The Pollock Twins

In the town of Hexham near the City of Newcastle, located in the north of England. Joanna Pollock and her younger sister, Jacqueline, were walking to Church for Sunday school with their friend, Anthony. It was during this walk; they were struck by a car and all three were killed. The parents of Joanna and Jacqueline were devasted beyond explanation. It was the following year they unexpectedly welcomed the arrival of twin girls. The twins didn’t just provide new life for the family, as the grew-up, they provided the details of events and memories that were only possible, if having lived the lives of their dead sisters.   

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Credits:
https://chillinchronicles.wordpress.com/2025/06/26/from-tragedy-to-mystery-the-rebirth-of-the-pollock-daughters/
https://www.mamamia.com.au/pollock-twins/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/twin-sisters-who-family-were-27568945
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/extrasensory/id1769027640
https://psi-encyclopedia.spr.ac.uk/articles/pollock-twins-reincarnation-case/
https://upbeat.io
Stevenson, Ian Dr. Children Who Remember Previous Lives. McFarland and Company Inc, US. 2000.

* Although every effort is made to ensure that the episode is researched and accurate we cannot guarantee the complete contents is entirely factually correct *

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:12

In May 1957, in the small town of Hexham, near the English city of Newcastle, eleven-year-old Joanna Pollock and her younger sister, six-year-old Jacqueline, were walking to church for Sunday school with their nine-year-old friend Anthony. It was during this walk they were all struck by a car and killed. The driver responsible was a local woman who had decided to commit suicide by driving into a wall beside the pathway that the children were walking along. The parents of Joanna and Jacqueline were devastated beyond explanation. But it was the following year they unexpectedly welcomed the arrival of twin girls. The twins didn't just provide new life for the family. As they grew up, they provided details of events and memories that were only possible if they had lived the lives of their dead sisters. Welcome to Unexplained, brought to you by Enigma from the Pod. And this episode is the Pollock Twins. John Pollock was born and raised in the Church of England faith before converting to Catholicism. Florence grew up as a member of the Salvation Army and became Catholic upon marrying John. They lived in the town of Hexham, near the English city of Newcastle, where they operated a small family business concerned with the delivery of groceries and milk. In 1946, their first daughter Joanna is born. In her early years, she would frequently act in a theatrical manner and was often heard stating the words, I will never be a lady. Five years later, saw their second daughter Jacqueline born. Described as clumsy, she bore the scar of falling over, creating a distinctive mark across her forehead, and displayed a prominent birthmark on the left of her waist. The family were typical of the area and their social status, honest, hardworking, and the need for grandparents to provide ongoing assistance with the raising of their children. Joanne and Jacqueline were walking to church for Sunday school with their friend Anthony. Witnesses saw an erratically driven car mount the pathway the children were walking on, hitting them head on and crushing them against the wall immediately behind them. The driver was a local woman, under the influence of several drugs and intending to end her own life. She was believed to have intentionally hit all three children after being forcibly separated from her own as some morbid act of revenge. The case made national headlines. However, the name of who was responsible was withheld by the authorities, and the driver was eventually committed to a psychiatric hospital. John and Florence were both devastated, but although together in grief, they reacted in very different ways. John became convinced almost immediately that the girls would return through reincarnation. He interpreted the tragedy through a spiritual lens and often spoke with Florence about his beliefs that God would give them back. Florence was understandably shattered by the loss of her daughters and rejected John's belief in reincarnation. She wanted to grieve in a traditional Christian fashion and was becoming increasingly distressed by John's insistence that the girls would return. Although they continued to operate their business, Florence voiced her opinion about leaving the town and rebuilding their lives somewhere else. But John dismissed this, claiming he could sense the spirit of their lost daughters in the house, and maintained his belief that remaining in Hexham, where the girls could find them was crucial for their return, and this created an ever-growing source of tension within the marriage. The desire to move forwards was strong, and Florence soon fell pregnant. And on October 4th, 1958, Florence gives birth to a healthy baby girl. However, about five minutes later, a second baby girl also arrives. This stuns John and Florence. There was no history of twins in their families, and the doctor claimed to have only heard one heartbeat during his examination. The twins are named Gillian and Jennifer, identical apart from some distinguishing features. That is, Jennifer is born with two birthmarks, one on the forehead in the same place that Jacqueline had a scar, and the second on her left hip, also matching the birthmark that Jacqueline had. The twins are only three months old when the family move from Hexham to Whitley Bay, some 50 kilometers away. John and Florence agree this is an opportunity to make a fresh start and decide not to talk about the deaths of Joanna and Jacqueline in order to not jinx the miraculous birth of their new twins. As the twins grow into toddlers, they begin showing traits eerily similar to their deceased sisters. Gillian behaves like Joanna and is confident in nurturing. Jennifer, like Jacqueline, is more quiet and more dependent. The parents try not to see the patterns, but the patterns just keep coming. Florence retrieved a box stored in the attic containing some old children's toys. And when passed to the twins, each correctly stated that they were gifts from Santa Claus at Christmas, and quoted the names previously given to them by their deceased sisters. Even more alarming, Gillian correctly recalls her dead sister hitting her head calls in the scar, and Jennifer displays an extreme fear of motor vehicles and speaks about the accident in detail as if she remembers it. It was on a return visit to Hexham when the twins were aged four. Their parents no longer had explanations for the events they were witnessing. The twins recognized landmarks they had never seen. They identified the school Joanna and Jacqueline attended, and knew the location and direction of a favourite playground without being shown the way. Florence continued to push back John's claims the twins were the reincarnation of their lost daughters. Until one occasion, when Florence overheard the girls playing a game where they recreated their sister's death. Gillian was cradling Jennifer's head, telling her, the blood's coming out of your eyes, that's where the car hit you. Dr. Ian Stevenson, a psychiatrist and researcher at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, was also interested in reincarnation and discovered the case when reading about it in a newspaper. The local press was still keen to generally print stories about the possibility of reincarnation, somewhat due to the increased participation in spiritualism. It's key to remember that the United Kingdom was still adjusting to the end of World War II, and almost every member of the population had recently lost or knew others who had lost family members. Dr. Stevenson interviewed the twins and their parents in 1964. He included the case in a book titled Children Who Remember Previous Lives. In his report, he acknowledged the twins displayed some behaviours that were difficult to explain. But it was shortly after the twins turned five that the memories of their past lives slowly began to fade away and they went on to live normal lives. However, Dr. Stevenson also noted the improbability of the twins having knowledge or behavioural traits due to genetic inheritance or through parental influence. And so the case of the Pollock twins remains a detailed and compelling case in the research of reincarnation, raising profound questions surrounding the possibility of rebirth. As the twins went on to live their normal lives, Dr. Stevenson, who also kept up correspondence with their parents, met with the twins when they were in their twenties. However, it was now they stated they had no recollection of their past lives, but accepted their parents' belief that they were in fact the reincarnation of their deceased elder sisters.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

