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June and Jennifer Gibbons (born April 11, 1963) were twins born to a military family from Barbados, whose story is a curious case involving psychology and language. April 11 is the 101st day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (102nd in leap years). ...
1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ...
Fraternal twin boys in the tub Twin births occur in most species. ...
Psychology (ancient Greek: psyche = soul or mind, logos/-ology = study of) is an academic and applied field involving the study of mind and behavior. ...
Early Life
June and Jennifer Gibbons were the daughters of Aubrey Gibbons, a West Indian immigrant technician for the British Royal Air Force. Shortly after they were born, their family moved to Haverfordwest, Wales. The twin sisters were inseparable, and had speech impediments that made them difficult for people outside their immediate family to understand; they did not mix a great deal with other children. School was traumatic to them; they were the only children in their school of African ancestry, and eventually they were so tormented by their peers that the school administrators had to send them home early to give them a head start. Their language became even more idiosyncratic at this time, and became unintelligible to outsiders. They spoke to no one except each other and their little sister Rose, and became even more isolated. They would complete each other's sentences and often seemed to communicate with no more than a glance or a facial expression. In effect, they were elective mutes. Haverfordwest (Welsh: Hwlffordd) is a small market town in south-west Wales. ...
National motto: Cymru am byth (Welsh: Wales for ever) Waless location within the UK Official languages English, Welsh Capital Cardiff Largest city Cardiff First Minister Rhodri Morgan Area - Total Ranked 3rd UK 20,779 km² Population - Total (2001) - Density Ranked 3rd UK 2,903,085 140/km² Ethnicity: 97. ...
// Etymology World map showing Africa (geographically) The name Africa came into Western use through the Romans, who used the name Africa terra — land of the Afri (plural, or Afer singular) — for the northern part of the continent, as the province of Africa with its capital Carthage, corresponding to...
A bully is an individual who tends to torment others, either through verbal harassment and/or physical assaults, or through more subtle methods of coercion. ...
Selective mutism is a condition in which what is often anxiety or excessive shyness causes a person to refuse to speak in certain situations, even though having the capability to. ...
When they turned 14, after a succession of therapists had tried unsuccessfully to get them to communicate with others, they were sent to separate boarding schools in an attempt to break their isolation. This was a disaster: the pair became catatonic and entirely withdrawn when parted. A boarding school is a self-contained educational total institution where students not only study but where some or all students may live. ...
Catatonia is a very severe psychiatric and medical condition, characterized by, in catatonic stupor, a general absence of motor activity, and, in catatonic excitement, violent, hyperactive behavior directed at oneself or others but with no visible purpose. ...
Creative Expression When they were re-united, the two spent a couple of years engaged in elaborate play with dolls. They created many plays and stories in a sort of soap-opera style, reading some of them aloud on tape as gifts for their little sister. Inspired by a pair of gift diaries at Christmas 1979, they embarked upon a serious self-education and writing career. They sent away for a mailorder course in creative writing, and each wrote several novels. Set primarily in the United States and particularly in Malibu, California -- an excitingly exotic locale to romantic girls trapped in a sleepy Welsh town with little in the way of trees or gardens -- the stories concerned young men and women who become involved in strange and often criminal behaviour. This page refers to the year 1979. ...
Perhaps you mean: The Chevrolet Malibu, a type of automobile, or Malibu, a beachfront city in Los Angeles County, California Malibu Comics, a comic book publisher Malibu Rum, a coconut based rum from Barbados Malibu Surfboard, a classic california shape board getting its name from the secret spot in...
State nickname: The Golden State Other U.S. States Capital Sacramento Largest city Los Angeles Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) Senators Dianne Feinstein (D) Barbara Boxer (D) Official language(s) English Area 410,000 km² (3rd) - Land 404,298 km² - Water 20,047 km² (4. ...
