A pair of identical twin sisters celebrated their 100th birthdays at separate care homes 70 miles apart.
Joan and Betty Williams were inseparable growing up.
Although they were dead ringers in appearance, their personalities developed in different ways.
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Joan was mischievous and outgoing, and Betty was studious and a little quieter.
Despite this, the sisters who grew up in Hayle, Cornwall, shared a special bond and a tendency to buy the same clothes.
Both sisters now reside in separate care homes in Cornwall.
Betty in Trevaylor Manor near Penzance and Joan in The Elms Care Centre in Saltash.
Despite being an hour-and-a-half drive apart, the sister’s keep in touch by phone and spoke to each other on their birthday.
Growing up, they attended Bodriggy School and later Hayle Grammar School.
Betty started work at Primrose Dairy in the nearby village of St Erth and studied shorthand and typing classes in the evenings while sister Joan worked for the Co-op.
During the war years, the girls enjoyed local dances held for the American GIs stationed at bases nearby and helped their mother look after the family members who came to stay.
Betty met her husband Jack Reed, who after being demobbed from the RAF, went to work in Hayle.
The couple got married in 1951 and initially moved into a flat above a local butcher’s shop.
Joan moved away with her husband John Ralton to Basingstoke, Hampshire, after they married in 1948.
Joan and John later parted but a few years later Joan married Fred, a widowed scientist. Fred died in 2014.
Later, Betty and Jack bought a large plot of land in Penmare, Hayle, and built a bungalow just half a mile from Betty’s parents.
Due to a leg injury, Betty retired early from Primrose Dairy but continued with the choir and earned many prizes at local fetes for her crochet work and baking.
She also continued studies in musical theory at a local Technical College.
Following his retirement Jack designed and built a house in Marazion, Cornwall, overlooking world famous St Michael’s Mount, as reported by Need To Know.
Following the death of the twins’ parents, Joan bought their old family home and after over 50 years moved back to Cornwall.
In 2012 following a stroke, Jack moved into Trevaylor Manor Residential Care Home where he was joined by Betty in 2017.
Jack died two years later.
Elma Harris and Thelma Barratt, from Stockport, are thought to be Britain’s oldest twins aged 105.
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