Falls Road schoolgirls create exhibit for Ulster Museum

Pupils at a west Belfast school have been stepping back in time to a world long before screens and smartphones by collecting vintage toys.

Girls from St Dominic’s on the Falls Road collected and displayed the toys as part of a school history project.

But their work was so impressive it has now gone on display in the Ulster Museum.

One student, Annabelle, said it made her think that children today have lost something.

“Just playing with other people, out in the streets with your toys or in the house with your sisters or brothers, there is something lost because it’s all on screens and you’re all looking down and there’s no interaction any more,” the 18-year-old told BBC News NI.

The pupils collected old dolls, dolls’ houses, scrapbooks, annuals like the Beano and Bunty, 19th century embroidery kits and even a letter written to Santa in 1945.

They looked in attics and collected from parents, grandparents, teachers and classroom assistants and they raided their own history too.

“I brought in things from my childhood, like wee toys and we compared them to see how different they could be, or how similar as well,” Annabelle said.

Aimee said she found the books like the Beano and Bunty and other earlier annuals “most interesting”.

“It shows how different the children would have been back then because the stories that they read, we would never had those type of stories,” the 14-year-old said.

“A lot of the toys are similar, but it’s the material they were made out of and how they would have been played with.

“Theirs were a lot more delicate and you can see from years ago that they’re still intact so it shows how much the children took care of their toys, as they only had a few.”

Olivia, 14, said the vintage toys had originally gone on display in the school library and had attracted a lot of interest from other pupils.

“We thought it would be a good idea to put up a museum of childhood for the school,” she said.

“Once we’d put it up loads of people in the school liked it, so we kept it up for open day.

“One of my favourite things was a Palmolive fairy doll.

“You didn’t buy it, you sent back some soap wrappers and you were able to get a doll for free.”

For 14-year-old Aoife, finding everything was the most interesting part.

“From the 1970s to 80s a lot of the teachers brought in some of their old toys,” she said.

“We also got them to do surveys on what some of their favourite toys were.

“I enjoyed looking at the scrapbook because there were really pretty designs in it.

“It’s nice to see how, even back then, there was still some similarities to what we would collect now.

“Some people still do scrapbooking and journaling.”

The St Dominic’s vintage toy exhibition was soon noticed by experts from the Ulster Museum and is now on display in the museum’s history discovery centre.

Jacqui Barker from the museum said what the girls had collected showed their “passion and enthusiasm” for history.

“One object can have so many different connections to many people and mean something different to so many people,” she said.

“And I think this display really reflects that.

“It may inspire people to want to know more, inspire their curiosity.”