Grandfathers Secretary

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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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Approximately 20 years ago, I was working for a small firm of Insurance Brokers in Tooting, South West London. One day I picked up a phone to make an outgoing call expecting to hear a dialing tone but instead I heard a woman's voice. Assuming it was an incoming call, I stated who I was and the caller replied that she had simply picked up her phone to make an outgoing, local call and we must have had a cross-line. Out of curiosity, I asked her where she was calling from, and she repied that she was in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. I told her that I knew Doncaster as my Grandparents used to live in Doncaster as my Grandfather was a sales director of a manufacturing company there, Peglers. She was shocked to hear this as this was the very same company where she was worked. She was even more suprised when I told her his name, as she had been his secretary for many years prior to his retirement several years earlier. What are the chances of that!?!?
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Date submitted:Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:01:19 +0000Coincidence ID:5224