BBC Sounds has launched a compelling new podcast, June: Voice of a Silent Twin, featuring June Gibbons narrating her life story for the first time. Gibbons gives a first-hand account of her journey from childhood aspirations to the infamous crime spree that led to the incarceration of her and her twin, Jennifer, at Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital at the age of 19.
The daughters of immigrants, the twins faced bullying at a young age and retreated into a private world, communicating only with each other. Their decision to engage with the world at 18 led to a dramatic turn of events and a spell in high-security psychiatric care.
The podcast is a deeply personal eight-part series featuring June’s narrative, intimate interviews, and readings from the twins’ diaries. Listeners are taken on a journey through the twins’ isolated upbringing in west Wales and the subsequent chaos that thrust them into the national spotlight as the youngest women in Broadmoor, where they encountered notorious figures like the Yorkshire Ripper and Ronnie Kray.
June Gibbons shared, “I’m pleased people want to hear my voice and it’ll be an ending to a story that’s gone on for so long and this will be the finality of it. What’s going to make it unique is that you are hearing it from my own voice. I’m the one talking. They’re not talking about me. I’m the one that’s talking myself. So it’s me saying those things. The real June Gibbons.”
Executive Producer Karen Voisey remarks, “You may think you know the story of the ‘Silent Twins’ but think again. Through powerful insight, June’s personal testimony and innermost thoughts and emotions, this podcast reveals so much more. It is a deep dive into the disturbing, destructive but often humorous world of June and Jennifer and their years before, during and after their time at the top security Broadmoor Psychiatric Hospital. The podcast also dispels the misleading myths that have haunted the sisters for decades. It has been such a privilege to be able to tell June’s story.”
