I collect Mr Men things yes i doody do

Face it. Mr Men are eeeeeemazing. Actually, that should 'a-mazing' but hey, who's writing this blog, you or me? Well, me obviously. Duh. Don't ask such stupid questions. But yeah, I collect Mr Men things, don't you know. Yes, I do. In fact, I've been a Mr Fan for so long now, I can't imagine life without my friends. God I'm sad.

I first remember Mr Men when I was about four. Technically I should remember Mr Men before the age of four because there is a photograph of me when I was about two, wearing Mr Tickle socks. Sadly, as much as I would like to say I do, I don't remember ever wearing those socks, nor do I know where they went. I do remember having Postman Pat pants, though, but perversely, no photos of me wearing them exist.

Moving on now, away from the clothing department and into the electrical department, I do remember watching the 'Mister Men' on TV. It was 1994, so Channel 4 was making do with showing the original Arthur Lowe BBC series from twenty years earlier. I vividly remember watching the episode of 'Mr Jelly' and being a little confused by the multi-coloured leaves and the bizarre scale of Mr Jelly, his house and the tramp he met. Who says childhood is carefree? Things like that kept me awake for hours.

Not long after I bought an old copy of Mr Jelly at a jumble sale. How retro. I remember jumble sales then actually being decent. How I love the 90s. Anyway, the months that followed spawned a massive Mr Men craze in my life, and one which was expanded when I joined the Mr Men and Little Miss Club in 1996. For three years I enjoyed receiving club letters from Mr Happy himself and getting many items still in my collection today cheap. I also bought much from the new craze that was the holy car boot sale, or 'cow book sale' as i called them as a pre-schooler. Here it was that I bought much original stuff, as the days before eBay meant boot sales were full of Mr Men Annual No.1s and vintage 70s stuff. I miss those days.

Despite collecting during my teenage years (a time to keep quiet about your Hargreaves obsession), I continue to this day to collect Mr Men items and display them like my babies. My favourite items are the original 70s products and also anything I had when I was very young which I envitably lost, broke or sold unintentionally. To date I also have around 500 Mr Men and Little MIss books from different eras and countries, and my constant obsession leads me to having to buy the entire library every few years due to a change in design or edition.

In 2008 I began compiling an online catalogue of all my stuff on a website. So far my site includes very little as my digital camera is not very good and I rarely find time to upload photos, but every now and the I have an adding spree and add another 50 things.

You can view some of my collection at www.freewebs.com/themrmen/

Enjoy!