Noel and Sue head up Britain’s largest family, which last week welcomed its latest member — a 7lb 15oz girl called Hallie.
Incredibly,
she is the 17th child for the couple whose other children include
Chris, 26, Sophie, 21, Chloe, 19, Jack, 17, Daniel, 15, Luke, 14,
Millie, 13, Katie, 12, James, 11, Ellie, nine, Aimee, eight, Josh,
seven, Max, six, Tillie, four, Oscar, three and two-year-old Caspar.
It may seem
like an extraordinary number of children, but Noel, 43, and Sue, 39 —
who shot to fame several years ago in the Channel 4 documentary 15 Kids
And Counting — are taking it in their stride.
Since
Sue got pregnant with their eldest son Chris when she was just 13 — she
and Noel were childhood sweethearts — very few years have gone by when
she hasn’t been expecting. The couple say they originally planned on
having three children, but they loved the experience so much that they
simply kept going.
Of
course, large families like the Radfords’ are not uncommon. But what
makes their story stand out from the usual headlines about double-digit
progeny is that they refuse to rely on state benefits. Instead, they
work and support themselves by running a successful bakery business.
‘It’s important that our children see us working,’ says Sue, at their ten-bedroom home in Morecambe, Lancashire.
‘When
they’re old enough, they go out to work themselves. Chris is a
scaffolder while Sophie and Chloe help out in the shop. They have been
doing that since they were 14.
