Mann opened the museum which is free, because customers at the shop were frequently asking to see her collection. It is in a converted Victorian scullery and has room for only two people at a time. Exhibits are meticulously labelled and some visitors spend two hours there. I tried to get one of everything,'' says Mann. Her collection stops at about 1940 and Mann advises would-be cat collectors without much money to start their collection from that date.
Auctions are better than boot sales.
Always collect undamaged items. And in 20 years' time you, too, could have your own cat museum. Yet she has found a home with Shirley and Michael Maynard, in Derby, where she has joined 35 other elderly, ill or dying felines in their house which they run as a cat hospice. The Maynards are supporters of the Cats Protection League, the charity which will celebrate National Cat Week on Monday. The CPL finds homes for most stray cats but nobody wants the elderly, the disabled or the terminally ill.