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June Gibbons (born 11 April 1963)[2] and Jennifer Gibbons (11 April 1963 – 9 March 1993) were identical twins who grew up in Wales. They became known as “The Silent Twins”, since they only communicated with each other. They wrote works of fiction. Both women were admitted to Broadmoor Hospital, where they were held for eleven years after committing arson.
And in case this isn’t enough to peak your interest…June & Jennifer held an even darker secret. They were both convinced that one of them had to die in order for the other to live.
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” The Silent Twins ” – Episode Credits
Hosted by Mark Tauriello, Jen Wilson, & Marc Bluestein.
Original episode / story concept by Jen Wilson.
Show notes by Jen Wilson.
Original episode art by Mark Tauriello.
Audio & Visual production by Marc Bluestein.
” The Silent Twins” – Show Notes
Question
Have you ever known a set of twins ? What was their dynamic like ?
So I never heard of this story, until I went to the movies a few weeks back and saw a trailer for this film which is coming out this year titled “The Silent Twins” about sisters named June and Jennifer Gibbons who barely talked to ANYONE but each other for nearly 30 years.
June and Jennifer Gibbons
June and Jennifer were born in 1963 at a military hospital in Yemen where their father had been deployed. They were identical twins, and their births were not unusual, until later on.
Not long after their birth, the Gibbons family moved from Barbados to England in the early 60’s and were part of the Windrush generation. The Windrush generation was people immigrating to the UK between 1948-1971 from Caribbean Countries. And let me tell you, it was not a good time to be an immigrant living
in England and it was NOT a good time for the Gibbons sisters.
Once the twins reached a speaking age, their parents started to realize they were far behind than the rest of their peers. Yes they spoke English at home, but the girls had their own private language that only they could understand.
It is believed the girls spoke a sped-up version of Baja-Creole. It was a mix of English and Creole together. Think Spanglish going in and out of the language.
Not only did they feel isolated in school because of the color of their skin, but they were bullied intensely. School would actually dismiss them earlier than the rest of the students thinking it would help them to get home and not be followed and bullied after school.
Around this time, the girls became inseparable, only communicating with each other given the name “The Silent Twins”.
June and Jennifer would only speak to each other, they refused to read or write in school, and would mirror each other’s actions.
School staff even started to witness their bizarre behavior. When it came to yearly school health checks, the “medic” as they call it stated that they were doll like having no reaction to being examined. He wound up notifying a psychologist who insisted the girls enroll in therapy. They saw numerous doctors and still they refused to speak to anyone but each other.
Finally a decision was made to separate the twins, and send them to two different boarding schools in the hopes this would break the cycle. It was anticipated that this would help them to come out of their shells and socialize.
It did not.
June and Jennifer became almost catatonic. It would take 2 people to get June out of bed and would sit against a wall motionless.
When they realized this wasn’t working, the girls were reunited, however ONLY communicated with each other. They also isolated themselves in their bedroom. If they needed to speak to their parents, they would do so in a letter.
A journalist Marjorie Wallace who was covering their story had this to say about their living arrangements:
“I saw their parents and then they took me upstairs, and they showed me in the bedroom lots of bean bags filled with writings – exercise books. And what I discovered was that while they had been in that room alone, they had been teaching themselves to write. And I put [the books] in the boot of the car and took them home. And I couldn’t believe this, that these girls, to the outside world, hadn’t spoken and had been dismissed as being zombies, had this rich imaginative life.”
They began to play with dolls and write fantasy stories that they would record down and share with their younger sister. After being gifted journals, they would write and write and write. They really developed a passion for writing. They even at 16 years old put their money together and took a mail order writing course.
They began to publish their stories, but they were a bit problematic. Most of their stories for whatever reason took place in the United States, predominantly in Malibu about young attractive people who committed harsh crimes. Their one novel, The Pepsi Cola Addict was about a teen who is seduced by his teacher . The book was actually published as well.
After their writing stint, they got bored, and wanted to see the outside world. They began drinking, doing drugs, as well as committing petty thefts like vandalism, theft, and arson.
They were then sent to Broadmoor Hospital, which was a high security mental health facility. They were treated with high doses of antipsychotic medicine which caused Jennifer to have blurred vision.
A diary entry from June from their stay stated:
“We got twelve years of hell, because we didn’t speak. We had to work hard to get out. We went to the doctor. We said, ‘Look, they wanted us to talk, we’re talking now.’ He said, ‘You’re not getting out. You’re going to be here for thirty years.’ We lost hope, really. I wrote a letter to the Home Office. I wrote a letter to the Queen, asking her to pardon us, to get us out. But we were trapped.”
Finally in March of 1993, they were transferred to a lower security facility in Wales. Upon arrival, Jennifer was pronounced dead at 29 years old due to a sudden inflammation to the heart. To this day, her death still remains a mystery because there was no proof of drugs or poison in her system.
Here’s where it gets Bizarre Buffet. After Jennifer’s death, June immediately began to speak to EVERYONE like as if she spoke to them her whole life. She was soon released from the hospital and went on to live a normal life.
The journalist who I discussed earlier, Marjorie Wallace did a deep dive into their journals and learned that there was some hatred towards eachother.
This is from an article on allthingsinteresting regarding Marjorie and her research on the twins:
For the most part, Wallace noticed, June seemed to be more fearful of Jennifer, and Jennifer seemed to be the dominant force. In the early stages of their relationship, Wallace continuously noted that June seemed to want to speak to her, but subtle clues from Jennifer seemed to stop June.
As time went on, that attitude appeared to continue. Throughout her relationship with the silent twins, Wallace would note June’s apparent wish to distance herself from Jennifer, and Jennifer’s domineering ways.
Marjorie also stated:
“I took my daughter in, and we went through all the doors and then we went into the place where the visitors were allowed to have tea. And we had quite a jolly conversation to begin with. And then suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, Jennifer said, ‘Marjorie, Marjorie, I’m going to have to die,’ and I sort of laughed. I sort of said, ‘What? Don’t be silly… You know, you’re just about to be freed from Broadmoor. Why are you going to have to die? You’re not ill.’ And she said, ‘Because we’ve decided.’ At that point, I got very, very frightened because I could see that they meant it.”
marjorie realized that day that the girls had been preparing for one of them to die for quite some time. It seemed that they had come to the conclusion that one had to die so the other could truly live.
But Wallace recalled visiting June several days after Jennifer’s death, and finding her in good spirits and willing to talk — really sit and talk — for the very first time. From that moment on, it seemed June was a new person.
She told Marjorie how Jennifer’s death had opened her up and allowed her to be free for the first time. She told her how Jennifer had to die, and how they had decided that once she did, it would be June’s responsibility to live for the other.
And June did just that. Years later, she still lives in the U.K., not far from her family. She’s rejoined society, and speaks to
anyone who will listen — a stark contrast from the girl who spent the beginning of her life talking to no one but her sister.
When asked why she and her sister had committed themselves to being silent for nearly 30 years of their lives, June simply replied, “We made a pact. We said we weren’t going to speak to anybody. We stopped talking altogether — only us two, in our bedroom upstairs.”
” The Silent Twins ”
