The People

On Friday 18 November 1983 at Liverpool's Oxford Street maternity hospital the world’s first surviving set of single-sex sextuplets were born. Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jennifer were born into a blaze media coverage.

The girls arrived in the space of four minutes between 7.56pm and 8pm. The smallest Hannah weighed 2lb 1oz and the largest Jennifer 3lb 8oz.

Parents Janet and Graham Walton had been trying for a baby for five years and had been told that it was unlikely they would be able to have children. The couple had just been accepted as adoptive parents when they were told they were expecting six children.

The Waltons found themselves in the media spotlight, after their birth Graham Walton took a year off his job as a painter and decorator to help look after them. After the girls second birthday they featured in a television advert for a chain of chemists stores.

No manual

At the time of the girl’s 18th birthday in 2001 they featured in a BBC One documentary. In the programme Graham Walton explained that he and his wife had to make things up as they went along “All of a sudden we went from nothing to six babies.

The girl's first day at school

"We had to work our plan, what we were going to do to look after the babies, how we were going to get money to keep and we did our best.

"If we made a mistake we made a mistake.

"There’s no manual how to do these things and we did our best."

Speaking in 2004 on the girl’s 21st birthday their mother Janet said of the girls, "We have always encouraged them to be individual.

"Graham and I have worked hard not to let them be treated just as one person.

"We rarely dressed them the same - I think one of the first times was when they all went to Weatherhead high school and they were all in uniform - and in the past they've even had separate birthday parties."