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YOU know what it's like - there's never a pen when you need one.

That's unless you're Albert Cooke, who has collected nearly 10,000 over the last 21 years.

"I was at work one day when my pen ran out, so a colleague lent me one," said 65-year-old Mr Cooke.

"He said I could keep it, and it went from there."

Mr Cooke, a former dustman, has since collected pens from everywhere he goes, as long as they have a logo.

Together with wife Janet, he gathers them into themes, like football clubs or businesses, and mounts them on A4 pieces of card.

FAVOURITE With pens from all over the world, his favourite is one from Canada.

"We'd gone on holiday for an anniversary, and I asked a bar manager for a pen," said the grandfather-of-two.

"He said he would send me one when I got home - and I later got a gold-plated Parker with the bar's logo on.

"That was really nice."

Mrs Cooke is now firmly behind her hubby's hobby - although she wasn't as keen at first.

"I used to get really fed up with it," she admits.

"Everywhere we went, he'd be running round trying to find a pen!"

But it's not a pastime that Mr Cooke, of Felixstowe Close in Clacton, looks likely to give up any time soon.

"The challenge will always be there," he said.

"Even if I lived to be 1,000 I still wouldn't be able to collect them all."

He now has two new pens to add to his collection, bearing the logos of the Gazette, and our sister paper, the Clacton Gazette.

6:31am Sunday 13th April 2008

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