Civil War. Britain was not involved, but my father’s ship took British men to the Spanish coast to go ashore in small boats at night.

A few years later, one day, during the Second World War, my father was home on leave and was walking along the main street in Whithorn. My mother was walking along the street too and saw him.

“I heard you had been killed,” she said to him.

“No,” he replied.

A few years later, they were married.

A few years after that, I was born.

If you should meet me, remember we are only there because of a long linked chain of chance encounters stretching way back to the Big Bang.

Anything can lead to anything.