Dolly Mixture

Today

On facebook today such a lovely picture of my great niece Amelia lying down next a range of dolls in diminishing sizes. She looked very cute and complacent, obviously enjoying herself.

I made a comment "I remember the day that Becky went to bed with 16 dollies".

In My Day

Becky just loved her dolls. She had "Tiny Tears" "Cheekaboo" "Sindy" in just about all possible configurations. She had all sorts of other dolls, her favourite being "Reecham-Beecham" a black dolly dressed in rompers hand-knitted by Mennonites in Kitchener, Canada. Add to that "My Little Pony" and you can imagine the storage problems.

She early learnt that dolls' arms and legs could be removed, but not so easily how to put them back on again, so her room occasionally resembled the aftermath of a dolly-chainsaw massacre, littered with limbs and torsoes.

When we lived at Montfort Close in Westham, Becky had a rather magnificent hand-made "Captain's" bed to take full advantage of the small space. There were raised sides to stop her falling out; just a gentle dip in the middle so that she could climb in and out.

Becky was a sound sleeper, but one night we were awoken by a resounding crash from her room. We rushed in - Becky was still asleep, but on the floor, wrapped up in her duvet. How could it have happened that she had wriggled far enough down the bed to reach the only unprotected few inches? Easy. She taken all her dollies to bed with her. There they were, straddled across the entire width of the top of the bed, pushing Becky effectively down the bed till she's fallen out. We counted sixteen.

We had to make some hasty rules regarding the number of dollies she had in her bed and check at bedtime.

Personally I think it's just another example of the pure malice exhibited by dolls when we're not looking.