FOUR SETS OF TWINS

Evening Star, Issue 22233, 10 January 1936, Page 11

FOUR SETS OF TWINS

In a 300-year-old wooden cottage at Lower Higham, near Graves End, Kent, live the Wakefields,—mother, father, and 11 children. Eight of the children are twins—four sets of them.: A twelfth child lives with a relative.

■ The cottage has only a small living room, two bedrooms, and a kitchen. The children sleep five to a bed. “ But the council are going to build a brand new house for us,” said Mrs Wakefield, a strongly-built, dark woman, to a ‘ Sunday Express * representative. , , ■ “ The children are all little, darlings. I wouldn’t be without them for any money in the world. My grandmother was a twin. My sister had twins, but they died. . M t v § brother’s wife had twins, but they died, too. “ All that may have had something to do with it,” said Mrs Wakefield, doubtfully; “But I don’t know. What is to be will be, 1 always say. My first child was a girl. Then. I had another girl. They’re 16 and 14 now. Then I had __ twin boys. They’re 13 years .old. Next there came two boys, with two years' between them. “ After that I had twin girls, now aged eight. A year later I had more twin girls, and two years after that I ,had another pair of twin girls, now five years old. “ A nice family for a woman of 40, isn’t it? 1 wish we had a little more money, though, even if I’m not ungrateful for what we have. “Very little comes "in, as my husband is Unemployed, and our bread bill alone comes to lls a week. It take# £3 a week to keep the children as they should be kept. I’ve had to send on* of them to my sister at Sbeppey.”