Gladys wants thumbs up from Guinness World Records for her 27,000 thimbles

A pensioner is hoping her 40-year obsession with thimbles will cast their spell on Guinness staff and land her in the record books.

Gladys Minter, 82, has been collecting the little thumb covers since her 43rd birthday and at last count her running total stands just shy of 27,000.

Her one-bedroom flat is completely filled with boxes containing her thimble haul of different shapes, sizes and colours that it seems there is no more space for her collection to grow.

She said she’d have even more if her ex-husband had not taken 2,000 of them when the pair divorced 13 years ago, a point that still needles her.

Mrs Minter says seeing a new thimble for the first time is ‘thrilling’ and has painstakingly organised 13,575 of them alphabetically – using names she has either given them or from their official ‘certificate’.

The retired civil servant believes her space shuttles, tea pots and butterflies will have the record title all stitched up in no time as it easily pips the current benchmark of 8,003 set by Robert Harper of Ontario, Canada, in 2013.

Mrs Minter, from Havant, near Portsmouth, said: ‘Looking at them for the first time is such a thrill because it’s lovely to see things you never even thought could go on a thimble.

‘I guess people would think I’m crazy if they saw it all but I don’t care.

‘It looks like absolute chaos, but to me it’s organised chaos.

‘I’d love to collect more but the thing stopping me is the fact I’ve not got room.’

Her hobby began in 1980 when she bought a £6.25 souvenir thimble bearing her star sign, Aquarius, while on a day trip to Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire.

Her collection features thimbles made of wood, rubber, pewter, leather and yarn, with countless sets depicting different items and events.

She finds them at car boot sales, charity shops and auctions and says they typically cost about £1 each, adding she ‘doesn’t like to think’ about how much she has spent over the years.

She added: ‘I suppose it would be quite a laugh to have a world record. I must have the record because I can’t imagine there is any other idiots like me who would collect them like this.

‘I would love Guinness to come round and have a look at my collection and it would also be fascinating to know if any other people collect them.

‘I’ve never been after any kudos for myself with my thimbles – I just collect them because I love to see them.

‘I’d like to find someone who can help me set up a little museum where my thimbles and other things people have collected can go.’