Sextuplets come of age in Majorca

The world's first surviving set of all–girl sextuplets will be celebrating their 18th birthdays on Sunday with a special lunch at home in the UK, but the girls have recently spent a week in Majorca to mark the great milestone of their lives. Hannah, Lucy, Ruth, Sarah, Kate and Jenny Walton also marked their birthdays on Wednesday night by offering a glimpse of what it was like to grow up in the media spotlight. They appeared in a special BBC One documentary. Liverpool couple Janet and Graham Walton told BBC Breakfast this week of their pride and joy that all their girls had grown up healthy individuals. Mrs Walton, 49, said: “We have always encouraged the girls to be individuals. “Some of them are more outspoken than others. “It would have been easy to lump them all together but we didn't.” Her husband has even developed a sideline in after-dinner speaking on what it is like to live in a household of seven women. But with all the girls still living at home in a seven-bedroomed house, Mr Walton said it would be sad if they decided to move out in one go as the house would suddenly fall quiet. The sextuplets' arrival in 1983 came as a surprise to the couple, who had been trying for a baby for five years.