Ready furnished with period pieces, all it needed was redecorating and a little refurbishing. It went on to become a traditional family home, complete with dad, mom and three children.
It was three feet high and two feet wide and I was only allowed (at last) to play with a dolls house because we had just had a baby girl and we were getting it ready for her.
I have always loved small and miniature things; books, dolls, furniture, everything small scale. Being a boy, I never had the opportunity to ‘play’ with such things. I didn’t even have a sister, whose dolls I could have played with. Also, I was brought up in a very rough part of Liverpool and it wasn’t something to mention out loud.
But now, I had a daughter and she was going to like dolls and dolls houses. We were given this first one as it was a family piece (made by my wife’s grandfather for his daughter). I got it ready and bought another two, all complete with miniature interiors and dolls to inhabit them.
As soon as my daughter could play, we would sit and play for hours with these houses. We would make up stories and imagine what the dolls were saying to each other, what they were doing in the kitchen and in the drawing room.
We would buy extra furniture and even more dolls as friends and neighbours.
It developed into a garden, with sunbathing dolls and plants and animals. We had a gardener, cook and butler. A house with staff! My daughter developed a great imagination and her stories were so much more vivid than mine. She is now twenty- three and still loves all things miniature and her/my dolls houses live with us as she doesn’t yet have her own place. She reckons dolls hold in secrets and as I pass them on the landing each day, I smile because they know all mine.
The art of small things
As the doll turns the page,
don't offend the book, or its age
by saying it could be opened faster
if it were bigger, vaster
than the whole library he’s sitting with.
This is all part of the myth
that bigger is better – or another,
that life is ruled by Big Brother
watching you. Mass media’s laced
with this hype and it can be traced
back to ‘size matters’ – it’s implicit
you don’t have to listen for it.
A strong magnifying- glass
will show the miniature’s class.
When you fix it in your view,
the truth that hides becomes visible to you.
Thanks for reading,
David Wilkinson Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook
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