![]() So, June put on her flowered skirt and smart, black jacket that morning in 1982 in a spirit of optimism - yet as well as recording what she was wearing, she wrote in her diary: ‘One day I will look back on Monday 21st June and what will I see? My sister and I, as vulnerable as flowers in hell.’ They imagined themselves at Broadmoor ‘sitting in the summer sun on a lawn, with nurses dressed in white around’. Now, in the summer of 1982, having been sentenced to be detained indefinitely - a word they did not understand - they believed they were being offered treatment that could set them free them from their mental torment. They had become imprisoned in that world. ![]() The Silent Twins, as they became known, lived in a weird, intense world in which they were utterly entwined. The twins’ attitude to Broadmoor was by no means the only unusual thing about the identical 19-year-olds: since early childhood they had refused to communicate - even with members of their own family. To say they were troubled teenagers barely describes how odd and anti-social they were: most people found them spooky, even sinister. The girls had just pleaded guilty to a five-week crime spree in West Wales, including 16 counts of burglary, theft and arson. ![]() She and her twin sister, Jennifer, were - bizarrely - excited at being admitted to the notorious hospital for the criminally insane. June Gibbons dressed with care the day she was taken to Broadmoor.
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