Wallace and Gromit superfan started 1,000-plus memorabilia collection with a pen
A Wallace and Gromit superfan who has more than 1,000 items of memorabilia has said she is “really pleased” the “amazing” franchise has enjoyed success through Baftas and a Feathers McGraw tattoo trend.
Mel Harrison, 43, said she has been “absolutely blown away” by all things Aardman since she was a child, with her first memory of the animation studio’s creation Wallace and Gromit being the short film A Grand Day Out.
The first memorabilia item she purchased was a Wallace and Gromit pen when she was about 14 using money from doing the paper round and she has since gone on to collect more than 1,000 items, admitting she has lost track of how much she has spent on them.
“I have lots of ornaments, I’ve probably got about 50 different mugs, there’s kids’ playsets, bubble baths…” Ms Harrison, who lives in Wormegay, Norfolk, told the PA news agency.
“I’ve collected a few of the Gromit Unleashed figures, I have car mats, I found a Wallace and Gromit frisbee the other day.
“There’s so much stuff, they seem to be able to put Wallace and Gromit on anything.”
Her most prized possession is a signed poster from Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park, which she received as a gift for her 16th birthday.
Ms Harrison initially bought items from high street shops before switching to online sites including Vinted, Amazon and eBay, and they are largely kept in the loft or a room in her home.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl won in two categories at the Bafta Film Awards 2025 this month – animated film, and children’s and family film.
Ms Harrison said she was glad to see them receive the accolades.
“It wasn’t surprising at all, I’m just really pleased that they got the credit they deserved,” she added.
“With the animation, it just blows me away how they do it all; it’s just amazing and it’s the humour – the humour is a big thing for me.
“You can watch the film 10 times or even 100 times and see something different every single time.
“I think they’re loveable characters as well and how they can make a character like Gromit express so much without saying a word is just amazing.”
Since the release of the latest Wallace and Gromit film at Christmas, there has been a growing trend for people to get tattoos of villainous penguin Feathers McGraw, and a statue of him has been erected in Preston, Lancashire.
Ms Harrison, however, admitted she is not the biggest fan of the character.
“He’s just quite an evil-looking figure, isn’t he?” she said.
“I think it’s his beady eyes that make him quite evil – I don’t think he’s one of my favourite characters to be honest.”
Instead, the character she loves the most is Gromit and her spaniel, who died in November 2023, even shared the same name as Wallace’s trusted best friend.
On why she has an affinity for Gromit, she said: “I think it’s just the way he reacts to the things that Wallace does, I see a bit of me in him, like when he raises his eyebrows and I like that he shows so much emotion yet he doesn’t talk.
“I always wanted a dog called Gromit and I finally got my spaniel, who I lost a year ago, and the expressions on him and Gromit matched.
“In Vengeance Most Fowl, Wallace said ‘I can live without inventing, but I can’t live without my best pal’ and that line brought tears to my eyes as my Gromit was my world.”
Her love of Wallace and Gromit has not gone unnoticed in her home town.
“We had a jubilee scarecrow competition in the village (in 2022) and I did papier-mache Gromit in the plane and then I had Wallace on top of the fence with a rocket attached to his back and since then, we’ve been known as the Wallace and Gromit house in the village,” she said.
“Then we had another festival at the time of the Olympics (in 2024) so I made Wallace and put him in Union Jack shorts to pay homage to movie The Wrong Trousers but with an Olympics spin, and then I had Feathers McGraw controlling him and Gromit was sitting there ready to beat up Feathers McGraw.”
She added she would “absolutely love to meet Nick Park for cheese and crackers some day”.
