She Found Her Painting After 40 Years

A 67 Not Out reader's coincidence story today. The author wishes to be known as 'Doris' - so my thanks to Doris.

"I often read your blog and your article about the twins meeting after about 50 years made me decide to send you one of my coincidence experiences.

Between 1968 and 1969 I lived in Poole in Dorset and painted as a hobby while my children were small. In Poole Park they sometimes had exhibitions of local artists and I entered two of my pictures of flowers, which I was willing to sell.

I was thrilled to find out that one of my paintings sold for £6, which was a decent amount in those distant days. Following this I often entered my pictures into Poole Park exhibitions but sold very few. This didn't surprise me as I'm not that good a painter, it was only a hobby.

Last year I went to the Lake District, several hundreds of miles away, on holiday and we stayed at small Bed and Breakfast places which we booked as we travelled.

On the third or fourth night my husband and I found a suitable B&B and booked in. The proprietor showed us to our room and above the bed was a painting. I joked that it looked like one of mine. The man didn't make much of what I said and left us on our own.

"I'm sure that's my painting," I insisted to my husband.

"Can't be," he said.

I couldn't let it rest and stood on the bed to take a better look. My husband thought I'd gone mad or something! The painting was only held up by a picture hook and I managed to take the picture down.

There on the back was my name and old address in Poole!

We told the proprietor about the painting and he said it was amongst his mother's possessions when she died and he thought it suitable for one of his letting bedrooms. He didn't know how his mother had got the painting as she never lived in Poole.

We had booked into that Guest House purely by chance and were then given the right room to view my painting again after over forty years. It's a small world."

Bernice Finally Met The 'Twin' She Dreamed About