The rest is history. The Walton sextuplets – Hannah, Ruth, Luci, Kate, Jennie and Sarah – were born in Liverpool on 18 November, 1983. Arriving 31 and a half weeks into their mother’s pregnancy, they made front-page news, capturing the hearts of the nation, not just their parents.
Today, the Waltons – who are still the world’s only surviving all-girl sextuplets in the world – have just celebrated their 30th birthday, which no one outside the family can quite believe.
‘Everyone who remembers watching them on the TV when they were born says it makes them feel old,’ comments Janet, 61. ‘I say, “Can you imagine how I feel, then?”‘
Next week, all six sisters and their parents appear in an ITV documentary that follows them as they celebrate their milestone event.
Janet says she wasn’t thrilled at the idea of a family trip to the tattoo parlour – ‘but it was what the girls wanted to do’.
Each sister gets six hearts tattooed – but not all have them on the same part of the body.
Also in the programme, they travel to the States to meet up with another set of sextuplets – toddler boys, and as boisterous as they come. It makes all the girls consider how many children they want themselves.
‘I think it was an eye-opener for them,’ says Janet. ‘I was just a year older than they are now when I had them, and to see these little ones running riot was really something,’ explains Janet. ‘I think it brought home just what their dad and I had to deal with. I’m not sure any of them will be aiming for six children – certainly not all at once.’
In fact, Ruth says she’d quite like six, ‘but I’m afraid to say that because it might freak out my fiancé. I don’t think I could cope with six at once, though.’
Luci wants children too, ‘but how do you manage six at once? When we left the other family, I remember saying to Mum and Dad, “We weren’t like that, were we?” Mum said, “You were exactly like that.” I honestly don’t know how they did it.’
It’s a joyous programme – and catching up with the family back in the UK is equally cheering. Ruth reveals she’s just got engaged. ‘He popped the question on Valentine’s Day,’ she says of her fiancé Rob – so there’s talk of a wedding next year.
What the girls are up to now?
HANNAH is currently single and living at home in Wallasey with Mum and Dad while she saves up for her own home. She has two degrees, is a qualified primary school teacher and currently manages an opticians. She likes to shop and has five wardrobes for her clothes.
RUTH lives in Wallasey and is engaged to Rob, who works in admin. She’s employed in a call centre in Birkenhead. Very sociable, she wants to get married and have a baby.
LUCI is cabin crew for Thomas Cook and engaged to Paul, a bakery supervisor for Morrisons. She loves her job, is saving up to get married and wants to keep flying. Mum Janet calls her ‘dizzy’.
KATE is single, lives in Wallasey and works in the HR department of John Moores University, where she also studied. She’s keen on fashion, bowling and cinema – although her family describe her as ‘serious’.
SARAH has an office job in a local medical centre. She’s engaged to restaurant worker Kieran and the pair have just bought their first home in Wallasey. Mum Janet thinks Sarah is the one most likely to marry first.
JENNIE lives in Leeds with her boyfriend Matt, a market trader, and runs a retro sweet shop called Sweet Things selling novelty items like bouquets made of confectionery. The pair met in Majorca when Jennie worked as a holiday rep. After ten years abroad, they’ve recently returned to the UK.
Since this brings to three the number of Walton sisters who are engaged, it seems like there might actually be a race to get down the aisle. Have they considered a triple wedding? ‘I suppose it would mean Mum only needing to buy one hat,’ Ruth says with a laugh. ‘But I don’t think it will happen.’
Their father’s in no hurry for any of them to get married – for financial reasons. Ever since they’ve been old enough to have boyfriends, Graham has been telling the world that he’s quite happy with them all living in sin, ‘if it would save me a few bob’.
What’s remarkable about the Waltons is how close they all seem. Geographically, none of the girls has strayed too far from their parents’ home in Wallasey on the Wirral. Hannah still lives with them, and four of the others live within a few miles. Even Jennie, the farthest-flung, is only in Leeds, where she’s settled with her boyfriend.
They’re also close emotionally. ‘They’re friends as well as sisters, which I always think is lovely,’ says Janet. ‘You can’t predict that.’
Growing up in the spotlight can’t have been easy, though. Janet and Graham first allowed the cameras into their lives for financial reasons.
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