For a period of 40 years, we traveled all over the world from studying young children with spontaneous memories. But when a young child, as soon as they can speak, before they can read or write, are telling their parents about a past lifetime, that's quite dramatic. And in the typical Ian Stevenson case, is as soon as a child can speak, uh, they will tell their parents, my name's not what you're calling me. My name is so-and-so. And you're not my parents, my real parents are gonna come and get me, and this is not my real home.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Many people have argued that the memories of the twins were a hoax. However, John in Florence have always claimed they didn't speak to the twins about their deceased sisters until they were much older and maintained that their memories were genuine. A recent investigative podcast titled Extrasensory interviewed John's granddaughters, Lisa and Joanna. They described John as a violent, controlling man who manipulated Florence. Joanna claimed that Florence had told them that their reincarnation story was a lie, describing John as a truthfully narcissistic, gaslighting little man and a pathological narcissistic liar who abused her. Wilson proposes maternal impression as the cause of any claims referenced to the twins. He also suggests the parents could also be reading too much into the twin statements, or simply could be lying. However, he does concede that other cases investigated by Dr. Stevenson cannot be explained in the same way, as the life remembered is often in a different family and sometimes in a distant location. Although Gilliam passed away at aged 44, the Extrasensory Podcast also tracked down Jennifer, who was able to give her first interview in 40 years. Jennifer promoted a very different story, stating that John was a loving father who doted on them and was certain he never lied about any of the claims about reincarnation.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Joanna and Liza were very strongly felt that your dad kind of made it all up, basically.

SPEAKER_05 15:23

And felt really like he made it up because he wanted to find off the orange.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

If the Pollock twins truly carried the memories of two girls who died before them, what does that say about current identity? About how we think, how we feel, and how we make decisions? And do we move any closer to the understanding of the boundaries between life and death? Or are they always to remain unexplained? This has been Unexplained, brought to you by Enigma from the Pod. And you have been listening to the Pollock Twins. As a startup podcast, we greatly appreciate your support. Please follow us on social media and leave us a review.