SWEET SENSATION
A PWLLHELI man has lifted the lid on his unsual obsession ... hoarding limited edition chocolate bars.
Lester Hughes has bags and boxes full of old limited edition chocolate bars, some of which went out of date in the early 1990s.
Lester said: “I can’t remember exactly why I started collecting, I think I saw ‘limited edition’ on a bar once and thought, ‘why not buy it and save it’.
“It then became a bit of an obsession and I actively went looking for limited edition chocolate bars to buy. I decided to put them in my freezer but then it got to the point where I had more chocolate in my freezer than actual food.
“It was like this for a few years until my freezer broke, so I put them in bags and boxes and took them down to the cellar.
“I’ve not checked them all but some of them go back 20 to 25 years.”
His collection includes Cadbury’s Westlife and Spice Girl bars, Star Wars bars, the five- fingered Kit Kat bar, the banana Milky Way bar and more.
The 47 year-old, who is currently in the final year of his PhD in Film at Bangor University, is now hoping to incorporate his chocolate collection in an exhibition he hopes to put together in Bangor next year on the theme of ‘memory’.
He said: “I’m hoping that having some of the chocolate bars in the show will trigger people’s memories and take them back.
“I have been offered £40 for the Star Wars bars, but I refused because I want the collection to be kept as a whole.
“I must have stopped collecting chocolate over 15 years ago, the bars have been down my cellar at least 10 ears after the freezer disaster.
“I have no plans to start collecting again, I’m not sure I have the space in the freezer to keep them anymore, or the willpower not to eat them now either!”
Lester, who is originally from Rhiw, also collects old cameras, old cine cameras and film projection equipment.
The father of two added: “Since putting the pictures of the bars up on Facebook I’ve had a really good response.
“I think a lot of people remember some of the chocolate bars when they were children themselves.
“It’s good for people to see some of the bars they no longer make anymore.
“What is amazing is that I can’t even find some of the bars of chocolate in my collection on Google, so I’m wondering if even the chocolate companies themselves have kept a bar for reference.”