(273) In the 1980s, entering/residing at number 27 Shakespeare Road, Bedford


(Further to Entry 272, on December 3rd 2012 I uploaded some of the details of that Entry to my Facebook page and added the link to the In Depth interview with Hitchens.
It prompted these comments.
Angela Radice, suggests that I had resided in a certain street in Bedford. 
I had. 
And then relates that she only ever stayed one night in Bedford and that was at a wedding reception in a hotel in that street. And then, during our interchange, she discovers the hotel was once her husband´s family home.)

Jackie Barclay Bates Bonham I know you like this synchronicity thing James so if it's of any consequence, my dad was in the Navy when he met my mum, a Wren. 

Angela Radice My father-in-law was in the army and went to see one of his men in a military hospital. He admired a nurse who was looking after him and discovered that she lived nearby him at home in Bedford. He married her.

H. James Plaskett ... and my mum lives in Bedford. My dad died there. Okay: your turn now.
Angela Radice My first husband was born in Bedford. When he had a stroke, it was the first word he managed to say. He never quite managed to say Angela again but he called me Gretel which was quite nice really. I even received junk mail addressed to Gretel Radice which had it 's own charm.
H. James Plaskett ...er? I´ll come up with some coincidental rejoinder.
Angela Radice Not Shakespeare Road, by any chance?
H. James Plaskett YES!!!
Angela Radice My
H. James Plaskett YOU supplied the coincidental rejoinder as I was typing the above!!
Angela Radice Shakespeare Road?
H. James Plaskett I lived there, in a flat, in 1989. Yes. 
(see Entry 48 -)
http://james-plasketts-coincidence-diary.blogspot.com.es/2006/03/48-famous-mistaken-identities.html
Angela Radice Blimey. I also went to a wedding reception in Shakespeare Road in the '80s. My eldest brother married a girl whose parents were living in Bedford at the time. My father-in-law's Father-inlaw was a vicar at St Paul's Bedford.
H. James Plaskett The reception, I take it, would have been held at a hotel? I am trying to recall the name of that hotel...
Angela Radice The Shakespeare Hotel

I then continued the chat with Angela Radice via private messaging -

H. James Plaskett You said something about looking up somebody´s address in Shakespeare Road, number 27, and discovering that to have been the address of the hotel.Angela Radice


H. James Plaskett Did you live in Shakespeare Road, then?
...
08:47
Angela Radice
No, my husband did at one time. He was born in Goldington Avenue or something like that. The first time I went to Bedford was for my brother 's wedding. I was not aware of my husband's connection with Shakespeare Avenue until then.
Shakespeare Road

H. James Plaskettdid he live in a flat or house there ?
...
10:28
Angela Radice
I think it was a house. His parents, three sons and a live- in help . I will have a look in the archive for the address.

H. James Plaskett Gracias. I think the address of my flat was fifty-something...
...
11:45
Angela Radice
Right. Are you ready for this? I fished out a book written by my father -in-law which says that the house in Shakespeare Road was number 27. So I googled 27 Shakespeare Road and it is the hotel where my brother's wedding reception was held.
Angela Radice


Yes. My father-in-law wrote that the first house the Radices lived in in Bedford was 27 Shakespeare Road. I googled that house and it is the Shakespeare Hotel where my brother's wedding reception was held. I believe that one of my father-in-law's brothers kept the house on. They were a large family and would have clubbed together quite a bit and shared accommodation. I have the address 57 Goldington Avenue on Henry's birth certificate which could be his mother's parents' house. In which case it may have been a vicarage. I will do some more ferreting about. At some point they left Bedford and went to live in Switzerland.



What was the book?

Angela Radice
It is a privately published tome called The Radice Family.

H. James Plaskett


and the family home was converted into the Shakespeare Hotel?

Angela Radice
Yes.

H. James Plaskett


But you´re neither from Bedford nor have ever lived there?

Angela Radice


No, I have only ever spent one night there which was after my brother's wedding when I slept at the Shakespeare Hotel. My father in law moved to Bedford from Naples and went to Bedford School. He met 
his wife abroad and realised that he sort of knew her already as she lived in Bedford. After they married they settled in Bedford where they stayed until a job took them to Berne. My husband was living in Cheltenham when I met him.
H. James Plaskett


aha

u asked about my mum

no, she does not live in Shakespeare Road but a couple of miles away


Are you saying then

that your brother arranged his wedding reception for a hotel in Bedford

not realising it was his old family home?

No. My brother is not a Radice. He married a girl from Canada whose parents were living in Bedford. They arranged the wedding. Church service, marquee in their garden then an evening disco thing at the Shakespeare Hotel. I only found out yesterday that the Shakespeare Hotel was formerly the Radice family home.


This, then, is ramifying into a remakable melange of coincidence

Need to intrude further. He is your half-brother then, perhaps?
Or what, may I ask, was your maiden name?


No. I have four brothers. No half brothers. I have been married twice. The first time to Henry Radice whose family lived at one time at 27 Shakespeare Road. I can't remeber how we got onto Bedford now.

it´s an example of Synchroncity´s self-referring tendency

or

a.k.a.

the tendency of coincidences to spawn coincidences since all of this stemmed from

my posting the Christopher Hitchens Scapa Flow example here.


(In conclusion, let me add here at this Blog, that on one occasion during the year or so when I rented the flat in Bedford´s Shakespeare Road I did go into the Shakespeare Hotel for a drink. That was in 1989. Mrs Radice says she attended the wedding reception there in the 1980s.)

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