MAKING customers cry may not be most shopkeepers’ goal, but at Sydney’s 101-year-old Doll Hospital workers take tears as a sign of a job well done.

    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 3 million dolls, teddy bears, rocking horses and wheeled toys for Australian and New Zealand children. Chapman said 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. “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.

    Like a real hospital, work depends on the availability and schedule of a specialist, as well as the backlog. Gail Grainger, for example, specializes in repairing legs, feet and fingers.

    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 II when import restrictions meant new dolls were no longer an option and parents brought in broken dolls for repair.

    “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 handles up to 200 dolls and toys a month.

    Chapman said most of his clients are middle-aged and older women wanting to pass on childhood toys to grandchildren and others restoring memories. (SD-Agencies)