19 June 2024

From spending the first few months of their lives sleeping in a chest of drawers and being fed milk via part of a fountain pen, 90-year-old twins Mary Poole and John Marriner have many a tale to tell about life as multiples.
Although they weren’t particularly close growing up together, their bond tightened as they grew older. This is their story.

Listening to John Marriner and Mary Poole recount stories of their childhood together, it’s clear many memories have stayed with them over the years.
John said: “Lots of our stories about our lives are handed down from my older sisters. There were nine children, six girls and three boys, but now there are only three children.
“My mother and father ran a butcher’s shop in Brentford. Our mother was an absolute stalwart – she worked on the cash desk in the butcher’s shop and always worked up until virtually the last day she gave birth. It was frowned upon because she had so many children but that was just how it was back in those days. Before Mary and I came along there were already six children and people felt that was enough. Even after Mary and I were born, she fell pregnant again with our youngest sister,” John said.

Mary remembered her mother, Hilda Louise, as “an extraordinary woman”. “She never raised
her voice, even though there were nine children, there was so much love for us all,” she added.

John said: “She went into labour prematurely in November 1933 with Mary and I. I think we were about a month to six weeks premature. Incubators didn’t exist in those days, so my mother went into labour and I think it was a bit of a surprise that she gave birth to twins. Nobody was expecting it. Things were so different, there were no scans.

"As we were premature, the vicar was called in to baptise us. I was just over 2lb when I was born and Mary was a little heavier. Mary was born first, I always say I kicked her out first. They called the vicar as they were worried we wouldn’t survive. My father, a very staunch Victorian man, asked why the vicar was there. He was told that they didn’t think we would make it through the night, because we were so small. He told the nurses that if they came back in 20 years, we would still be here. It was like we heard him say that as twins and we made it through.”

In the early days, in John and Mary’s bedroom, there was a big, wide, chest of drawers. The drawers were lined with cotton wool as a cosy bed for the twins.
John added: “To feed us, they used the inside of a fountain pen and put the milk in that to drip
it into our mouths. We spent the first six months of our lives in the chest of drawers.
“I was quite a weak child and had asthma and one of my lungs is quite underdeveloped, but that wasn’t discovered until later life. They thought it was because I was born premature.

“We were in the same class to start off with at the Bluebird school in Brentford. There were no other twins in our school. We got moved about so much, we didn’t get a really good education. We got
moved around a lot because the war started, that’s one of the things I do remember. We were
evacuated to Cornwall – Mary, myself and our youngest sister Annette and our sister June.
We were put on a village green and people would come along and choose the children but nobody wanted to take the four of us. My mother wanted us to stay together. Eventually a farmer’s wife agreed to take us. I remember the farm – this woman wasn’t clean or tidy and mum and dad came to see us and mum was appalled at the state of us as we were dirty. Mum brought  us back home, then we were sent up to a farm in Rutland instead.”

The twins weren’t particularly close as children, with John bonding more with his youngest sister, Annette.
Mary added: “We were always friends. But Annette was more of a tomboy and I was more feminine and into dolls, so Annette almost took over being the twin.”
John said: “We weren’t close as twins, we hadn’t bonded as such but I looked out for her. The girls got me into trouble. It was many years before we became closer. Mary always felt like Annette, our youngest sister, had pinched me, as Annette and I did click.”

It’s amazing we are both still here at 90

As the years passed and John and Mary started their careers, it was clear they really did have something in common – they were both very skilled with their hands.
John said: “As twins, Mary and I are very different, looks and character wise. The one thing we have in common is the skills we have learnt.”
During their working lives, Mary spent her career as a top dressmaker, working at Fenwick department store in London and even making dresses for the singer, Petula Clark. John was very skilled with his hands too, working as a carpenter and joiner.

Now later in life, they still look out for each other and look back on their lives together as twins. Mary says she still knows when John isn’t feeling well, something she has always picked up on throughout their life together.
John said: “When I see twins out and about, I do chat to them sometimes and they are quite surprised that I was a twin. It’s amazing we are both still here at 90.”
Mary added: “I think the world of him, as he does of me.”