Poor Dorabella.

(Exerpt of an entry taken from the recently discovered journal of Dr. Stamen Yawnoak)

Miss Dorabella Burrowell was one of the earliest children to be born at the

St. Gavin the Obtuse Memorial hospital and meat packing plant. Orphaned from birth, Dorabella was the daughter of a local tin miner. After what could only be described as a difficult labour, Mrs. Burrowell did not survive the birth of her daughter. 

Mr. Burrowell, when presented with the child, let out a blood-curdling scream and retreated into the local tin mine and was never seen again.

 

A timid child with incredibly photosensitive eyes, Dorabella spent most of her youth in the hospital’s basement, looked after by her long suffering nanny, Miss Agnes Thickett.  Due to her rather remarkable condition, she enjoyed many hours of  “Diggy-Diggy” as she named the hide-and-seek game she played in the footings of the hospital building. It was a solitary game where she never told anyone it had actually started, and involved her rapidly disappearing down a hastily hand-dug hole; usually followed by a very irate and concerned Miss Thickett.

  She would occasionally be seen at night in the hospital’s grounds, usually by the gardens and vegetable patch feasting on raw root vegetables and earthworms. Suffering from debilitating bouts of melancholia and completely unshakeable feelings of abandonment, she never stopped looking for her father; and to this day evidence of her fruitless searches blight many a mining survey on potential property purchases.