The Silent Twins

June and Jennifer Gibbons take twinning to an entirely new level. Will they be able to break free from their shadow?

June and Jennifer Gibbons were born at an R.A.F. hospital in Aden, in the Middle East on April 11, 1963. RAF is the Royal Air Force for the United Kingdom.

June arrived first at 8:10 am and Jennifer was born 10 minutes later. Jennifer seemed to be the stronger twin, more alert, and physically robust. The twins had 3 siblings: 2 older and one younger named Rose. They always bonded better with Rose.

It was not an average home life. The twin girls turned into toddlers and were hardly speaking. Their mother knew and accepted that they had a speech problem, but it wasn’t a huge issue until they began schooling.

In 1971, their father, Aubrey, was re-stationed to Chivenor, in Devon. The girls were eight now, and they had been in school for a few years. They still weren’t communicating but through sounds and small statements to the family.

They did the average twin moves that made a person go “Huh. I’ll never understand the mind of a twin.” Things like switching places and acting like the other, mirroring each other’s behavior and movements, often even finishing the actions that the other started, they would even walk everywhere…