In June's Pepsi-Cola Addict, the high-school hero is seduced by a teacher, then sent away to a reformatory where a homosexual guard makes a play for him. In Jennifer's The Pugilist, a physician is so eager to save his child's life that he kills the family dog to obtain its heart for a transplant. The dog's spirit lives on in the child and ultimately has its revenge against the father. Jennifer also wrote Discomania, the story of a young woman who discovers that the atmosphere of a local disco incites patrons to insane violence. They wrote in a unique personal style, often with unwittingly amusing word choices. A reformatory is a juvenile prison where legal minors are sent by (juvenile or general) courts to spend a custodial sentence, separate from the bad example of and abuse by adult (often hardened) convicts, usually gender-separated (mainly boys). ...
Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire exclusively for another of the same sex. ...
Crime and Hospitalization Their novels were published by a vanity press called New Horizons, and they made many attempts to sell short stories to magazines, but were unsuccessful. A brief fling with some American boys, the sons of a U.S. Army serviceman, led nowhere. Desperate for recognition and fame (and perhaps publicity for their books), the girls committed a number of petty crimes including arson, which led to their being committed to Broadmoor Hospital, an institution for the criminally insane. There, they remained for 14 years. A vanity press or vanity publisher is a book printer who acts like a publisher and charges writers a fee in return for publishing their books. ...
The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ...
Arson is the crime of setting a fire with intent to cause damage. ...
Broadmoor Hospital is a secure mental hospital in Crowthorne in Berkshire. ...
Placed on high doses of neuroleptic medications, they found themselves unable to concentrate and Jennifer apparently developed tardive dyskinesia. Their medications were apparently adjusted sufficiently to allow them to continue the copious diaries they had begun in 1980, and they were able to join the hospital choir, but they lost most of their interest in creative writing. The term antipsychotic is applied to a group of drugs used to treat psychosis. ...
Tardive dyskinesia is a serious neurological disorder caused by the long-term use of traditional or typical antipsychotic drugs. ...
The case achieved some notoriety among the morbidly curious and the human-interested due to newspaper coverage by author Marjorie Wallace. The girls finally became known in their beloved America, when they were introduced to the reading public via the Sun, a tabloid which gave a brief but accurate account of their story, headlined "Genius Twins Won't Speak" (an apparent reference to their having tested above average when being considered for Broadmoor).
Jennifer's Death According to Wallace, the girls had long had an unspoken agreement that if one died, the other must begin to speak and live a normal life. During their stay in the hospital, they began to believe that it was necessary for one twin to die, and after much discussion, Jennifer agreed to be the sacrifice (Wallace 2003). Within hours after their release in 1993, Jennifer died of sudden inflamtion of the heart. There was no evidence of drugs or poison in her system. To this day, Jennifer's death remains a mystery. 1993 (MCMXCIII) is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...
After Jennifer's death, June gave two interviews with Harper's Bazaar and The Guardian. She became more communicative and was able to speak with other people. She lives at home with her family. She contemplates resuming her writing, although she describes her early books as "all over the place" and not very good. After Wallace's book appeared, Pepsi-Cola Addict became a valuable collector's item, and the novel has been reprinted several times.
Books - Marjorie Wallace - The Silent Twins (1986)
- Lucie Brock-Broido, "Elective Mutes". In A Hunger (Knopf, 2005).
Films - Jon Amiel, The Silent Twins (1985) (IMDb)
Plays - Vanessa Walters, Double Take
- Radiohole, None of It: More Or Less Hudson's Bay, Again
Music Manic Street Preachers, often known colloquially as The Manics (not The Preachers) are a Welsh rock band often associated with the Britpop scene, one of the biggest in Britain for a period in the late 1990s, known for their early wild exploits; the mysterious disappearance and possible suicide of Richey...
External links - Marjorie Wallace, The tragedy of a double life, London: The Observer, July 13, 2003
- Hilton Als, A life of my own, The New Yorker, 2000.
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