Playing with our Sindies by Sheena Wilkinson

Sometimes, like many writers, I get so bogged down in publishing industry STUFF that I forget about the pure joy of making things. Keren David, in her gorgeous recent post about collages, reminded me of some non-writing creative fun I'd had lately. 

My friend Susanne and I say, when we're making up stories, that it's like 'playing with our Sindies'. I never came across Barbie as a child; it was her slightly more demure English cousin Sindy who captured my heart. Susanne and I didn't know each other as children, but both loved investing our dolls with personalities and taking them on adventures. It was an early version of story-making and we both experienced frustration with other children who didn't know how to 'make it up'. 

Frieda all kitted out

Recently, I decided to try to rekindle some of that joy by finding an old Sindy doll to give Susanne as a gift. I bid for several dolls, cursing the day I got rid of my own, some four decades ago (yes, I did play with them into my teens: what of it?) and finally secured a fair-haired doll of, to my mind, particularly sweet expression. 

with her books and chocolate 

But she was dressed in the tackiest, most ghastly 1980s outfit you've ever seen. I blushed for her. I would have to give her a new outfit. It wasn't hard to decide on the perfect one -- a Chalet School uniform. We're both fans of the Chalet School and I knew Susanne would love it. From the beginning I thought of this doll as Frieda, one of the Chalet School's first pupils, a peace-loving Austrian girl.

I made the tunic first, which involved knitting for the first time since I was a child. I didn't think I would remember how, but in fact my muscles and brain settled into the rhythm quite easily. As a child I used to knit lots of dolls' clothes and I have never, child or adult, been able to follow patterns, so it was very much a case of making it up as I went along. 

stockings, not tights, for that authentic 1920s touch

Then she needed a blouse. An old pair of white knickers provided most of that, with an Irish linen tray cloth providing the collar (and, eventually, for decency, underwear). A blazer. A beret. Oh -- and what about shoes and stockings? The latter were easy to make out of old tights, but the former -- I used the faux-suede jacket she had arrived in, were as tricky as the most recalcitrant plot I have ever tried to wrestle into shape. 

the shoes caused me actual pain

She looked the part now, but a schoolgirl needs a schoolbag. And books. I decided that it was the late 1920s so her books were by Angela Brazil and Elsie Oxenham. And pencils and notebooks -- oh, and she might get peckish. What about a bar of chocolate? 1920s-style of course. 

I had the most fun with the accessories. 

Yes... like a haiku that decides it wants to be an epic, the Sindy project grew until the doll I gave Susanne was better kitted out than I am myself. 

It was the greatest, greatest fun. It was so wonderful to be creating, but not to worry about deadlines, or the market, or reviews. Yes, there was a lot of nostalgia involved, both in entering the beloved Chalet School world and in just handling a doll whose contours and details were  were once so familiar to me. Susanne loved her, and as soon as she saw her, said, 'That's Frieda!'

It was so much fun I'm planning to kit out another one. Only not quite yet. There are stories to write first, and other Sindies, less tangible to play with.