Were they separated at birth, only to be reunited as retirees?  Perhaps not, but when Neil Richardson retired in September 2013 and moved to Braintree in Essex, England, he was struck by the warm greetings he kept getting from his new neighbors, who were constantly saying hello.  There was only one problem: They kept calling him John.  This went on for months, Richarsdon told NPR, and then one day, as he boarded a bus to go see a British Library exhibition on the Magna Carta, he figured out what was going on.  That’s when 69-year-old former schoolteacher met his doppelgänger, another longtime pedagogue named John Jemison, 74.  The two men seem to have similar height and build, and they both have thinning white hair, white beards and glasses.  Their similarities are not limited to their outward appearances.  The men have become friends — and said they were amazed at the parallels in their lives.  Besides winding up in the same town, they went to the same teaching college and their sons both play the same musical instrument.  “We just immediately talked the same language. We have the same attitudes and views,” Richardson said.  They certainly look the part, but they do not think there’s any chance they are related.  And, truth be told, they really don’t think they resemble each other at all.  “When I saw John I was surprised at how different to me he looks,” Richardson said. “From my point of view, he does not look like me at all, but other people say he’s my twin.”  “I can see that there are similarities,” he said. “But I am also very very aware of the differences.”  Besides, Jemison argued, “I am a lot better looking than he is.”  USING A MOBILE DEVICE? LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW HERE.
Neil Richardson discovered a man who looks a lot like him when he moved to his new town after retirement.