Families pepped up by Peppa Pig

Peppa Pig finally hogged the limelight at Dudley's Merry Hill Shopping Centre today as she showed she was 'sow sorry' for leaving hundreds of children down in the dumps when she failed to turn up for a series of shows.

Peppa and her brother George were greeted by more than 100 youngsters today as they did a special trot-about to make up for letting them down yesterday.

The pair had a pig of a day when they got stranded with a flat tyre on the M40 yesterday, which was then compounded by a more serious wheel problem.

It made a pig's ear of their plans to entertain youngsters, who had queued with their parents for tickets for one of five shows.

The situation was made even worse when a large number of parents complained they had been unable to get tickets, despite queuing from early morning with many youngsters left in tears.

But today it was all smiles as Peppa and George walked along the growing line of families waiting for the first show to start at 11am.

First in the queue today was Maddison Sanders, aged two, of Wollaston, Stourbridge, dressed in a Peppa Pig outfit, with her mother, Heidi, aged 40.

Mrs Sanders said: "She was very disappointed yesterday and she fell asleep in her pram because we were here from 8.30am until 11.45am.

"We were first here today to make sure she didn't miss it again." And Wayne Hawkes, 39, of Ashdene Gardens, Wordsley, who swapped his shifts as a driver to bring daughter Olivia, aged two, back to see Peppa today, said: "She loved meeting her favourite character."

Peppa Pig was unable to comment directly herself, as a spokesman said: "In her world she is only four years old."

But David Scott managing director of Rainbow Productions, which organises her character appearances, said: "We were very sorry for everyone who turned up to see Peppa yesterday but we made immediate arrangements for her to return to Merry Hill today."