Old acquaintance

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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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The event I want to describe occurred around 1999/2000. I was 52 at this time and my mother, who was bed-ridden, was living with me. She was in the habit of reading the Daily Mail, a paper which I hated and ostentatiously refused to read! The topic of adoption was very much in the news (I can’t now remember why) and my mother asked my opinion on the subject. I said I didn’t really know anything about it; I had only ever known one person who had been adopted – a girl called Susan Scantlebury. We had been in the same class during our first year at secondary school. My mother remembered her and we discussed her for a while. Susan and I were in different forms after the first year and she left school before I did. Until the day in question, it must have been nearly 40 years since I had given her a thought. I picked up my mother’s newspaper and, contrary to my usual practice, flicked through it. The whole of the centre spread was devoted to the first-person account of an ordinary woman who had had a very happy experience of being adopted. There was nothing in any way remarkable about her story. The woman was Susan Scantlebury! (Professor) Jenny Thomas Craig Hyfryd 49 Castle Street Beaumaris Isle of Anglesey LL58 8BB jenny@thomas.net
Total votes: 261
Date submitted:Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:04:28 +0000Coincidence ID:4561