Man who collected 9,300 beer cans donates part of haul to museum

Oakham Treasures Keith Sherrell with Nick West. Picture: Action For ME Action For ME

A beer can collector will donate almost 2,000 of his haul to a museum.

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Nick West with his incredible haul. Picture: Action For ME Nick West with his incredible haul. Picture: Action For ME

Nick West collected an astonishing 9,300 cans and stored them at his home in Clevedon over 42 years.

He admits the hoard got ‘a little out of control’ and a recent house move has forced him to cut back.

But visitors to Oakham Treasures, in Portbury Lane, will get to see 1,800 of them after Nick donated them.

The 59-year-old was forced to put the brakes on his collection two years ago, when he and his wife Deborah moved across North Somerset to Langford.

A new house meant no more room for his thousands of cans.

Nick said: ‘Stopping collecting was the hardest thing I have ever done. Beer cans have been such a massive part of my life.

“However, even I had to admit that things had got a little out of control and I no longer had the money or space to buy 650 new cans every year.”

Over the past 18 months Nick has been whittling down his collection. He has flogged about 6,000 to fellow collectors and is keeping 1,500 of his favourites.

He has decided to donate the remaining 1,800 cans to Oakham Treasures, a packaging museum based near Portbury.

Nick said: “I have known Keith Sherrell, the owner of Oakham Treasures, for a number of years and was delighted when he agreed to take part of my collection and display it as part of his incredible attraction.”

A grateful Keith gave Nick £150 to pass on to a charity.

As Nick’s 32-year-old daughter Emma has battled ME since she was 10 years old, the obvious choice was to donate the money to Action for ME, a national charity based in Keynsham.

Nick says: ‘This charity was extremely helpful to Emma in the early years following her diagnosis and it is good to know we can help them to support others who are suffering from this life changing and debilitating condition.”

A senior fundraiser for Action ME thanked the West family.

Bella Whately said: “Everyone at the charity wants our work to make a real difference for children and adults with ME and we are so glad we were able to be here for Emma, Nick and Deborah when they needed us most.

“We are hugely grateful to Nick and Oakham Treasures for their generous gift – one of the more un-can-ventional donations we’ve received.”