Pen pals in touch after 50 years

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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 dad, in Nova Scotia, Canada, had a pen pal in Australia when he was about 11 or 12 years old in the 1920s. They corresponded for a year or so, and then lost touch, in the way these things often go. In the mid 1970s, my parents were on a bus tour in New Zealand, and got talking to some Australian fellow tourists. Turned out they were from the very same little town that Dad's pen pal had lived in. He said "Oh I had a pen pal there many years ago" Then the Aussies asked what was the pen pal's name. Turned out that the man still lived in the town, and was a near neighbour of these folks. Dad was able to write to his former pen pal after a 50 year hiatus.
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Date submitted:Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:38:05 +0000Coincidence ID:4357