The Five of Us – The Life of the Lawson Quins

On 27 July 1965, Auckland fish’n’chip shop owners Sam and Shirley Ann Lawson became parents of a boy — Samuel — and four girls — Deborah, Lisa, Shirlene and Selina. The birth made world headlines as the first set of quintuplets conceived using hormone treatment. But out of the public eye it wasn't happy families: Sam and Ann split up when the quins were six and in 1982 their mother was murdered by her abusive second husband. Director Mark Everton’s award-winning doco regathers the quins, who discuss the ‘quin bond’, tragedy, resilience and their tumultuous lives.

In a New Zealand hospital last week a wonder-struck mother wandered along a row of incubators and gazed down at her newborn quintuplets. [The birth] resulted from fantastic new drugs which enable barren women to conceive — and which are causing a veritable epidemic of quints, quads, triplets and twins around the world.

– Life magazine, 13 August 1965

Key Cast & Crew

Mark Everton

Director, Writer, Producer

Robert Boyd-Bell

Producer

Dianne Lindesay

Research

Dee Bolland

Editor

Graham Wallace

Sound

Graeme Patrick

Camera