fashion world. As a child in her native Britain, she doodled endlessly, drawing models in glamorous gowns.

By the time she was 15 her sketches were so good that her mother took some of them to a friend of hers -- a well-known couturier -- for evaluation.

"Your daughter is very, very talented, you should send her to design school,'' the man said.

Young Diana, however, had other ideas. She wanted to be a nurse, and wrote to several hospitals seeking admission as a student. Each time the answer was the same: "Sorry, you are too young.'' With the outbreak of the Second World War everything changed, including the need for nurses, so despite being just 16, she was readily accepted for training.

"All through the war, during the Blitz and God knows what, I was nursing in London,'' Mrs. Williams recalls. "I was the youngest Registered Nurse ever.'' As if living through the horrors of war was not enough, the young nurse then moved on to Maudsley University, a psychiatric hospital, for further training, and was posted to the suicide patients' ward.

"I was just a young girl, and having gone through the war, I was exhausted,'' Mrs. Williams says. "There were such terrible cases there. I came out one morning to find a patient, to whom I thought I was getting close, hanging in the lavatory.'' The experience reduced her to tears and, near to collapse, she sought her mother's comfort. The older woman decided her daughter would give up nursing and do nothing for a while -- except play golf and enjoy herself.

As stressful as nursing was, Mrs. Williams had no interest in golf, despite her parents being fine golfers, but her mother insisted, and duly paid for ten lessons.

Assigned to golf pro John Knipe, young Diana's handicap dropped from 36 to nine in six months, and she began winning "all the prizes'' -- including the heart of her handsome teacher.

The couple subsequently married and in 1952 emigrated to the United States. In 1964 they arrived in Bermuda with their two children, Sandra and Kevin, where Mr. Knipe became the golf pro at the Mid-Ocean Club and his wife continued nursing.

Decades later, during which she had been widowed, remarried and retired from nursing, Mrs. Williams met local doll maker Kathleen Bell, who spotted her friend's talent and suggested she should make a Christmas doll.

"I absolutely adored the creativity of it,'' the former nurse says of her new-found hobby, "and I made a series of ten dolls.'' Inspired by the knowledge that famed New York jewellers, Tiffany's, employed a man who made papier mache m dolls which he dressed in jewel tones for the store's Fifth Avenue windows, Mrs. Williams did likewise and took her collection along to Solomon's, where owner Mr. Alan Porter accepted the lot for his windows.

"They all sold to a collector, and that started me off,'' Mrs. Williams says.

Each doll is unique and totally hand made, from the wire frame and papier mache m body to the dress and accessories. It is an exacting process which takes, on average, a month to complete because Mrs. Williams fits it around her otherwise busy schedule and rounds of golf.

From a well-ordered cupboard filled with boxes of raw materials, the doll maker cuts and hand sews the layered dresses with the fastidiousness of a couturier, adding lace, beads, pearls or other trim as required. The face and hands are hand painted, and real human hair is carefully and painstakingly applied. Jewellery is made from scratch.

"Everything is hand stitched or glued,'' Mrs. Williams says. "I work with tweezers and nail scissors -- everything I use is tiny. When I am doing the hair I have to use a magnifying glass. When I do a moustache or eyebrows they are stuck on hair by hair.'' Where accessories, such as a Bermuda kite in flight, a parasol, silk fan, or bouquet are added, these too are authentically crafted.

Mrs. Williams' dolls are all commissioned, and are what she calls "period dolls''. Her official name for them is `Magonelle Dolls', in remembrance of architect Frank Lloyd Wright's sister Magonelle, who met and befriended the lonely British wife shortly after her emigration to the United States.

Before her friend's death, the then-Mrs. Knipe promised Magonelle that if ever she did anything artistic in her life, she would perpetuate her name.

Stressing that her dolls are not "factory dolls, or toys for children, but collector's items'', Mrs. Williams hopes they will some day become museum pieces.

"My dolls have gone all over the world,'' she says proudly.

As passionate as the former nurse is about this hobby, however, it is by no means her only avenue of creativity.

"I love anything to do with art,'' she says. "I also paint, and took two wonderful watercolour courses with Mary Powell and Diana Amos. My children ask me when they can see my paintings, and I tell them, `When I'm gone!'.'' Last year Mrs. Williams completed a pottery class, during which she made all of her Christmas gifts.

"I love to do things with my hands,'' she says. "I always have a concept.'' Photos by Arthur Bean Work in progress: Period doll maker Diana Williams prepares to dress one of her original creations. The dolls are made from scratch, and their outfits are cut and fitted with the expertise of a couturier.