Flora and Edith Return.

Flora and Edith were the two little china head dolls that accompanied my paternal grandmother and her slightly younger sister when they were packed off to boarding school in the early 1890s. The dolls were compulsory school equipment each girl was required to own.
Part comforter and part sewing equipment, a china head of 7 inches or less in height was the only personal toy allowed. They were used to teach the girls at the school about basic sewing and dressmaking, as each child created a large wardrobe for her doll.

                                      Flora belonged to Grandma, Maud Beatrice, known as Beatrice.

                                           She is the smaller of the two dolls at a little over 5" tall.

                                      

                               Edith belonged to Great Aunt Agnes Mary, always known as just Mary.
                                                                   She is just 6" tall.

When they left for school a couple of hundred miles away from home, Grandma was just eight years old and G.A Mary still not quite seven. Only the English would dream of loading such young children into a train in the care of a guard, thinking it beneficial to send them to strangers in a school far away. But the two little girls clung to each other and their little dolls, survived the first school year without returning home at all and then seem to have meekly returned to school in Dulwich the following September after a six week holiday. I suppose they had no choice.

Thinking she would never marry, GA Mary eventually sent Edith to live with Flora when my aunt was born in 1910. Aunt Marjorie played with them both in the early part of the 20th century and in the late 50s and early 60s I also  played with them and the huge wardrobe of amazing clothing made by Beatrice and Mary throughout the years of their schooling.

The clothing, now all completely destroyed by moths and silk rot, was a testament to the increasing sewing skill required of very young girls at the time and I used to enjoy laying out the little garments in the order in which I thought they had been made, taking into account the size of stitches and complexity of design. Right from the start, they were far more advanced than we would expect from a modern child, or even one of my own generation. By the time their school days ended the fine, minuscule embroidery they carried out on silk ballgowns was astonishing. How I wish that any of the scores of little garments had survived!

                            It is hard to believe there is less than an inch (2.4 cm) difference in height.

The two little dolls have recently come into my keeping, along with other family owned china dolls, as I am the youngest of my generation. As yet, nobody in the following one is remotely interested in them.

When my uncle and aunt cleared Grandma's home after her death in 1964, the dolls were intended to be separated and given to their daughter, my cousin N, and me. Now, it seems the dolls were misplaced as they went about the house clearance. They were accidentally left in their own attic, where they remained until a few weeks ago when, in its turn that attic was also cleared.

The moths and mice have eaten away the precious box of clothes, but the two undressed and clean little dolls survived with only a break to Edith's foot, now repaired. Looking closely at them, I think it is entirely possible that, before I remember them, their bodies were replaced as the muslin looks so clean. But then, they were never played with except with very clean hands, so possibly not.

All the above was typed many months ago, pre-Covid-lockdowns and other chaotic events in life here. 

In the meantime, other small to smallish dolls with a family connection have returned to the UK from the four corners of the globe and a few others have been bought and traveled the Atlantic. One in particular is perhaps even more dear to me than even Edith and Flora. She too needs much pampering after a tough few decades and required a new body. There is something endearing about little dolls with a long history we can only guess about.