One has straight ginger hair, a fair complexion and deep blue eyes. The other has masses of curls, far darker skin and her eyes are a sparkling brown. With such opposing looks it’s hard to believe this striking pair are sisters. But they are much more than that – they are twins.


The girls were born with radically different colouring thanks to a quirk of their mixed-race parentage. Lucy and Maria Aylmer’s mother Donna is half Jamaican and their father Vince is white, and together they managed to produce one white twin and one black twin.