'I have the world's biggest My Little Pony collection'

A woman has entered the world record books for officially having the largest collection of My Little Pony memorabilia on the planet.

Miranda Worby, 43, from Lowestoft in Suffolk, first became obsessed with the toys as a child after her parents said no to her plea for a real horse.

As a teenager she started her collection, trying to find ones she did not have, and over the next 30 years she amassed a collection of 4,550 items - which fill an entire room in her house as well as a storage unit.

She has received a Guinness World Record for the collection which she said had been a big surprise and took a while to sink in.

Worby was about three when she asked her parents for a horse.

"I don't know if I saw one in a field or whatever, but I wanted a real horse and my parents said no," she explained.

"Then I was in the toy shop in town and I saw a My Little Pony on the shelf and that was it, I was addicted after that."

As a child she loved the fact she could take the toys anywhere and as an adult she came to appreciate the different colour combinations, names and accompanying play sets.

Over the years she found ones she did not have as a child and bought cheap boxes from the United States.

Worby said the collection had given her some popularity, with people in Lowestoft knowing she was the woman "with the ponies".

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More than a year ago, Guinness approached her about the record.

"There was a message sitting in my [Facebook] inbox and it was sitting in a different one to what I was used to, so I didn't see it for about three or four months," she said.

"It said it was from Guinness World Records and I thought it would be someone trying to get information... so I didn't think too much of it.

"I went back to it, opened it, and realised they wanted to see if I had the biggest collection in the world.

"That was a big surprise because people always used to say to me, 'you must have the biggest collection'.

"I was always quite blasé about it... but once I started counting them I had a few more than what I thought."

She added: "It didn't sink in at first... I actually sat in the room with the ponies and I just looked around and I thought, 'I have the world's biggest My Little Pony collection'."

Worby plans to keep on collecting the toys, but recognises there are some expensive ones and she may have to give up another room in her house.

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