A saying that we hear a lot, but what is the reality?

At 7am on Boxing day, 2004, Mrs S and I were having a pre-breakfast swim off the west coast of Thailand whilst on honeymoon.

At 9:45 we had checked out and were getting on a bus behind the resort.

At 10:30ish, thousands of locals and tourists were killed. 90% of the people in our hotel including many families with children.

We were nearly in the wrong place at the wrong time, and by a matter of 45 minutes or a few miles were just in the right place at the wrong time.

Stood next to wife to be….in a registry office,at the exact moment the notary said “I now pronounce you man and wife”. 😳

Hull – September 1999 – June 2002

😛

I was the only western guest in a hotel in Jericho, the lobby of which was full of Palestinian youth sheltering from an Israeli curfew – that night America invaded Panama and I had to keep a few very angry blokes at bay pleading my Irishness in feeble arabic until my passport could be retrieved from the hotel safe, which took half an hour of handbag/shoving activity.

Girl was on her knees in front of me, administering.

Door opened.

Girl stopped her administrations and said, “It’s OK if my friend joins in, isn’t it?”

Said friend was a munter of epic proportions.

Realised I was very much in the wrong place at the wrong time. Pulled the eject handle!

World record time for trouser re-arrangement and out the door ensued.

I haven’t been but my willy often has.

Not me; a pal walking home from the pub. Out of a house door right in front of him came a fella carrying a petrol can. Della looked at him, laughed, poured the petrol over his own head and flicked a ciggie lighter.

Me & my two children. Inside lane of the A38 one wet July day a couple of years ago. Upside down car kind of wrong place. Not a nice experience.

When the winning euro millions ticket was being bought the other month. I was sat on the loo.

Stoner, is that real? wow 😯

OMG I bet your family were going mad with worry.

Most recent one was last June.

I got chatting to some men in a Pub in Cornwall, one of them was off to Ireland to compete in the world champion Zapcat race and his Co-pilot had to pull out, the guy spent the whole of the day phoning round friends for someone to go with him to the event and if i’d of met him a day earlier he’d of taken me..

That was very much a case of being in the right place at the wrong time.

I never knew that Stoner. I imagine it must have had a quite profound effect on you – specially if you had been staying there for a while and had got to know people.

Working as a copper in South Africa we patrolled an area that were seperated by a row of burnt out houses. One of them had a stunning looking TV aerial that my sergeant wanted since his got melted by lightning a week or so earlier. We decided to ‘acquire’ said aerial for him when it got dark later on. We came back later that night and I was propping him up so he could reach the nuts and bolts to loosen it. I looked right and straight down the barrel of a 9mm handgun about 7 meters away from the corner of the house.

I remember seeing the flash and hearing the bang. I dropped on my back, got my gun out and returned fire but he was gone by then. Later found out the bullet had cut a nice long slit in the side of my police cap that I was wearing that night. Still have the cap as a reminder of how dangerous TV aerials are. 😀

A guy who worked for me went on a long holiday from february. About a week prior to his arrival, Australia suffered the flooding along extensive parts of the east coast. a few days after he arrived, the cyclone hit northern Queensland, where he was due to travel to. Fast forward a few weeks, he’s on a plane flying into Christchurch 45 minutes before the earthquake. I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t coming back via Japan.

Dave, wherever you are, and in the nicest possible way, you are not welcome back in the UK! 😯

a reminder of how dangerous TV aerials are

a stunning looking TV aerial

But so alluring. I’m going to check out my roof right now.

Wrong place, right time:

I went on a booze cruise once, involving a ferry from Dover to Zeebrugge (and back), a supermarket in Middleburg, Holland and the Reading Festival

the name of the boat: Herald Of Free Enterprise. On that occasion they remembered to close the bow doors

Was out in London on 18th November 1987. Was going to get the tube then train home at about 7pm, but was persuaded to go to the pub instead. Most put out that when we later tried to go home we weren’t allowed to get off the tube at Kings X to get our train.

