There are no coincidences

Jennifer Wilson and George Turnbull graduated from the same high school 30 years apart.

Dr. George Turnbull, Associate Dean (Research and Academic), Faculty of Health Professions, still can’t get over it.

At a photo shoot for a Dalhousie Medicine story on the new Integrated Health Research Training Program, he discovered the postdoctoral fellow posing with him was an alumna of Edinburgh’s famed Royal High School – the same institution from which he graduated in 1963.

Dr. Jennifer Wilson, who is wrapping up her postdoctoral work in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, was in the Royal High’s graduating Class of 1993.

Their Edinburgh accent, mutually recognized, provided the first clue to a shared background. “I couldn’t believe it!” said Turnbull. “It’s amazing!” chimed Wilson.

The Royal High School is one of the oldest institutions of its kind in Europe. The school’s founding, believed to have been in association with Holyrood Abbey, dates to 1128. After the Reformation, Mary Queen of Scots put it in the hands of Edinburgh’s Town Council. Over the centuries, the school has relocated many times.

When Turnbull attended, the school was on Calton Hill, in a neo-classical Greek Doric pile so historic it was briefly in the running to house the new Scottish Parliament. By the time Wilson arrived, the high school had moved to Barnton, on the outskirts of Edinburgh, and become co-educational.

Among the alumni are Alexander Graham Bell, James Boswell, Sir Walter Scott and his school companion, George Ramsay, the 9th Earl of Dalhousie and founder of Dalhousie University. Given that last association, perhaps Turnbull and Wilson shouldn’t be so surprised by their chance meeting on campus. Unknown to them, Dalhousie University, it seems, has always been in the Royal High’s alumni territory.