Quite a few years back, pre music degree and everything else I collected Tressy dolls. It started when I came across someone selling them when I bought a book for my son from her on Ebay. She had a website about these dolls. I had a brunette second edition Tressy when I was a child that I used to play with a lot. I remember playing with her with a friend called Beverley when we lived in Glenfield, Auckland, New Zealand and was so surprised that someone else had one as they were not common in NZ. We had taken mine over with us when we emigrated there in 1973. Sadly on one of our many moves she went missing. Whether she was lost in a box of other things that went missing - I seem to recall a dressing gown going missing during that move, or whether my mother gave her away (she did that with several of my dolls without asking me) I don't really know. All I know is I went on a quest to replace that childhood doll and ended up with rather a collection. I sold most of that collection just over a year ago and keep three, plus three Toots. I discovered in this quest that you can't really replace these childhood dolls/toys. There is something missing from them...perhaps some essence or the like. It is difficult to explain. But they are just not 'the same'. One of the ones I kept back is very much like my brunette childhood Tressy and I put the dress I still had on her, but it still hasn't made her 'mine' even though I must have had her for over 15 years now, which in fact is probably longer than I actually had my childhood doll for as I think I got her when I was between the ages of 4 and 6 and she got lost when I was about 16. So it isn't how long you have a doll for either it seems. So these remaining six dolls are soon to move on to new homes.
This is not my photo, but an image from Google.
(My Jacko was dressed the same way and I miss him so much!)
I am often tempted to replace 'Jacko' my monkey who sadly got eaten by rats when Mum moved him and some of my other bears and dolls from the protection of inside a wardrobe in the house, to a box in an old dilapidated shed in the grove. Why she did this I still do not understand to this day as it was just asking for trouble...Yes, rats ate him :- ( I was devastated and if the truth be told I still feel very upset about this. Several very precious to me bears and dolls were destroyed. I should be able to 'let this go' but I do find it difficult to do so. Why is it even as a 'mature' adult I find this upsetting? I remember when I discovered what had happened. I had planned to bring these remaining childhood toys back to England with me when we were in New Zealand visiting my family. I went to get them and they were no longer stored where I had left them...in their place were my brother in law's father's exercise bike and things... items that COULD have been stored in a shed without fear of damage from rats! Where were my dolls I asked? In the shed in the grove. I went out to get them and was horrified what I found. My special pyjama case teddy that my Dad had brought home with him one day after work had been eaten. Jacko had really been damaged beyond repair....I tried washing him in their washing machine - apparently my poor Dad was still finding bits of foam in the drum for months afterwards! My doll had her thumb chewed off...and various other things. But these are the three I remember the most as they were the three most precious to me. Three toys that had travelled to New Zealand with me as a six year old. I remember I had had to part with several bears and dolls before we left England for New Zealand and can only think that this is why these three were just so much more special as they were the ones I could keep. I still feel this loss.
Anyway, despite my temptations to replace Jacko, I remind myself of previous attempts to 'replace childhood dolls/toys' and realise that even if I did, it wouldn't be MY Jacko.
So not sure why I am writing this really. Just trying to work through various things that seem to be jumbling around in my mind at the moment, and perhaps it is part of working through the process of cutting back on various possessions I have and working out why I have some of these items. Sometimes we just need to let go. I am not very good at it.
