A delighted family is celebrating the arrival of the fifth generation of 'strong willed' women in her family - with 94 years between the oldest and youngest. Tiny Peyton Carruthers-Hughes is the latest addition to the brood at just eight weeks old.
She completes the vast family portrait in a heart-warming photo with her clan. The tot is also joined in an adorable picture by her mum Shannon Carruthers, 21, nan Debbie Carruthers, 52, great-nan Sally Jackson, 71 and great-great-gran Joyce Kessell, 94.
Joyce, from Egremont, Cumbria, now has five children, ten granddaughters, nine great-grandchildren and one great-great granddaughter. But while she said it's "lovely" to have five generations of girls and that she "can’t believe she’s a great-great-gran", she joked: "I prefer dogs to babies".
Joyce, known by everyone as 'gran', has five children - two girls and three boys - who went on to produce ten granddaughters. There are only five boys throughout the female-dominated family tree. But while remembering everyone's names and birthdays can be a nightmare, the family shares a close bond and regularly spends time together as one big group.
Peyton's mum Shannon said: “I didn’t realise it was going to be five generations. I just knew that we are a massive family full of girls.
“We are really close, it’s lovely, and we all live around each other so we constantly see each other. All five of us see each other every day.
“We go out together quite a lot, we don’t take gran out as much now because she’s getting a bit immobile, but I see them pretty much every single day. We’ll go out for a cuppa, for dinner or have a few drinks in the house.
“We have a calendar with everyone’s birthdays on and we sort it out for my nan now. For the kids, she writes the cards and we’ll put £10 in, but anyone older just gets a card.”
Joyce's niece Alison Draper said: “The family is full of strong-willed women, so it’s absolutely mental. We all argue, but we love each other so much. My gran is so strong-willed it is unbelievable, my mum is, Debbie is, Shannon is, and Payton is definitely going to be just like them.”
There are only five boys in the entire family, who Alison described as ‘whipped’.
She said: “The boys are all whipped, they don’t get a look in. The lasses are definitely the bosses in our family. That’s what it’s always been like, and what it will always be like.”
While rare, five living generations of the same family is two short of world record recorded in 1989 when Augusta Bunge’s great-great-great-great-grandson was born.
