AS the mother of four young children, Susan Symes found buttons a ‘pain’.

With one of her brood forever losing one off a shirt or a blazer before school, her only interest in buttons was hunting round to find another to quickly sew back on.

But some 30 years ago she was shown a button collection by an elderly friend and an avid collector awoke in Susan.

She was ‘smitten’ by how pretty and varied the buttons were and began looking for interesting buttons herself, in other people’s ‘button boxes’ and charity shops.

“When I started my husband thought ‘oh, they’re tiny little things, they won’t take up much room’ but now I’ve got thousands of them and they have to stay up in the attic,”

chuckles the73 - year-old from Lymington.

Susan’s vast collection includes everything from hand-painted examples from the 1700s to a set of Beatrix Potter buttons from the 1970s – all but Jeremy Fisher, much to her frustration.

The current secretary of the Solent Button Club, which has 12 members, she’s an expert on all things buttons.

She says that a big part of the pleasure of collecting buttons is researching their history – who would have worn them, on what sort of garment, where they were made and so on.

As she shows me her collection, displayed attractively on cards in pretty arrangements, often with a photo or piece of fabric to help people picture how the button was used, I realise that every button tells a story – or rather, Susan can tell a story about every button.

She is also extremely knowledgeable on the history of buttons, and thanks to her infectious enthusiasm and passion for the subject, she’s fascinating to listen to, even if you’ve never thought of a button as anything more than a clothes fastener.Susan’s collection is growing all the time and she’s always on the look out for something unusual.

Although she has spent three decades collecting them, Susan doesn’t have a definitive explanation for why buttons have captivated her so much.

“Nowadays they’re all plastic and they’re turned out in their millions and are very uninteresting to me,” she says.

“But older buttons are works of art and the history fascinates me. I try to research them as much as possible.

“I enjoy the thrill of the chase – looking for something unusual.”

Susan says that button collecting isn’t an expensive hobby and she’s not interested in the value of buttons.

“I don’t think most people would pay more than £10 for a button, though they do come up for auction at Sotheby’s sometimes and some can go for £100.

“Any hobby can be expensive but for me spending a lot of money would defeat the object – anyone can spend £1,000s of pounds on a collection. It’s the fun of finding something unusual and learning about who would have worn it that I enjoy.”

These days, Susan is able to put her collection to good use. She gives talks at places such as Women’s Institutes and old people’s homes to raise money for the charity Gift of Sight and displays the buttons in her house every other year, with all money donated going to the charity – over the last two years she has raised £1,600.

“When I get my buttons out to do a talk they come out of the attic like old friends,” she says.

“I’ll say ‘oh, look at that one,’ ‘wow, that one’s good.’”

“I have no idea how many buttons I have today.Years ago I was doing an exhibition and a little girl came up to me and asked how many buttons I had. I said I didn’t know so she set off to count them.

She came back a while later, put her hands on her hips and said ‘I have got to 2,500 buttons and I am giving up!”

Susan welcomes donations of unwanted buttons for her collection. Any which are unsuitable are given to charities Feed the Children or Tools for Self Reliance.

Anyone who would like to give her their old buttons or who is interested in joining the Solent Button Club should call her on 01590 675066.