Rosie The Doll

A Memory of Guildford.

I remember Rosie the doll. During childhood we, my sisters and I, shared quite a few dolls – but Rosie was mine alone. She had a small round head; no hair as such, just molded plastic hair, which was the same plastic as her head and body. Rosie always remained intact because I made sure of that. By intact I mean she had all the limbs – her head and chest/main body were fused as one item but as most dolls of the time their arms and legs were removable, quite often held together inside their torso with elastic bands attached onto wire hooks that has been embedded into the top end of each limb. The elastics’ of course, once attached to the hooks were concealed inside the body of the plastic doll. My sisters and I kept a box of ‘body parts’ under our beds and were constantly bothering our mum to take us to the Dolls Hospital so we could get our favourite dolls ‘mended’ properly (very serious stuff, for me anyway). The hospital was a shop up one of lane-ways that ran through from the High Street to North Street in Guildford where we lived and a visit there was not to be taken lightly – I hung into every word the ‘knowledgeable’ shop person said, and was always excited when the day came to go and collect the mended/fixed up doll – very precious and I recall making a huge fuss especially if Rosie was the doll in question. Funnily enough, I don’t recall the clothing I had for her- except maybe a pretty pink outfit (hand knitted) that I think my mum found at a Jumble Sale stall.

When the family immigrated to Australia in 1961, we were told we couldn’t bring anything with us – just our clothing, so I had to say goodbye to Rosie, and to this day I still don’t understand why there was no room for her in our luggage. Mind you I was 14 and half years old, and she had become rather scraggly, so maybe it was time to move on and to say goodbye.

Christine Adams Guster