Bringing up quadruplets was an enormous challenge for Eric and Clare Mitchell, but it had huge rewards. Womens' Editor Christen Pears reports.

AFTER two years of fertility treatment, Clare Mitchell was absolutely delighted to discover she was expecting twins. She had just got used to the idea when a second scan showed it was triplets.

"After that, they decided to take me into hospital for another scan and they found a fourth baby," says Clare. "I was so keen to have children, it wouldn't have mattered how many I was having, but my husband Eric was a bit more cautious, and my mum had brought up six children, so she knew how much work it would be to bring up four together."

Clare's mother was right. At first, just two of the babies were allowed home and Clare coped quite easily, but when the other two came home, it was a different story.

"It used to take us two hours to feed them and because there were so many feeds. We never got a full night's sleep. I had someone to help me for the feeds during the day and Eric had to take his turn at night, but it was very, very hard.

"Once they could feed themselves, though, it began to change. It wasn't about us doing things for them all the time; they started to give things back to us and it was wonderful."

But while some multiple birth families are inundated with sponsorship offers, the Mitchells received just an automatic washing machine and a year's supply of disposable nappies.

Clare and Eric found bringing up their family a strain on their resources and Clare, a chef, went back to part-time work in the evenings when the children were just 15 months old.

"When they were born, we lived in a two-up-two-down house so we had to move somewhere bigger and then we had to buy a car big enough to fit them all in. That used up all our savings so I had to go back to work, but that's what it's all about when you have children."

Clare saved money by learning to sew and making curtains and bedspreads, while Eric made toys for the children. The quads learned to be fairly self-sufficient at an early age, saving their pocket money if there was anything they wanted to buy. Kevin did a paper round and Helen used to wash up in a local caf.

"They never just expected us to give them things. They were very good, especially when they went to university. We've tried to help them as much as we could but we couldn't do everything so they fended for themselves as much as possible."

The quads are now 24 and have all left home. Helen works as a nurse in London, Kevin is a systems engineer for British Aerospace in Dorset and Joanne is a designer for Edinburgh Crystal.

Only Lindsey, who lives in Gateshead, has remained in the North-East. After leaving university, she had a few acting roles at The Playhouse in Newcastle but is now working at HMV.

"They've all gone off to different parts of the country, so it's much more difficult for us to get together, but when we do, we make the most of it," says Clare, although she admits she and Eric enjoy having the house to themselves.

Despite the usual teenage arguments, the quads have always been close and still keep in regular contact. "We do get on really well. We don't see each other as much now we all have jobs so that might be something to do with it," laughs Helen. "It's like having three best friends. There's always someone there whether you just want to have a chat about something or whether it's something serious."

The quadruplets attracted a lot of press interest in the early years and reporters and TV crews were regular visitors to the family home in Kirk Merrington, Co Durham.

"For the first ten years, they used to descend on us every birthday. We used to quite like the attention," says Clare. "It was never as intrusive as, say, the Walton sextuplets, so we had quite a bit of fun. It was also an extra pair of hands, someone to hold the babies."

The Mitchells are the subject of the Tyne Tees documentary series, Amazing Babies, due to be shown next month. The programme catches up with the family and finds out how they've changed since childhood.

According to Helen, they were reluctant to make the programme at first, but they soon changed their minds. If nothing else, it gave them a chance to meet up.

"When we were little, we were quite used to being on the television or in the papers, but as we got older, it became a bit embarrassing. We didn't want all our friends talking about us. We just wanted to be like everyone else," she says.

But because they were quads, they always stood out.

"They were known by everyone as the Quads, people saw them as a group and it was only natural that they wanted to establish their own separate identity," explains Clare.

"They were all good at everything at school and got good A-level results. But I think, because there were four of them, they wanted to find their own special area."

Joanne was always the artistic one. Even from being tiny, she would draw and sketch, while Lindsey was bitten by the acting bug while she was still at school. Helen was scientific, while Kevin followed his father's footsteps into engineering.

"There was a lot of competition between them when they were younger and that really drove them on. They put pressure on themselves to be as good as good as each other and I think that's why they did so well at school. To be honest, it was quite a relief when they went to university and did different things."

Amazing Babies is shown on Tyne Tees at 7.30pm on July 2.