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Triplets find long-lost 60-year-old baby photo

BBC 2 days ago

By  Susie Rack ,  BBC News, West Midlands  • PJ Ellis ,  BBC Radio WM

BBC BBC Triplets in an incubator
David, Dawn and Dyane were born to Enid and Percival Jackson at New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton in June 1964

Triplets who recently turned 60 have unearthed a long-lost photo taken the day after they were born.

The black and white snap shows day-old Jackson siblings Dyane, Dawn and David in an incubator at New Cross Hospital, Wolverhampton.

They recently found it among mementoes they had taken from their parents' home in Jamaica after they died 14 years ago.

"I got a little bit emotional actually when I was looking at it again," said Dyane, whose surname is now de Blaby.

60-year-old triplets
Dyane de Blaby, David Jackson and Dawn Jagdev say they are close and have each other's back

"Just thinking about what my mum went through and how unusual it would have been at that time," she added. "Bringing back memories of my parents and how they would have struggled."

The triplets, who turned 60 on 7 June, had forgotten about the old snap until they went through the box of mementoes just after celebrating their birthday.

It was taken for the BBC by veteran Midlands Today cameraman Derek Johnson, who died in 2017.

He had sent it a copy to their mother Enid in Ward 12 at New Cross a week later, with a hastily-written note explaining it had been taken "very hurriedly".

The siblings recalled cringing as children when their mum would take the picture out to show guests.

"We were always embarrassed, thinking, ‘mom, what you doing, we haven't got any clothes on or anything'," laughed Dawn.

Family Handout Family Handout A couple on their wedding day
Enid and Percival Jackson moved to Wolverhampton in 1962 as part of the Windrush generation and stayed for 30 years

Mrs de Blaby and Dawn, whose surname is Jagdev, still live in Wolverhampton with David a few miles away in Walsall.

Their parents moved to Wolverhampton in 1962 as part of the Windrush generation, and dad Percival worked as a bus driver.

"Initially they were going to stop here three years make a bit of money and go back to Jamaica – three years turned in 30 years," said Mrs de Blaby.

The couple had a son, Paul, and when he was followed by the triplets just 18 months later, Percival's colleagues had a whip round to offer support.

With four children under two, Enid was grateful for the help of a neighbour on Dunstall Road in Whitmore Reans, who would assist with feeds.

When their children left home the couple returned to Jamaica, where they lived for 20 years until their deaths within a month of one another.

Family Handout Family Handout Four siblings at a wedding
The Jackson siblings, pictured at Dyane's wedding in 2015, have "each other's back"

The triplets said, while for them being one of three was normal, it brought a degree of notoriety while growing up.

At a Pendeford High School reunion recently, Mrs de Blaby said she was "was quite surprised at how many of our old school friends remembered us".

All four siblings are close. "We don't phone each other every day but we're on group chats and if anything happens we’re all there," she added.

"It's nice to have a family bond that somebody's got your back."

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