A BRITISH woman claims that she owns the world’s oldest unopened Easter egg which is still in mint condition after 62 years.

Hillion Fern, 75, was given the treat when she was 13 but couldn’t bear to eat it, despite being a self-confessed chocoholic. Her father Aubrey Daulman bought the egg in 1960 from a local shop called Sharps which decorated it with yellow icing in the shape of daffodils.

The 22cm-tall chocolate egg is still in its original cellophane wrapping and contains a bag of toffees and chocolates. “The sugar daffodils used to be bright yellow but now they are turning a bit brown but the egg is still intact and all of the chocolates and toffees are still inside,” said Fern.

A retired wildlife trust worker, Fern now pays £80 (US$104) a month to have the chocolate egg kept in a cool storage container to prevent it from melting.

Fern, who has two grown-up children, four grandchildren and one great-grandchild, said: “I still remember the day I was given it. It was simply too pretty that I didn’t want to eat it.” She thought she would keep it until Whitsun, the seventh Sunday after Easter, but she then never ate it. So she thought she would keep it until Christmas and then Christmas came and went.

“It became a bit of a challenge after that to see how long I could hold out. I am quite impressed with my willpower because I have always loved chocolate. There was something special about the egg I wanted to keep and after a while it became too precious to eat,” she said.

Fern is “confident” that the chocolate egg is a “world-beater” and said she has heard of old Easter eggs before but never ones that were unwrapped.

She added it might seem silly to pay for the chocolate egg to be stored, but she wanted to make sure it stayed in perfect condition.

“I couldn’t eat it now, even if I wanted to, but it has just become part of the family now and I will keep it forever,” said Fern.(SD-Agencies)