Bargain hunters queue through night

The St Stephen’s Day sales in Britain got off to a flying start with shops reporting a surge in business in the first hour of trading.

Bargain hunters had been queueing outside Selfridges in London’s West End since 10.30pm on Christmas Day.

Meave Wall, Selfridges store director, said: “In the first hour across all of our stores we anticipate we will take probably around £2m [€2.5m], which is up on last year.”