Like others on here, I guess that’s actually a right place at the wrong time story, but if I hadn’t gone to the pub I might not be here to post a wrong place, wrong time story. That proves beer is good for you.

Right place – Wrong time.

Behind italspark in the Inshriach cake shop queue when he snaffled the last slice of chocolate cake.

aracer –

A family friend was the last body to have been identified after the Kings X fire. He had offered to hand deliver a package on his way home. Wrong place – Wrong time.

Walking back home one day I was desperate for a slash and popped into a public toilets just at the exact moment a old boy (think Last of the summer wine old) whipped his pork sword out of an equally old boy lent over the sinks and splurged his muck on the floor right in front of me. Not an image I’ll forget easily.

…still remember how relieved my mum was when I got home. Hadn’t realised anything was up until then, despite the diversion up the line to get the train.

In london at a conference midweek, had a few wines so got up late to get the train back to manchester – some kind of issue on the tube so tried getting a bus but they were all full with commuters so walked to euston. by the time I got there, tv cameras, phone ringing…

7th July,

If I’d have been a bit more organised I may have been on one of the tube trains

oh yeah, was debating whether to take a trip into Manchester one saturday morning, making a brew and about to go out – great big bang and ginormous mushroom cloud…

Right place – Wrong time.

After an epic November ride in the Cairngorms, struggling back to Aviemore into a thunderstorm and headwind with the pomise of cake at Inshriach to keep us going. Our arrival at said cake shop counter was thwarted with a laminated cake picture on the gatepost with the notice – closed till May.

Wrong place – wrong time

italspark and I had parked the camper at the Loch an Eillean car park under cover of darkness. Unaware of the hefty charge for flycampering. The attendant arrived to collect our fees as we left on our ride next morning. We said we had no cash on us but would pay on our return.

It poured with rain, so a cat and mouse stand off was established. Would we get so cold we’d have to return before the attendant left his post. It was in winter so dakness fell early. We figured we could eat the fee in the warmth of the Cafe at Rothiemurchus. We downed Lattes as the sun set. Lingered in Bothy Bikes till it was just light enough to find our way back.

Certain that we’d evaded payment, we stopped to fit lights on the last stretch of tarmac back to the car park, when a car came down from that direction. It was the attendant. He turned around and followed us back to our pitch to collect his fee.

oh yeah, was debating whether to take a trip into Manchester one saturday morning, making a brew and about to go out – great big bang and ginormous mushroom cloud…

My sister was busking at the Arndale Centre with some other students from the RNCM that morning.

One of my wife’s friends was by the Arndale centre in Manchester the day the IRA bombed it. Unharmed.

Years later she was at a medical conference in London when they hear a big bang. Conference venue was in Russell Square. The date was July 7th.

“Thats’s a bomb” says she. “And how would you know?” says her colleague.

My Dad’s best mate from merchant navy days stayed on ships after they’d left the service and was working for Townsend Thorenson. He swapped shifts with another chief engineer which meant the other guy was on the Herald when it went over.

Back in 92 I was sailing in the channel when a gale blew up, we were stuck in a 30ft swell for 11 hours, all but out main sail failed, the mast was minutes from snapping at the base when a gigantic cargo ship calmed the sea with it’s wake, we then managed to limp into Newhaven harbour, we we’re aiming for Brighton. This was my first experience of sailing, subsequently the last. Other sailors weren’t has luck as I that weekend.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/two-sailors-die-as-gales-hit-regatta-1538076.html

About 19 years ago (when I was working for a landscape gardening company) I was heading back home on a Friday evening and decided to take a shortcut down a rough-ish track because my van was really low on fuel and by going that way I could coast almost to my door if I ran out. Anyway, about 200 yards into the track I found that there was a Ford Escort parked, blocking it completely. My first thought was “What a f*cking place to leave a car” – until I spotted the vacuum cleaner hose, of course……
Anyway, there were two people in the car (husband and wife as it turns out) and the car was locked (but a lump hammer soon took care of that). The guy was semi-concious but I thought that the woman (who’d downed most of a bottle of whisky and then choked on her own vomit) was dead. So I did all the stuff that I thought that I’d never have to put into practice and managed to get her back to a condition where I felt it was safe for me to run back to the main road and stop the first car that I saw. Amazingly the driver had a mobile phone (not many people round here did then) and was able to get an ambulance there within 15 minutes.

