She got her first dolls' house at 8; now, at 101, she runs a museum

Val Ripley and her sister opened the Ty Twt Dolls House and Toy Museum in Newport (Wales). At eight, Val Ripley woke up on Christmas morning in 1932 to find a huge parcel waiting for her. Inside was her first dolls' house. It was a gift from her parents. More than nine decades later, that childhood fascination is still a part of her life. Now 101, Val continues to collect dolls' house pieces and welcomes visitors to the museum she created with her sister in Newport, Pembrokeshire in Wales."I remember thinking 'they can't have bought me that one', and it was my pride and joy my whole childhood," Val recalled to BBC. But the dolls' house almost disappeared from her life.A childhood toy lost during the warThe museum opened 26 years ago and has since become a window into another era. In 1939, when Val's father returned to the Army as World War II began, the family's possessions including the dolls' house and other toys were packed away in pre-war crates and put into storage while the family searched for a new home.Once they settled again, the toys were moved to the attic. They remained there for decades, forgotten. Val and her sister Pam believed they had been lost forever. Then, after...