Sydney’s 101-year-old Doll Hospital
(Reuters) – Making customers cry may not be most shopkeeper’s goal, but at Sydney’s 101-year-old Doll Hospital workers take tears as a sign of a job well done.
- A damaged doll is pictured on a workbench after having its head re-attached by 25-year veteran doll repairer Kerry Stuart at Sydney’s Doll Hospita. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Limbs of dolls are shown as spare parts in a pile ready to be used in customers doll repairs at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. Opened in 1913, Sydney’s Doll Hospital has worked on millions of dolls, teddy bears and other toys. Behind a toy shop on a busy suburban street in Sydney’s south, “doll surgeons” transplant fingers, toes and heads, and repair broken eye sockets in dolls who were the victim of a childhood tantrum or sibling rivalry, sometimes decades ago. . (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Doll restorers Gail Grainger (L) and Kerry Stuart inspect the head of a composition doll, made from compressed wood chip, in the workshop of Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Australian doll repairer Kerry Stuart, a 25-year veteran at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, matches a pair of eyes from her stock to be inserted into a customer’s doll undergoing repairs. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A young customer looks over the counter as a family member brings in a doll for repair at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Geoff Chapman, ‘Head Surgeon’ at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, is pictured in his workshop. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A sign at Sydney’s Doll Hospital shows the various ‘wards’ where dolls, rocking horses and prams can be admitted for repair. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Geoff Chapman, ‘Head Surgeon’ and third-generation owner of Sydney’s Doll Hospital, holds a small doll on one hand as he writes details onto its repair card attached to its foot, at his workshop. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Nadine Koszytka, a worker at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, inspects a customer’s (R) doll brought in for repair. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A plastic bag covers the face of a doll that has been brought for repair at Sydney’s Doll Hospital for repair. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A trash can featuring discarded doll parts including a broken head, torso and limbs is pictured in the workshop of Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Australian doll repairer Kerry Stuart, a 25-year veteran at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, carries spare dolls to be used for parts in repairing customer’s dolls. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A discarded doll is pictured against a wall in the workshop of Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Doll restorer Kerry Stuart rubs a filling compound into the cracked head of a plastic doll at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A badly-weathered composition doll, made from compressed wood chip, has its flakey paint cut off before being repaired and repainted by Gail Grainger, a 14-year veteran doll repairer at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A teddy bear in two pieces is pictured on the workshop floor at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Two photographs hanging on the wall of Sydney’s Doll Hospital show the before and after pictures of a teddy bear that had been brought in for repair. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Australian doll repairer Kerry Stuart, a 25-year veteran at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, pulls the plastic head of a customers doll out of a bowl of hot water to soften the material before removing and replacing its old eyes. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- The head of a plastic doll is exposed to ultra-violet light to temporarily soften it before re-attaching to its body, one of many techniques employed by the doll restorers at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Doll limbs and hand tools are pictured in the afternoon sun on the work bench of Geoff Chapman, ‘Head Surgeon’ and owner of Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Gail Grainger, a 14-year veteran doll restorer, is pictured as she adds fingers to a damaged dolls hand in her workshop at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- The arms, legs and hands of composition dolls, made from compressed wood chip, are pictured hanging on a line as the paint dries in a workshop of Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Doll repairer Kerry Stuart is pictured alongside a paint drying rack littered with the body parts of dolls being repaired at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A pair of dolls eyes and pliers are pictured on a work bench before the eyes are inserted into a antique doll being restored at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Large dolls eyes are pictured nestled in foam before being used in repaired customers dolls at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- A damaged doll is brought in for repair by a customer at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Australian doll repairer Kerry Stuart, a 25-year veteran at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, inspects the head of a customers doll undergoing repairs. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Doll repairer Tamara Ottessen searches for replacement limbs on a customer’s doll in the workshop of Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Australian doll repairer Kerry Stuart, a 25-year veteran at Sydney’s Doll Hospital, repairs a customers doll on her workbench. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Geoff Chapman (R), ‘Head Surgeon’ and third-generation owner of Sydney’s Doll Hospital, is pictured with employee Nadine Kosztka, as they inspect customers dolls that have been brought in for repair. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
- Customers Sue and Allan Paviour are pictured with their teddy bear that had been repaired as they collect it at Sydney’s Doll Hospital. (Jason Reed/Reuters)
In an age of mass-produced plastic dolls, few doll hospitals around the world have survived, the owners said.
“We’re one of the last ones that does everything, when it comes to dolls, there’s very few that are capable of that sort of work,” said Geoff Chapman, 67 and “surgeon-in-chief” at the family-run business his father started more than a century ago.
Since then, the Doll Hospital has restored more than three million dolls, teddy bears, rocking horses and wheeled toys for Australian and New Zealand children.
“We’ve had clowns as big as a person, and a 12-foot (4m) crocodile – plush – not real,” Chapman joked, noting that “the most common problem usually is the hair and the eyes”.
One of the pleasures of working at the hospital is seeing customers’ reactions when they collect their prized possession.
“It’s both men and women, obviously more women are getting dolls and teddies repaired, but there’s quite a few men attached to teddy bears too,” Chapman said.
“We’ve had customers who’ve burst into tears” when they saw the treasured doll or teddy as good as new, he said.
Located behind a toy shop on a busy suburban street in south Sydney, workers fix fingers, toes and heads, and repair broken eye sockets in dolls – victims of childhood tantrums, dog attacks or sibling rivalry, sometimes as long as decades ago.
“A lot of our tools are like surgeons’, operating on human patients,” said Kerry Stuart, who has worked there for 25 years.
Like a real hospital too, work depends on the availability and schedule of a specialist, as well as the backlog. Gail Grainger, for example, specialises in repairing legs, feet and fingers.
Stuart said the most difficult job is repairing “celluloid dolls” because the material is very thin, like tissue, having been made from one of the first synthetic plastics.
“The thing I like least is eyes. It’s a very difficult balancing act to get them right, so it does take a while. Sometimes I have to do them three times before I’m happy with them,” she said.
The Doll Hospital was opened by Chapman Senior as part of his general store after a batch of celluloid dolls made in Japan arrived damaged and Chapman had to repair them.
Demand for the hospital’s services skyrocketed during World War Two when import restrictions meant new dolls were no longer an option and parents brought in broken dolls for repair.
“My father was through the war years, that was the busiest time at the Doll Hospital. At the peak they had 70 staff and six workrooms,” Chapman said.
Today the Doll Hospital has up to 12 staff, some of whom work remotely, and handles up to 200 dolls and toys a month.
“I would say about 80 percent of our work comes from ‘big children’,” Chapman said, a reference to the clientele being mostly middle-aged and older women wanting to pass on childhood toys to grandchildren and others restoring memories.
“When they were children they possibly only got one doll, not a new doll every time you go down the supermarket like it happens today. That’s why it’s so emotional,” Chapman said.
While fixing plastic parts is a big part of the work carried out, hair transplants also are high on the list.
“I think there were lots of budding hairdressers that took to their dolls and thought it was going to grow back. Well it didn’t grow back, did it?” Chapman laughed.