Wilma Shannan doesn't know how large her Mickey Mouse collection is, but a casual glance around her Tuncurry home shows there certainly are a lot of the iconic Disney characters.
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Not to be left out, Mickey's long-time partner, Minnie forms part of the extensive collection.
For this life-long collector of many things, her Mickey Mouse collection has brought her years of pleasure and pride.
She can't put a date or a year when her passion for Mickey and Minnie began, but her enthusiasm for the characters is well known throughout Tuncurry.
"The op shops keep them for me, and sometimes I come home from holidays and a Mickey has been propped up on my front door," she said.
"I just love them; I've just got a thing about them."
The vast collection includes both Mickey and Minnie plush toys in all sizes and dressed as a variety of characters, soft furnishings, masks, prints and posters; there's even a Mickey Mouse car.
Aged in her 80s, Wilma has been collecting 'things' for as long as she can remember.
"When I was a child I can remember picking up bits of glass and it went from there," Wilma said.
"That was the start of my collecting; I've collected lots of things."
Wilma has a virtual pot-pourri of ornaments, wooden objects, orange bits-n-pieces, green glass, books and a rare piano/organ stool made by a Jewish prisoner interned in a Nazi concentration camp.
The much loved and admired stool was spotted during one of Wilma's regular attendances at a garage sale.
"It was in a terrible mess at the time," she said.
At the time, Wilma and her late husband Dallas were building the Shangri-la Caravan Park, now Crystal Waters, Tuncurry.
"One of the builders offered to restore it."
The unknown craftsman, who was believed murdered in the Holocaust, inscribed his signature on the stool.
Following Dallas' death Wilma downsized, moving to her five-bedroom Sullella Crescent Street.
A garage sale to off-load many of her collections was held, but not the precious Mickeys and Minnies.
"They're my favourites."
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Jeanene Duncan
Jeanene has more than 40 years experience as a regional and rural journalist starting at The Land Newspaper. She also worked for Stock Journal Newspaper (SA), McPherson, Fairfax newspapers and Rural Press, and contributed to various magazines.
Jeanene has more than 40 years experience as a regional and rural journalist starting at The Land Newspaper. She also worked for Stock Journal Newspaper (SA), McPherson, Fairfax newspapers and Rural Press, and contributed to various magazines.
