Rifca Stanescu was 12 when she had her first baby but don’t worry: she was married. She wedded upstanding jewelery seller Ionel Stanescu when she was 11 and he was 13.
She added: ‘Before that there was a lot of fighting – once my father had even attacked my husband with a knife. He wanted him to pay 500,000 lei in compensation. My family even took me home but after three days I ran away again to be with him.’
After Maria’s birth, Ionel’s family paid Rifca’s father a dowry and all was settled.
Maria’s birth made Rifca’s mother a grandmother aged 40.
Rifca said she begged daughter Maria to stay in school and finish her education.
Maria decided to follow in her footsteps and marry herself. Within six months she too had fallen pregnant with Ion.
She told how in Romanian gypsy community it is common for couples to marry young.
Rifca added: ‘I did not try to stop my daughter getting married because this is the tradition, it’s what happens.’
The youngest British grandmother was an unnamed 26-year-old from Rotherham, Yorkshire whose 12-year-old daughter gave birth in 1999.