IS Lizzie Gibbins the most understanding wife in the world?

The 55-year-old shares the marital home in Madley with 240 other women – and now the whole country knows about it too.

Lizzie’s husband Bob has fallen into the nation’s spotlight after he was found to have the largest collection of life-size ‘love’ dolls in the world, worth £100,000.

Not that Lizzie minds, of course.

“We have probably spent more time together since he’s been having these dolls than we did before,”

the mum-of-two said.

“Because if he didn’t have them he would be doing something else, like making a car or something.”

Their bizarre hobby involves naming and dressing the £4,000 dolls together, and taking them on photoshoots to the Black Mountains.

The creation of a new specialist internet forum has also brought 1,500 fellow collectors to the surface and involved interviews with the national press and TV show This Morning.

But when it all began seven years ago, mechanic Bob says he just wanted to see how life-like he could make a doll become.

“I always thought it would be nice if they could move or they could sit because I’m an engineer, so I started making my own,” he said.

But that changed with the purchase of his first silicone doll, a selection of which now share the Gibbins household with a variety of inflatable friends.

And whatever anyone else might think, Bob and Lizzie say none of it has anything to do with what the dolls are traditionally used for.

“Some guys do buy them just for that aspect, but not all of them do,” Bob explains.

“If anyone goes to the forum they will know what it’s all about. But if they don’t behave themselves we’ll kick them off, simple as that.”