Way back, I wrote a story on a mixed-race couple whose identical twins had different skin colours. One was dark, the other white. Readers were astonished. Other such parents got in touch. They all said that to them both babies were bonny and a gift. And what mattered was love, not skin or eye colours or other physical characteristics.

This weekend I found another incredible twins story which has been turned into a series titled The Gift by BBC Radio 4. The first part was broadcast yesterday. Lavinia and Michelle Osbourne, now 49, took AncestryDNA tests. The results were astounding. They had different fathers. It is the first such case documented in Britain. They were failed by many adults and had tough childhoods. But together they were as one, inseparable, solid. Now, they sometimes feel distance has grown between them, new tensions too.

They could not have anticipated that. Nobody can. Long before these tracing methods were available, adoptees tried to find their birth parents and imagined a joyous, emotional, reunion. My older sister,........

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