When does a doll become a baby? Business is booming for a Tyneside couple who turn dolls into highly lifelike companions for the childless. MITYA UNDERWOOD met them
Evening Chronicle (Newcastle, England), Sept 11, 2007
Byline: MITYA UNDERWOOD
A BAG of lifelike eyes hangs on the wall of the Scotts’ loft. Like something out of a horror film there are heads, legs and arms strewn across the benches and poking out of boxes.
There are packs of nappies piled on top of baby clothes and birth certificates surrounded by clumps of what looks like real hair.
Out on their front drive sits their business van, with Turning Dolls into Babies written across the side. Outside the front door stand five classic prams carrying five of the couple’s favourite dolls.
“They’re our babies,” beams Rosie, 55.
“We take them everywhere we can and never leave them in the house by themselves.”
Rosie and her partner Kevan have been involved in the reborn doll business for almost five years. Together they have created hundreds of what they call babies for women and men all over the region and further afield.
Angelwing Nursery, based in their Longbenton home, is now thriving, but the couple insist the pounds 25 or so they make per doll is barely enough to pay for the postage and packaging.
“You get certain types of people wanting a doll,” Kevan, 48, said.
“You get people who want them for their children for Christmas or birthdays. You get women who are too busy to have babies, career women.
‘There are those who are older who want to be grandmothers. Our oldest mum is 94 and she has twins. She likes to sit and cuddle them. You’ve also got people who can’t have children for whatever reason. They want something a bit more lifelike than a regular doll.”
It’s no surprise Rosie and Kevan come in for a bit of stick, especially as their business card carries the term cuddle therapy. They’re adamant they’re not taking advantage of people’s desperate situations.
“We have turned people down for dolls if we don’t think they’re doing it for the right reasons,” Kevan says.
“If it has been too close to a death or something, we will often turn the order down.
“We obviously hear both sides and yes, we have our critics. I can give you 500 people who eniov it. 25 who take them shopping and one who thinks it’s wrong.
“We find in this market people either love them or hate them. If they take an instant dislike to them there’s no way you can change their mind.”
The couple order the basic dolls from Germany. When they arrive they take them to pieces and scrub the limbs and face to remove the orange dye and paint.
Rosie, a former mental health carer, then gets to work with the paints. As a keen artist she is a dab hand with a brush and has slowly perfected the newborn baby dry skin look.
Each of the dolls, which cost from pounds 150, is given a name
bench baby clothes