TELEVISION / First Person

Elisabeth Holmes, an identical twin, on Thicker Than Water (BBC1), which focused on a relationship between identical twins: 'It was terribly well- written, and I'd say the person who wrote it had obviously studied twins in great depth. It was very, very true, their lives being wrapped up with each other in that way.

'It started with one sister stronger than the other, which is something that you're always going to have - my sister always found things easier than me, so, to a certain extent, I could relate to Debbie, the weaker twin in the programme. I know loads of twins where the weaker one becomes obsessed with the stronger one, and this element was strong on the TV.

'When Jo died, Debbie came to life. It's hard to compare that to my life, as my twin is still alive. But when we split up, when we were 20, it was really traumatic. I never felt like copying my sister like Debbie did, but after a year, when I became more my own person, I did draw on the same sort of strength that Debbie drew on.

'I never felt any desire to move into my sister's life like Debbie did but this is a very extreme case of twins and nevertheless very believable.'