My parents found out they were having quads four weeks before we were born. It was 1977. Mum was sent for an x-ray by her GP, at 30.5 weeks, because she was bigger than expected. She called my father from a payphone at Luton and Dunstable hospital, and sent him into total shock. She was admitted the next day.
My sisters and I – the only boy – were born by C-section, six weeks premature and weighing 11lb in total. I came out third, and was the biggest at 4lb 4oz.
There is a one in 700,000 chance of conceiving natural quadruplets, and there had been no history of multiples in our family. We have another sister who is 18 months older than us, so my parents suddenly had five children under the age of two.
My grandmother came to live with us for six months and the local council gave us round-the-clock nursing help for 18 months. After that, my parents were on their own. They had two washing machines, two tumble dryers and a quadruple buggy. My father rarely stopped working, but always made time for us. I can’t imagine how he coped with the financial strain: writing cheques for four pairs of shoes, four lots of clothes, let alone five. I don’t know how he ever had a smile on his face, but he did.
When we were young, everything was timetabled and regimented. My mother was in the kitchen before 6am every day. There was no time to play, bake or read with us individually. She has since told me how much she wishes she could have had one-on-one time. My mother hated people referring to us as “the quads”. She wanted us all treated as individuals. There were always four birthday cakes, and we never dressed the same.
Our house was noisy, from playing or squabbling. Sharing was normal – I didn’t get my own bedroom until I was 10 or 11 – so I didn’t generally mind, but I sometimes felt left out when the girls played with dolls. They would say I was spoiled because my father took me to watch Luton Town on a Saturday. Two of my sisters are identical twins, so they had a particular bond.
I didn’t realise we were different until we started school. On our first day, there was a row of photographers from the local papers waiting for us. I didn’t understand why the other children weren’t having pictures taken. Once, we appeared on an advertising hoarding at Heathrow Airport for El Al, the Israeli national airline. There had been a series of terrorist incidents and the airline approached us to appear, all lined up, in adverts to reassure families it was safe to fly. And then when we were about nine, academics from Leeds University came to study us. They asked us questions such as “What colour are you thinking of?”, to see if our minds worked the same way.
As we grew into teenagers, our mutual competitiveness drove us to get good grades. At 15, I started to go out with my friends and gained more individuality, although we’d usually end up at the same party. Three of us went to Birmingham Uni together. I was glad to have my own space, but always felt it was my job to look out for the others.
People ask whether it was annoying to share my birthday as a child, but I just wondered what it was like for people who had theirs alone. There were 200 people at our 40th last year. It was harder to organise than our childhood birthdays, because these days we have different tastes, budgets and friends.
There are 11 grandchildren now. My mother says they are her oxygen. We make sure we’re together every year on the anniversary of my father’s death. At his funeral, in 2013, I saw my siblings all waiting and I felt instant warmth. I thought: “This is going to be OK.” If something happened to me tomorrow, I’ve got at least three numbers I can call, and I think that’s more than a lot of people. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t pooping it before my wife had her first pregnancy scan. During all three pregnancies, there was a period where I was slightly anxious.
There is definitely something special about being not just siblings, but siblings who share the same date of birth. I thought I couldn’t wait to get rid of them all, but Dad used to say, “You’ll appreciate this when you’re older.” He was right. Now my children have so many cousins and we have a big, readymade family, with all the joy that brings.
• As told to Deborah Linton
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