"TWINCREDIBLES!"

'Twincredibles!' is the headline that the Sun gave to this extremely rare case of a new set of twins of a different racial appearance being born after their older twin sisters, who also have a differennt racial appearance.
In both cases one of them takes after their father, Dean Durrant, 33, of Mixed Heritage, and are darker in complexion.
The other has white skin and features and takes after their mother, Alison Spooner, 27, who is Caucasian.

The Hampshire couple are ecstatic, and are very surprised that this could happen to them again.

Doctor Carol Cooper, author of a book on twins, said there was a two in a million chance of a second set of twins like the Durrant girls.

On the Sun website she said:

“On average, non-identical twins share half their genes — sometimes it’s more, in which case they are quite similar, sometimes it’s much less.

“In this case they’ve not got the same number of genes from each parent.

“To have a second set of non-identical twins is unusual. It means the mum is very fertile.

“I think the first time this happened was in Germany in 1978, when a woman gave birth to one black baby and one white.”

I disagree with the media reports that these twins are of different races, and how two of them are labelled as black, and the other two as white. That is the reason why I referred to them as having a 'different racial appearance'. Both of them are mixed race, some have more genes for a particular race resulting in their misleading racial identification but that still doesn't make them 100% black or white.

How could any of them be described as entirely black really is a mystery, when their father is of Mixed Heritage.

I am reminded of Barack Obama here. In a similar way he is constantly referred to as 'The First Black American President', even though he had a white mother. People of all races worldwide make this mistake.

However, ironically although the reportage didn't provide a good start, this family predicament will probably result in people acknowledging that the twins are made up of two different races. People who otherwise wouldn't. The twins hopefully will embrace both sides of themselves as a reaction to their acceptance of being of mixed heritage.

I wonder if this could happen to me when I decide to have children, as I am half white and half black and my mother was a non identical twin. It could happen to me even if I don't have twins, or even if I have a black partner. I've heard of several instances of this.

But really all I hope for is healthy children, boys or girls, of any colour. However, I can imagine the annoyance this couple must feel over the stares and having to explain over and over that their twins are actually twins!

The two sets of twins photo was taken from the yahoo website, but originally it is a
Sky News Photo