Summary
2 May 2014
Twin sisters from Aldershot in the UK have met in the United States after spending 78 years apart. Elizabeth Hamel and Ann Hunt found each other after the longest period of separation ever recorded for twins.
Reporter:
Peter Bowes
Twins brought up separately are of particular interest to researchers
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Report
It was an emotional reunion.
Elizabeth Hamel and Ann Hunt, twins:
Oh, how lovely to see you in the flesh.
Ann grew up never knowing she had a twin. Elizabeth stayed with her mother, who was in domestic service and could afford to bring up only one child. It wasn't until last year, with the women in their late 70s, that Ann discovered she had a twin sister, now living in America.
Ann Hunt:
You're meeting someone in the flesh for the first time, and you know that you've been in the womb together for eight months.
The sisters have agreed to take part in a research programme looking into the lives of reunited twins. Dr Nancy Segal is the director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University.
Dr Nancy Segal:
We want to get a comprehensive overview of their lives, their abilities, their interests and really put it all together as an important case study, because this is the world's longest-separated pair of twins.
Ann and Elizabeth plan to spend some time together. They have two lifetimes of memories to share, and new families to get to know.
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Vocabulary
- reunion
situation where people meet again after a long time
- in the flesh
in real life (not just on television, on the internet, by phone, etc)
- womb
organ inside a mother's body where a baby grows before being born
- reunited
brought together again after a long time apart
- overview
description of the main features of something
- case study
detailed piece of research with a lot of information