So, they both made a full recovery but some time afterwards the guy borrowed his mate’s car and did the same thing again (and succeeded this time).I remember saying as I was smashing a window to get into the car “I’m sorry mate, but I have to do this”.
I got a certificate of commendation from the Chief Constable “for my outstanding efforts in saving two people’s lives” which was bollocks, because anyone would have done exactly the same. I tore the certificate up and burnt it, I didn’t want any reminders of it all and besides, only a few months previously the husband of the woman who is now my wife had killed himself in the same way, leaving her with two kids of 7 and 9 and all because of some stupid cow of a policewoman that he, for some reason, became obsessed with…

But yes, wrong place, wrong time.

Stoner, is that real? wow

OMG I bet your family were going mad with worry.

We didnt know that the wave had hit until getting off the bus a few hours later in Trang. BBC News Worldwide was on the bar TV. We thought it would be a good idea to turn our mobile phone on and answer some of the text messages waiting for us…

I imagine it must have had a quite profound effect on you – specially if you had been staying there for a while and had got to know people

Always been a bit of a (atheistic) fatalist. The inevitability of certain things and the freakishness of probability. Mrs S and I never discuss it really. We left as two Swedish families were jumping in the pool with their blonde-haired, blue-eyed kids. That’s the image I usually try and suppress the most. The only other images we ever had were from newspapers, never the coast itself.

Wrong place, wrong time. Very very Nearly.

I was on my way into Warrington town centre, running late due to hangover reasons, when the bombs went off.

I was on my way into Manchester centre, running late due to hangover reasons, when the bomb went off.

Up yours Martin ****ing Mcguinness!!

The inevitability of certain things and the freakishness of probability.

+1

Doesn’t really bear thinking about – you’d drive yourself round the bend. Tiny decisions…

Tiny decisions indeed. We only decided to check out at breakfast.

Aged 12 I was on top of the Musée national de la Marine in Paris, looking at the Eiffel Tower, kind of this pic in reverse

I was standing above the long windows in the middle of the pic, right in the middle.

Standing a couple of feet away was another tourist, taking photos of the tower.

He dropped his camera and as he went to grab it fell over the low wall and I watched him drop all the way, 40ft to concrete, no chance.

He didn’t scream, other people did though.

Pretty certain this is where my fear of heights comes from. Still freaks me out thinking about it almost 30 years later, especially the way he twitched.

Right place, right time
Car driving along the road aproacjhing a roundabout when the driver has a heart attack, effectively dies and loses control of the car. Car didn’t stop at roundabout, went straight over and crashed. On it’s way round the roundabout at the same time was the NHS’s new rapid response vehicle equipped with a brand spanking new defibrillator.
Paramedics on site within 90 seconds of incident !!BANG! – patient made full recovery.

yes

Visiting my wifes family in Romania, we were taking a scenic walk through a local limestone gorge at the exact moment a tree on the top of gorge decided to fall into it.

It narrowly missed me, my wife my brother in law but hit her mum (must have been a glancing blow or she would have been killed the tree trunk was two feet wide and about 15 feet long) She suffered what turned out to be a broken clavicle and a couple of fractured ribs.

The only way out of the gorge was down a series of ladders so Romanian mountain rescue has to be called out to get my mother in law out of the gorge.

So I guess that was wrong place, wrong time, although if any of us had been about two feet to the left it would have been even worse