Tamworth: Gnome-lady

Tamworth Can Assist: ‘Gnome-lady’ Julia Gregory sold 400 gnomes in May to raise funds for Can Assist. Ms Gregory had amassed an impressive 400 gnomes since 1972 up until recently, when she sold them to raise $1,600 for Can Assist.

The obsession started when her truckie husband bought her a set of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for her birthday, and it’s continued to grow since then.

“I’ve sold them all now, now I only have little ones,” she said.

“My grandson died of pancreatic cancer, it was three months off his 50th birthday and he told me he didn’t have long to go – I said he would be right and he would make it but once they put him in Nioka that was it, he only lasted a few weeks.

“I never thought in my wildest dreams I would make what I made.”