Generational coincidence

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understandinguncertainty.org was produced by the Winton programme for the public understanding of risk based in the Statistical Laboratory in the University of Cambridge. The aim was to help improve the way that uncertainty and risk are discussed in society, and show how probability and statistics can be both useful and entertaining.

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My father rented a room in Raynes Park after the second world war. He was lodging with 2 war widows and was pleasantly surprised to find that they were 2nd World War widows, not first world war as he had anticipated.My Canadian mother, who was then in England and engaged to my father, was not so pleased! My parents married in April 1950 and they lived in Ealing.I was born in 1951. When I was 9 years old we moved to Croydon. I married and had 2 children. We continued to live in Croydon. After University and a further year in Bristol my daughter settled in Raynes Park,partly because there was a church nearby that she wanted to attend. She was unaware that my father had lived in the area. While my daughter was trying to find accomodation she discovered that a flat was for rent, to share. The flat belonged to a lady at her church.She became a tenant of the flat, sharing with two other young women. During a family ' get-together' my daughter was talking about her flat and showing photos that I had taken. When my dad saw the photos he said that that was where he had lived. There were several large blocks of flats on the site. We discovered, to our amazement, that, not only was my daughter living in the same block as my dad ( her grandad) had been in, but she was in the very same flat, walking through the same rooms that he had walked in over 50 years before.
Total votes: 195
Date submitted:Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:21:05 +0000Coincidence ID:5937