June Gibbons (born 11 April 1963 Gloria was a housewife and Aubrey worked as a technician for the Royal Air Force. The couple also had three other children: Greta was born in 1957, David was born in 1959, and Rosie was born in 1967. The twins were born on 11 April 1963, at a military hospital in Aden, Yemen, where their father had been deployed. The family soon relocated, first to England, and, in 1974, to Haverfordwest, Wales.

The Gibbons were often ostracised at school, eventually causing the administrators to dismiss them early each day so that they might avoid bullying. This difficulty continued when the twins started to attend school in Yorkshire. According to June: 'they thought we were talking a different language. We could understand what we were saying, but I just don't think they knew what we were saying at all.' Speech therapy was recommended for the twins, but this was ultimately unsuccessful due to their continued unwillingness to speak out loud for fear of being misunderstood, as well as the family's frequent relocations due to their father's military occupation. The twins became increasingly reserved, and eventually spoke to no one except each other and their younger sister Rose.

The girls continued to attend school, although they refused to read or write. In 1974, a medic administering vaccinations at the school noted their impassive behaviour and notified a child psychologist. The two girls pooled their unemployment benefits in order to get the novel published by a vanity press. This was the only accessible work by either of the Gibbons sisters; it remained unavailable for purchase and was held in only 89 libraries in the world until October 2022, when it was republished in a limited edition by Cashen's Gap. It was also published as a paperback in May 2023 by Strange Attractor. Their other attempts to publish novels and stories were generally unsuccessful, although Cashen's Gap has planned further releases. through Penguin Random House with a foreword by David Tibet of Current 93. She followed this up with The Taxi-Driver's Son, a radio play called Postman and Postwoman, and several short stories. June Gibbons is considered to be an outsider writer.

Hospitalization

In their later teenage years, the twins began using drugs and alcohol. In 1982, the twins were sentenced to indefinite detention to Broadmoor under the Mental Health Act. June later blamed this lengthy sentence on their selective muteness: "Juvenile delinquents get two years in prison. [...] We got twelve years of hell, because we didn't speak. [...] 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."

In March 1993, the twins were transferred from Broadmoor to the more open Caswell Clinic in Bridgend, Wales. On arrival, Jennifer could not be roused. She was taken to the hospital, where she died soon after of acute myocarditis, a sudden inflammation of the heart. There was no evidence of drugs or poison in her system.

At the inquest, June revealed that Jennifer had been acting strangely for about a day before their release; her speech had been slurring, and she had said that she was dying. On the trip to Caswell, she had slept in June's lap with her eyes open. She is no longer monitored by psychiatric services and sought to put the past behind her. and an Inside Story documentary Silent Twin – Without My Shadow, which aired on BBC1 in September 1994. A play based on Wallace's book, titled Speechless, debuted in London in 2011.

Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczyńska directed the 2022 feature film The Silent Twins, with the twins as the subject, starring Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, based on the 1986 book The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace. Smoczyńska's English-language debut, the film was an international co-production between the UK's 42 Management & Production and Poland's Mandats and backed by the Polish Film Institute and moderator Inwestycje.

Luke Haines' 2001 album The Oliver Twist Manifesto includes a song called Discomania. Haines later compared the "symbiotic" relation between Pete Doherty and Carl Barat (of The Libertines) to the one that the twins had.

Angeline Morrison's 2022 album The Sorrow Songs (Folk Songs of Black British Experience) features a song about the twins, "The Flames They Do Grow High".

The story of the twins was the subject of a 2023 BBC podcast June: Voice of a Silent Twin, which featured an extensive interview with June Gibbons, recounting the twins' childhood, events leading to their trial and imprisonment and their eventual release.

See also

References

Citations

General and cited sources

  • Sacks, Oliver, "Bound Together in Fantasy and Crime" in The New York Times review of The Silent Twins, 19 October 1986
  • "Jennifer Gibbons, 29, 'Silent Twin' of a Study"—Announcement of Jennifer's death in The New York Times, 12 March 1993