An Incredible Coincidence: My Grandfather, Asiago and a Chance Encounter. An unexpected connection to Asiago, Italy.

Last Tuesday, I was coming out of Totnes Museum after my volunteer hours when I spotted a friend and his wife walking up the hill. I said hello and asked where they were going on holiday.

They told me they were heading to Asiago in north-eastern Italy, a beautiful plateau in the foothills of the Alps.

Now here’s the extraordinary part.

Just the evening before, I had been researching where my grandfather, Major Bernard Green MC, was wounded during the First World War in October 1918.

And, blow me down, I discovered that he had been shot through the heel at Asiago!

What are the chances?

My grandfather and the First World War

I had been researching my grandfather's wartime experiences and trying to establish exactly where he was wounded in October 1918. Discovering that the place was Asiago was fascinating enough.

But finding this out just one evening before unexpectedly meeting friends who were travelling to Asiago on holiday made the coincidence all the more remarkable.

I love coincidences.

There is something wonderful about those unexpected connections between people, places and events - especially when they link the present day with family history from more than a century ago.

Another remarkable coincidence in France

This isn't the first extraordinary coincidence I've experienced.

When I was doing the third year of my French degree in France, I worked as an assistant in a little town called Nontron in the Dordogne.

Seventeen years later, I was fortunate enough to spend a Fulbright Exchange Year in southern California.

My exchange partner from Brawley had a son who had also studied for a French degree in the United States. He spent his third year in France as an assistant in…

You guessed it.

Nontron.

The same small town in the Dordogne where I had lived and worked seventeen years earlier.

Perhaps coincidences aren't quite as random as we think.

Lots of love,

Laurence