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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/02/rare-twins-different-dads-the-gift-bbc-radio-4>
"I like being a twin. It defines who I am,” Lavinia Osbourne tells me on the
49th birthday she shares with her sister, Michelle. “It’s amazing to have a
twin and have a built-in friend for ever,” Michelle says. “I’ve been really
blessed to go through this journey with someone else.”
Lavinia and Michelle know that those of us who haven’t shared a womb with a
sibling can be fascinated by twins: their similarities, how they differ,
whether there’s any kind of mysterious synergy between them.
“There’s twin magic. It does exist – it’s a thing,” Michelle says. “I can feel
when she’s upset, and she can feel when I’m upset.” They have even felt each
other’s physical pain, Lavinia says. “There was a time when she spilled hot
water on her leg, and I felt it.”
Lavinia and Michelle aren’t identical twins. They share the same striking eyes,
but the lower halves of their faces are different. Their personalities differ,
too: Michelle describes herself as a “homebod”, an introvert who would prefer
to mark her birthday with a candle on a sponge cake, whereas Lavinia, the
self-proclaimed “exuberant” twin, wants to make a night of it at a Cuban
cabaret show. They’re speaking to me separately from their homes in south
London. They exchanged cards, gifts and hugs earlier this morning, when
Michelle was on the school run with her son.
Twins can exist at different poles, Lavinia says. She went to live in Barcelona
in her early 20s; Michelle moved to Iceland soon after. “I moved to a hot
country, she moved to a cold one, but we still went more or less in the same
timeframe.” They both started very different businesses within a few years of
each other: Michelle has a sewing company (she was a contestant on the first
series of
The Great British Sewing Bee); Lavinia runs a platform for women
who work in blockchain. “We do things that are parallel, but opposite,” Lavinia
says.
Despite their differences, Michelle and Lavinia share two things that will bind
them together for life. First, their precarious childhood, in which they were
passed from home to home, school to school, carer to carer, and the only thing
they knew for sure was that they had each other. And, second, the almost
inconceivable circumstances that brought them into the world, and which only
came to light four years ago, when they were 45 and both took DNA tests from
the genealogy firm Ancestry.
Their results of those tests revealed something never before documented in
British history. Lavinia and Michelle are twins who grew together in the same
womb, were born from the same mother, and delivered within minutes of each
other – but have different fathers."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
