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NOEL BRIEN (in Canada) emailed YPAM with the following story proving that fact can be stranger than fiction !!

Following evacuation to the country during The Blitz, our family returned to Belfast but, since another addition was on the way, instead of returning to our smallÌýStrandburn Drive house, we relocated to Cardigan Drive,Ìýin consequence of which my two older sisters and I attended Belfast Model Elementary School on Cliftonville Road.

Among the neigbourhood boys I became good friends withÌýover the years was Chris MacAree who lived on nearby Kingsmere Avenue,Ìýhe laterÌýattendedÌýSt Malachy's while I went on to "Inst". During that time he developed a spine problem which required him to lie in a body cast for many months, and after school I would often go to seeÌýhimÌýin the City Hospital, marvelling at how patiently he bore thisÌýtrial, and at his resulting decision to become a doctor. He had had an older sister marry a Canadian airman from Oshawa,Ìýto where his older brother later emigrated, andÌýfollowing my own 1954 departure for Canada we lost touch.

DecadesÌýlaterÌýwhen people would refer to "the troubles" and I wouldÌýcite howÌý"the divide" simplyÌýdidn't exist forÌýmany people including Chris and me,ÌýI would often wonder whether he had survived to fulfil his medical career ambition, and what had become of him.ÌýÌýStrangely, he and others from those years have been in my mind recently much more than usual.

Last Thursday evening our fax number rang, but when I looked no paper message had emerged from the fax machine, its dial simply showing "communication error".Ìý When this happens I usually look next at my phone'sÌýCaller ID display, but the numberÌýit showed was not familiar, so in tryingÌýto be helpfulÌýI dialled it anyway.Ìý A male English-accented voice answered and I told him my fax had rung but since no message had arrived, I thought he would want to know.Ìý

It quickly became clear that instead of dialling a friend's phone numberÌýat 3527, his finger had slipped on to the 4 by mistake - a truly "digital" error!Ìý

We might easily have just left it at that but, as I often do, I remarked on hisÌýaccent, enquiring from which part of England he came, to which he answered "Ipswich, but that was a very long time ago, 1953 in fact", so I responded that I had emigrated from Belfast just a year later.Ìý

"Oh" he said, "I have a very good friend, a doctor, who came from Belfast not long after that" mentioning the Montreal hospital in which he had first worked, and went on to tell me that his friend had subsequently become a professor of psychiatry in theÌýUSA. "May I ask your friend's name?"Ìý.... "Yes, Chris MacAree" he replied.

I was almost dumbstruck with astonishment at this amazing coincidence, which theÌýcaller chose to describe as 'the finger of fate'!Ìý HeÌýkindly provided Chris's phone number and encouragement to use it, so I need hardly add that I phoned early the next morning, both of us being delighted at renewing a contact lost fifty years ago!