Tuesday, March 26

Yummy Potato Peelings And Sand Sandwiches Coincidence

Sand sandwiches

Here's an amusing coincidence story from my cuttings. It's something that was in the Daily Mail newspaper and is by Ron from Liverpool, England.

"The year was 1948 and I was standing at a bus stop on Kings Drive, Liverpool. I was 15 and had just started work at the Liverpool Express.

My attention was drawn to a middle-aged man approaching. He stopped at the bus stop on the other side of the road, reached into a bag and removed a parcel which he dumped in the litter bin. He then crossed the road to my bus stop, and I indicated to him that he could go in front of me.

This happened on a regular basis, and I was getting ever more curious as to what was going on.. So one night I began poking about in the litter bin and found neatly wrapped sandwiches. Further examination revealed the sandwiches were potato peelings on bread!

Every morning, the same thing happened - the sandwiches were dumped, he crossed the road and I let him go in front of me in the queue.

The man got off at a different stop to me, but one lunch time I spotted him going into a pub in the centre of Liverpool with a young lady. So part of the mystery was solved. But the sandwich fillings still intrigued me - sometimes they weren't filled with potato peelings, but with sand or mud.

This puzzled me until the Korean War broke out. By 1953 I was a machine gunner in the King's Regiment defending the Hook, a crescent-shaped ridge that saw much fighting.

A new recruit joined me as No.3 on our Vickers machine-gun. He was a lad from the same area as me, and one night I told him about the sandwich dumper. But before I got to the part about the pub and the young lady, he interrupted and said, "That was my dad." Quite a coincidence!

He explained that his mother used to take great delight in making his dad's sandwiches and asking him when he got home, "Enjoy your lunch dear?"

He would always reply, "Smashing, great, my love." But one day she had found his sandwiches at the bus stop and put two and two together, and decided he was going to his mother's for lunch - who she could not abide. From then on she knew the sandwiches wouldn't be eaten and she wasn't prepared to waste food.

But, of course, it wasn't his mother he was lunching with. I didn't have the heart to tell the No.3 on the Vickers this - especially as he used to give me his cigarette ration."

Other Strange Food Story Posts:
The Dinosaur Cookbook
Holy Man Hasn't Had Food Or Drink For 70 Years
The Peanut Allergy Psychic Prediction

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6 comments:

  1. What an amusing story, I can imagine something like this happening. My partner does his own sandwiches, which is lucky for him!

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  2. Replies
    1. It made me smile when I first heard the story.

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  3. Fascinating. These kinds of stories always leave me in a state of awe. The odds, what are the odds??

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    Replies
    1. Odds must be massive but also an interesting sight into how people react, and sometimes reach the wrong conclusion.

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