THE miracle girls who made headlines for being Poole Hospital’s first quads are celebrating their 40th birthday.

The Tanner babies were born within half an hour of each other on April 25, 1975, weighing between 2lbs 5ozs and 3lbs 10ozs.

Echo readers followed the progress of Gillian, Rachel, Judith and Hilary as they came out of hospital to their Ferndown home – where mum Cynthia coped with around 200 nappies a week.

Cynthia, a former maths teacher at Kemp Welch Girls School, told the Echo at the time that the chances of having quads at all were 500,000 to one.

The Tanner girls were even more unusual because their mother had not received any fertility treatment and they were two sets of identical twins, with Hilary and Judith sporting much curlier hair than their sisters.

They were thought to be the only quads of their kind in Europe or America.

Cynthia and husband Neill, who was then deputy head at Talbot County Combined School, already had a 16-month-old daughter, Claire, when the girls were born.

The quads were featured on BBC South and later pictured, at the age of two, enjoying a specially adapted motor caravan.

They were photographed again in their Brownie uniforms on their 10th birthday.

The girls went to Ferndown Middle School and remained in the town until they went to separate universities.

Gill now works in human resources and lives in Southbourne with partner Mike and son Leon, aged 22 months.

Her twin Rachel lives in Horsham, West Sussex, with husband Gareth and son Taro, aged two-and-a-half. They are expecting their second child in July.

Judith lives and works in London, and is a manager at Penguin Books.

Hilary is a manager at Save the Children head office and lives in London.

Older sister Claire is head of maths at Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester. They phone, text or email almost every day and meet frequently.

Gill said: “Now I have a child of my own, I can appreciate how hard it must have been for our parents having five small children. Leon and Taro love having so many aunties to play with.”

Hilary said: “We enjoy looking back at old photos and newspaper articles about us, but when we were young we found the attention quite embarrassing.”

The quads are still in touch with one of the nurses at the special baby care unit where they were born.