There is nothing, of course, peculiar, about DH Lawrence having worked in Croydon Library, or Wilfred Bion having thought his thoughts in Croydon, or Camille Pissarro painting streets in Norwood and Sydenham, or Vincent Van Gogh living in Canterbury (or for that matter his describing falling asleep under a tree on the outskirts of Canterbury) – apart from how peculiar it felt to realise these things when I discovered them, while I was living in those places. I grew up just outside Croydon, and have lived for many years in Canterbury. Finding these things out brought them oddly close to home: they landed, peculiarly. They stopped being instances of other people living out their great lives in the world and somehow located them in relation to me.

Such is narcissism. As long as one remains with the odd feeling a lot can grow out of these wayward discoveries. Thriving on the energy of a supposed connection, an imaginary one, can be a driving force like no other. Reading a deeper significance is a problem. As soon as ‘meaning’ creeps in, and a movement occurs from the imagination to what might be real – what something means; its ‘real’ value – we take a step towards a very unpleasant form of control. The relationship was meant to be, and so this means something special for me … so it might go.

The peculiar feeling of coincidence means nothing, but can make much happen. It’s like the energy from a smile meant fo somebody else. These coincidences I have described, the events they contain were lived out by people who no doubt had someone special in mind: a reader, a looker, a thinker, a lover. There’s no doubt love and meaning in these events.

But not for me. Nothing is meant to be.