“If it wasn’t for xxxxxxx I wouldn’t be here.” Weird things to Owe your existence to.

[OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow]

Inspired by a conversation with dh today. We were driving past the site of the old tb hospital in our home town. His grand parents met there when gf was a patient and Dgm was a nurse. “So if it wasn’t for tb I wouldn’t be here.”
So is there anyone else who wouldn’t be around if not for something unusual?

If it weren't for the evacuation of Dunkirk I wouldn't be here. My grandparents met when my grandfather landed on the south coast & my grandmother lived there. No way would they have met otherwise.

The revolution in China. My mother’s family was out there and returned to home country. Otherwisemy parents likely would not have met.

If my mother was not a doctor to diagnose what was wrong with me and then fight to get scans for that. Then save me from a junior doctor who was doing their best.

If my husband's partner hadn't died young, we'd not be where we are today. Bittersweet, I suppose.

If my uncle had been over 18, my mum wouldn't have had to chaperone him on a night out, and probably wouldn't have met my dad.

Fox-hunting.
If rich hunting lady hadn't have employed my grandfather to look after her hunting horses, he wouldn't have moved from Ireland to my fox-hunting hometown, and met my grandmother.

I'm another from World War II. My father was a German PoW, captured in 1944 in Eindhoven and ended up in a prison camp in Norwich, where my mother was at school.

Not my existence, but I know of someone who is only alive because of the London bombings. Chose that day to commit suicide, didn't go to work. Husband phoned up her work to check she'd made it in ok , work said she was on leave. Husband raced home and found her in time.

Archie Maynard's piles! A colleague of my father's was stricken with a case of haemorrhoids. My Dad went to visit him and, it being a Friday evening, repaired afterwards to the nearby dance hall which was not his local haunt. He met my Mother that night.

Someone else's ill mother. My DGM was due to take a job in a certain town. A friend/colleague said her mother lived in that town and was ill. Would my DGM swap and go to the town she had been assigned to. DGM said yes she would swap and met my DGF there

@nothingtrLaa

Love your reason - is that because you ended up moving school?

Sorry @nothingtralala

If my Dad hadn't joined the armed forces and been at a barracks in my mother's home town they would not have met, married and had kids.

My mum was due to be sterilised, she was all ready to go.

A very serious car pile up meant the surgical team and theatres were needed urgently so it was cancelled. She got dressed and went home and didn't bother again.

A few years later she found out that she'd fallen pregnant with me while using the coil. The doctor told her I would probably come out with it when he removed it.

She liked to tell me that story when I was being a stubborn child

The Luftwaffe: they bombed the East End school my DGM was working in, and she was evacuated with her class to the rural village where she met my DGF (who was slightly disabled and hence not enlisted). All DGF’s sisters married soldiers who’d been stationed there from all over - it did wonders for the family’s genetic diversity.

If my DM's boyfriend hadn't been killed in a works accident.

Not weird but sad.

According to my parents it was down to my mum falling out with her then boyfriend while in a queue for drinks, turning to the man behind her and asking him for a drink and that was my dad.

WWII with both sets of grandparents too. They all ended up displaced and met that way. I'm not sure the full story with one set though as GM was early teens and evacuated near my GF's family but GF was serving abroad and a good few years older. GM would have been 16/17 by the end of the war though so not sure how long she stayed there and if he got home to visit his family at all during that time as he was all over the place.

I'm only here because of a novelty condom bought in the NAAFI.

DD is here because it snowed and I couldn't drive to my dad's funeral.

Hugely common one which probably applies to lots of us. My poor Mum lost her first pregnancy to MC at 12 weeks. I was the result of her second pregnancy and conceived 4 months later. Has always addled my brain, that one!!

My Nan was being wooed by someone incredibly wealthy and she turned him down for my grandad. If she had stayed with the wealthy man I know she wouldn't have had 6 kids and my mum was number 4. So my Nan choosing her toyboy baker (who as a side note had Glenn Hoddle as his helper) means I'm here today.

If I’d accepted a job offer in Australia instead of the Middle East none of my DC would exist. Just a pity I’m stuck with their dad now

I had this very conversation with my cousin this week.
Our maternal grandmother lost her first husband in WWI. Many women never married at all in that era, because such a lot of men died, but our grandmother managed to marry a second time - a younger man, who had escaped the war - & went on to have 4 children including both our mothers.
Life is strange.

I mean, how far back can you go? My granny and Grandpa on one side would have never met but for WW2. My parents met in a new town that their parents moved to from two ends f the UK when they were both kids. But for a million chances, none of us would be as we are today.

Probably outing but my DD owes her existence to Julian Cope.

World War Two. My grandfather was a Polish POW and he was freed by American soldiers who offered to take him to UK or America. He met my grandma the day after he arrived.