Triplets celebrate 66 years

Press, 15 August 1986, Page 4

Triplets celebrate 66 years

When the Lancaster triplets were born in a Rotherham, North Canterbury, farmhouse on August 14, 1920, the word quickly got out and most of the district wanted to come to see the babies.

Sixty-six years later, the triplets were still catching the public eye last evening when they dined in Christchurch to celebrate their birthday. Their lifelong ritual has been to share this special day and then celebrate with their own families the next day. They are still amazed at how their “tiny and beautiful mother,” Mrs Kate Lancaster, managed to produce them along with nine other children, in-

cluding twins, run the family home, and live until she was 84.

“Why our parents had so many children we are not really sure except it might have had something to do with our father, James, working on the rabbit board,” Mrs Ivy Higgison joked.

Her sister, Mrs Avis Beri, and brother, Mr Maurice Lancaster, said their mother cured her own bacon, made soap for the family, and baked all the bread. “When our mother was about to give birth to us she walked over to a neighbouring farmhouse where the farmer’s wife had volunteered to act as

midwife,” Mrs Beri said. “The poor farmer ended up having to sleep the night in the washhouse while Mum and her triplets took over the double bed.

“I was told later that I was born with a veil over my head and was lucky to live. Ivy was also very lucky io survive as she weighed only 1.3 kilograms while Maurice and I were about two kilograms.

“Ivy was so fragile that the farmer’s wife did not dare try to dress her but rubbed her with oil instead and put her in a shoe box with cottonwool. From then on she was called Tiny.”

The Lancaster family could not afford cots for the triplets and so they slept in small, wovenlinen baskets, Mr Lancaster said. “After breast-feeding us for a short while Mun) put us on to diluted milk sweetened with sugar. She would make us a milk custard by browning some white flour in the oven. “Our elder brothers and sisters had to chip in and help Mum look after us. ■ We never had many material things but we were very loved and only ever had a few cross words to say to each other,” Mr Lancaster said. The triplets used to make toffee on the coal

range while their mother was out and hid the toffee under the kitchen table, they said. Their teacher put colour ribbons on the girls to tell them apart but became confused when they swapped the ribbons between lessons. “We grew Up very close to each other and feel that we have some telepathic sense of trouble if something is not well for one of us,” Mrs Higgison said. “In spite of our fragile beginning as lightweights we are real toughies and have more spurt than many people of our age.”