Built to perfection

Ann Hill, age 71 a widow from Windsor Road, Boscombe remembers a beautifully furnished dolls house being handed to her on a cold Christmas morning. Her sixth Christmas she recalls to have been a cold yet snowless day. The weather was the last thing on Ann’s mind as all her attention was given to the Christmas present that her father had made.

The house that in Ann’s words was “built to perfection” had two floors each of which were laced with a thin fabric, and a back door that was stencilled deeply into the wood.

Ann recollects her mother kneeling down next to her and telling her daughter what a lucky girl she was to have such a beautiful possession and that she must look after it.

Ann recalls little else regarding the day and imagines this to be down to her young mind’s fixation on a new toy.

Although Ann can look back on this memory and almost laugh at how much attention she gave to this simple wooden house, when she was six it seemed like the most magical and significant object she could or would ever own.