Dec 27th, 2019

Author: donich_admin

Dobbin

The picture is of Dobbin. He was my push on horse when I was a child, but some time in the late 70s he started to deteriorate after much love with his stitching coming undone. Also my brother in his wisdom decided to remove his wheels, so he was left with struts of metal protruding from his feet and could no longer stand up.
So when he was found in a cupboard last year he was in a sad state, and as he was a good friend from childhood I decided to fix him (the “Repair Shop” has a lot to answer for). First I gave him a good clean. Then I removed the botched attempted repairs from 1970s and redid them rather more skilfully (I’m rather better at sewing now than I was at age 10).

I was left with the problem of his feet. First of all I tried to unscrew the protruding pieces of metal but they wouldn’t turn and on further investigation, they turned out to be part of a solid metal rod running all the way up his leg. So then I tried a hacksaw. They really knew how to make things in those days because my saw wouldn’t even scratch them. I then had a further idea. I took some felt, and sewed it most of the way round the foot. I then carefully packed it with Kapok and pressed it in hard, so he effectively has four new feet and is 1cm taller than he was before.

Here is Dobbin back on his feet.

Here he is with the rest of the gang – they have paper hats and Dobbin has two new ribbons.