Now! Then! Winifred Stansfield of Balby (Doncaster) gets her doll

25 December 1923: Winifred Stansfield of Balby (Doncaster) gets her doll

Bavarian dolls at a trade fair in Leipzig in 1918 – southern Germany was a major source for British retailers (Hermann Walter Photo Studio 1918).

Winifred Mary Renshaw. 1984. An Ordinary Life. Doncaster: Doncaster Library Service. Delightful and informative account of a working class childhood in the late 1910s/early 1920s – should be reissued. . Reproduction by kind permission of Doncaster Libraries. Get it:

Excerpt

The Christmas before I was eleven I saw a doll at Cousens, a little general shop at the corner of Greenfield Lane and Balby Road. Immediately I wanted her more than anything else. Everyone was puzzled. At nearly eleven they thought I was too old for dolls, but I dreamed of dressing her in clothes just like mine. I even planned to make her little “combs” for winter, though we no longer wore them. Unfortunately she cost eleven shillings and sixpence, which was a lot of money in those days. But when he saw how set on the doll I was, dad made me an offer. If I could save half the money, he would give me the other half, and I could buy her. Off I went to Cousens, joined their Christmas club, and asked them to save me the doll. How I scraped and saved. By that time my pocket-money was sixpence a week, which was mostly spent on sweets. I cut down on these as much as I could, saved any coppers I got for running errands or doing odd jobs, and those which our relations sometimes gave us when we met. All these went into the Christmas club, and were duly entered on my card. When I started saving it was already well into November, but by Christmas I had scraped together five shillings, and dad stretched a point, paid five shillings and sixpence, and I got my doll. She was all I had dreamed of, and I spent many happy hours with scraps of cloth left over from mum’s dressmaking, making clothes for her. (The “combs” defeated me, though.) I called my doll Elsie at first, but later decided that I didn’t like the name, and she was rechristened Peggy-Diane. It is only a few years since I sold her as an antique for fifteen pounds, and even the dealer who bought her said she was “so pretty.”

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

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Original

The Christmas before I was eleven years old I saw a doll at Cousens, a little general shop at the corner of Greenfield Lane and Balby Road. Immediately I wanted her more than anything else. Everyone was puzzled. At nearly eleven they thought I was too old for dolls, but I dreamed of dressing her in clothes just like mine. I even planned to make her little “combs” for winter, though we no longer wore them. Unfortunately she cost eleven shillings and sixpence, which was a lot of money in those days. But when he saw how set on the doll I was, Dad made me an offer. If I could save half the money, he would give me the other half, and I could buy her. Off I went to Cousens, joined their Christmas Club, and asked them to save me the doll. How I scraped and saved. By that time my pocket-money was sixpence a week, which was mostly spent on sweets. I cut down on these as much as I could, saved any coppers I got for running errands or doing odd jobs, and those which our relations sometimes gave us when we met. All these went into the Christmas Club, and were duly entered on my card. When I started saving it was already well into November, but by Christmas I had scraped together five shillings, and Dad stretched a point, paid five shillings and sixpence, and I got my doll.

She was all I had dreamed of, and I spent many happy hours with scraps of cloth left over from Mum’s dressmaking, making clothes for her. (The “combs” defeated me, though.) I called my doll Elsie at first, but later decided that I didn’t like the name, and she was rechristened Peggy-Diane. It is only a few years since I sold her as an antique for fifteen pounds, and even the dealer who bought her said she was “so pretty.”

331 words.