Hailsham woman with ‘quirky hobby’ has more than 5,000 keyrings

A Hailsham woman with a self-confessed ‘quirky hobby’ has filled her garage with more than 5,000 keyrings collected over a period of 48 years.
Lorraine said she has been collecting the keyrings for 48 years in totalLorraine said she has been collecting the keyrings for 48 years in total
Lorraine said she has been collecting the keyrings for 48 years in total

Lorraine Mellin, 64, from Lansdowne Road, started collecting the keyrings when she was 16 but it was only when she turned 52 that she started to get serious about her collection - going from 200 to 5,000 in just 12 years. 


The fashion warehouse worker said, “It’s a quirky hobby. It started off very slowly but it’s taken off more recently. I thought I could store some in the garage and so I started to collect them properly.


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“They all represent different things. I don’t have a favourite but I have put them in categories like cartoons, sports, music and food and drink. I’ve got a Top Cat one, a Beatles one and one from the Olympics.” 


Lorraine has filled her garage with 5,000 keyringsLorraine has filled her garage with 5,000 keyrings
Lorraine has filled her garage with 5,000 keyrings

Lorraine said she collects the rings in a variety of ways; friends bringing them back from holiday, she spots some on Ebay and also picks some up on her own trips.


She said, “I’ve got a lot from Canada, I go there quite a bit. I got stopped at customs once because they couldn’t believe the weight of my bag, there was about 40 keyrings in there.”


Lorraine said her partner is not a fan because ‘they nearly got us killed’ after she popped into a Canadian shop to pick some up but on her return to the car she began to drive on the wrong side of the road and nearly hit a lorry. 


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The collector asked what the Guinness World Record was for keyrings and the Herald can exclusively reveal that accolade is held by Angel Alvarez Cornejo from Sevilla in Spain, with a whopping 62,257 hanging up in his garage and rented warehouse, according to www.guinnessworldrecords.com


Lorraine said she does not know what will happen to the collection once she ‘pops her clogs’.