Memories of the Dolls Hospital and cherished childhood toys |
My niece’s class was tasked with presenting a topic in school last week.
She’s seven and wanted to talk about toys and, while discussing this with my mother, asked her if she had a favourite toy.
My mother took her on her lap and told her a story about a little doll that she owned as a child in the 1950s.
It was named Denise, and my mother took the doll everywhere with her.
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Denise had a ponytail carved into her head, and the word “pedigree” stamped on her back.
She was made of rubber – one of those dolls with arms and legs that you could remove, if you were particularly inquisitive, and then pop back into place.
“Sometimes, one of the eyes would fall out,” she said, laughing.
And then, she told her a story of the Dolls Hospital on the Grosvenor Road in Belfast.
Toys were not as plentiful as they are nowadays, and repair, rather than chucking out and getting another, was the order of the day.
Seamstresses at the Dolls Hospital would make clothes to fit your doll, or they would restring them with elastic, or replace broken parts until it was just like new........