HUSBAND and wife Margaret and David Stinson not only share the same birthday, they also shared the same midwife.

The pair, who are both 50 today, discovered the coincidence on their 17th birthday.

They came into the world within half an hour of each other, both were born at a few streets away in Rishton and delivered by a district nurse named Lonsdale.

The couple have also defied the odds as David was born with spina bifida and was told he would never walk or have children.

But he is able to walk with sticks and the couple have five children and eight grandchildren.

As youngsters, David and Margaret attended different Rishton primary schools and then David moved with his family to Yorkshire, returning when he was 15. The couple met again through friends and it was on their seventeenth birthdays that they realised their similar background.

David said: "We found out we had the same birthday. Then we asked our mothers who delivered us and we couldn't believe it when we found it was the same nurse."

They were married at 18 at Blackburn Register Office and now live in Burton Street, Rishton, across the road from where Margaret was born.

Their family was planning a surprise birthday treat for them today.

David added: "We haven't really looked in detail at our horoscopes or anything to see how similar we are.

"We can tell what each other is thinking, but we put that down to 32 years of married life."

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