A Fine Thing Chance

In 1890 the wife of the British Ambassador in Berlin took Crown Prince Wilhelm sailing. He fell in and because he had a deformed arm could not swim. She managed to rescue him. He subsequently became Kaiser Wilhelm II and took Germany into the First World War. If he had drowned would the war have happened? Ruth Ellis shot her lover with five shots from a revolver; the sixth she fired into the ground which happened to injure a passer-by. She was not reprieved because of that. If she had fired it into the dead body she probably would have been. Chance is indeed a fine thing. Oliver Popplewell was a distinguished High Court Judge who is now retired. He is the author of two autobiographies Benchmark: Life Laughter and the Law and Hallmark: A Judge's Life at Oxford. He is also the author of the recently published and well-acclaimed novels The Prime Minister and His Mistress and The Aphrodisiac of Power. Oliver received an MA and LLB from Cambridge University, a BA from Oxford University, an MA from the LSE and a BA from Buckingham University where he also holds an Honorary Doctorate in Law. See more