THEY may look like chocolate but if you cracked one of these open you might be in for a nasty surprise, writes Gemma Aldridge in the Sunday People.

    Because these are no sweet treats — they are thought to be the world’s oldest real Easter eggs.

    Over a century ago, as the Titanic prepared for its maiden voyage and World War I was only the stuff of nightmares, two little twin girls were desperate to celebrate Easter.

    In 1912, long before the supermarket shelves were lined with chocolate goodies in garish boxes, 10-year-old Margaret and Henrietta McMeekan from Glasgow, in Britain, made their own festive eggs — from a real hen.

    Now family heirlooms, the eggs — which have remained unbroken for 103 years — are in the hands of Margaret’s son, Robert Kerr, 74. “They look like chocolate but there was no way they would have been able to afford chocolate eggs back then as the daughters of a Scottish coal miner,” Robert said.

    “They used to make their own decorative eggs instead. Mom and my auntie told me how they would hard boil a hen’s egg each and then stain them with tea.

    “In 1912 they were both 10 and they wrote their names and the date on the shells.

    “They would usually peel the eggs after Easter day and eat the inside for their tea but for some reason they kept those ones.”

    Margaret and Henrietta remained close all their lives until Henrietta — who never had a family — died at the age of 74.

    But Margaret had eight children — four boys and four girls — including Robert. The mother and auntie passed on their egg-making tradition to the next generation.

    Robert added: “When I was a boy we didn’t have chocolate eggs either because the second war had just finished and we were still on rations.

    “My dad used to share our sweet rations at the end of each week and it would be a jelly baby, a little corner of Mars bar each.

    “Mom and Henrietta taught us to boil eggs and paint them with watercolors but we always ate them after so none of them lasted as long as these ones.”

    Robert was clearing out some boxes earlier this year when he found the eggs neatly boxed and protected by a pair of cashmere socks in the back of a fitted wardrobe.

    He said: “I hadn’t seen them for some years since my mom died in 1990 but they brought back happy memories.

    “I’m amazed they’re lasted so well. They haven’t lasted so well on the inside though — when you shake them you can hear just a little hard ball rattling around inside.” (SD-Agencies)