Two men and a pretend baby

Meet the gay couple who have spent 21 years carrying a DOLL round the world

USA. With his well-heeled parents he has travelled to all seven continents, visiting the Taj Mahal in India and the Pyramids at Giza, and cruising in the Indian Ocean along the way. Dressed in the finest clothes and jewellery, Digby has sat down for dinner next to celebrities at some of New York's most exclusive restaurants. He has even turned down an offer to be baptised by the Bishop of London. Digby is a plastic doll. But that hasn't stopped his two dads treating him like a real son for the past 21 years. Dressing him in shoes from Bloomingdales and giving him a Cartier watch, Mark Kirby and A.J Sapolnick have become so attached to their doll son that friends have taken to calling them 'The Digbys'.'We found Digby in a Paris flea market in 1990 and we both had an immediate connection with him,' said Mark, who has lived with AJ for the past 26 years. 'We haggled over his price and paid £4 for him. He was a total mess, covered in mouldy dew and was not wearing any clothes. 'We brought him back to our room and cleaned him up and it was there that our family began.' Even though finding Digby in Paris came through chance, Mark and AJ were in fact on the lookout for a suitable child to adopt.