Special Guest Blogger: Alice Kessler

Ah, it's my turn to stare into the proverbial mirror and try not to scream at the reflections staring back. I say reflections, it's the plural because of course, I’m me, and also her. We’re twins. Identical.
Yes, it’s me, Alice. Or Ellen. Honestly, even we get it wrong sometimes. We’re the Kessler Twins, purveyors of high-kicking chorus lines, and the only women in 1960s Germany who could make lederhosen look vaguely sexy.
We escaped East Germany and our first big break came in 1957 when we were discovered at a Viennese opera house, where we were performing an interpretive dance routine to O Sole Mio in matching berets and tap shoes. The producer took one look at us flailing in unison and declared, 'Mein Gott, they’re like one person' and thus the Kessler Twins were born. Or re-born. Honestly, we were born in 1936. But nobody counts that as a career launch.
For two decades, we pirouetted, sang off-key, and smiled through our teeth at men who said things like, 'I could never tell you apart', touring the world! Well, Europe.
And Margate. And once, very briefly, a holiday camp in Blackpool where the audience clapped halfway through our opener because they thought it was over. A fair reaction, really.
We were asked to represent West Germany in the Eurovision Song Contest 1959, finishing in 8th place with Tonight We Want To Go Dancing and we graced the covers of magazines and we were offered film roles and during the 60's when we walked into a room, people noticed. Not because we were brilliant, mind you, but because we were exactly alike.
We never had children. Not from lack of trying mind you, but we were inseparable so instead of husbands we adopted a parrot named Klaus, who could swear in three languages. He outlived us both, which is frankly rude.
We died, you know. Quite uneventfully, at exactly the same time, of course, because we couldn’t even manage death individually.
For a brief, glitter-sprayed moment, we were seen. We came. We chorused. We confused people and bowed out together in a joint suicide pact.
Ellen had suffered a stroke and we both had heart problems so we slipped off to Grünwald, and an assisted dying facility and the magnificent Kessler Twins took their final bow, in unison as always.