HE IS recognized as one of the country’s dullest people but David Morgan will never lose interest in his unusual hobby. The 72-year-old, from Fulbrook, near Burford, has collected more than 500 different types of traffic cones the past two decades. Mr Morgan holds the Guinness World Record for his achievement and now features as Mr July in a Dull Men of Great Britain calendar alongside people with a love of roundabouts and drains. He said: “I got a call from the Dull Men’s Club saying ‘you’re a cone collector – blimey you are dull, we definitely need you in our calendar’. “It’s a very interesting hobby. Other people see them as safety products or don’t even notice them but I can see the subtle differences in them. I don’t think it’s dull but I don’t mind at all about being included. It’s all a bit of fun.”

Married dad-of-four Mr Morgan, who produced traffic cones for a living as a partner in Enstone-based Oxford Plastic Systems, began the collection in 1986. He was involved in a legal dispute with a rival manufacturer over the design of a cone and he scoured the country for them to prove the design had existed previously. After winning the case, he decided to continue collecting as a hobby, and secured the world record in 2000 for owning 137 cones.

Since then his collection has soared to 510, stacked in his loft, stables, summer house and garage. He has sourced them across the world and has them in red, blue, yellow and even pink. His favourite cone is an orange one from Malaysia that he found washed up on a beach in the Isles of Scilly. Mr Morgan said: “I’m not mad. The truth is it’s a part of the business and that’s why I’m into them. I know when and where they were made, and who by, so I can see the story behind them.

“People kept sending them after the court case so I didn’t want to throw them away. Some are different because they were printed with a different name, such as a ‘no waiting’ cone in Northumberland.” Leland Carlson, of the Dull Men’s Club, said: “Traffic cones are an everyday thing all over the place. Once I met David and saw what he was doing, I saw them in a whole new light.”

By Dan Robinson, Oxford Mail