It’s a photograph to melt even the hardest of hearts, writes Sue Austin. Two tiny babies joined together in the cruellest of embraces as nature decreed that they be born conjoined twins.

The first photograph of Faith and Hope, born to Shropshire teenager Laura Williams, is on the front page of tonight’s Shropshire Star. See Monday’s Shropshire Star for more photos.

And it turns the little beautiful little girls from a newspaper report or television piece into real human beings.

The picture shows the twins with their arms entwined, looking as if they are giving each other a cuddle saying, “It’s you and me against the world”.

Faith wears a little yellow bonnet, keeping in her warmth and both are surrounded by tubes and the paraphernalia of their life-saving incubator.

Mum, Laura, 18, the youngest woman ever to give birth to conjoined twins, had the girls by Caesarean section last week.
Together with husband Aled, 28, she decided to go ahead, against medical advice and have the babies.

They are now at Great Ormond Street Hospital where doctors are deciding when to perform the complex operation to separate them.

Speaking to television cameras this weekend Laura looked happy and relaxed, and mature beyond her years, as she talked about how beautiful Faith and Hope were.

She revealed that the twins shared a liver and apart from that, were joined only by skin.

The liver is said to be the easiest organ to deal with as it regenerates but no-one is pretending that the future for the twins is anything other than fragile and uncertain.

The couple’s decision to go public over the birth of their daughters and allow their photograph to be published will be no-doubt be debated across dining room tables as will their decision to allow the babies the chance of life.

But surely no-one can have anything but sympathy for Hope and Faith, names so apt for the situation they were born to.