Selfridges hits heights as Midlands bargain hunters flock for Boxing Day sales

The team of workers with a head for heights were called in to spruce up the 15,500 silver discs on the iconic Birmingham building.

Haydn Gamble and his colleagues Nathan Selby and Thomas Strong from Wednesbury-based ropetask.com spent three weeks cleaning the discs on the 150ft high Bullring store which was hit by a frenzy of shoppers when the doors opened at 9am today.

But for many of the hundreds of bargain hunters, the hard work may have gone unnoticed – as they arrived in the city in the dark and freezing cold.

Hardy shoppers started queuing in the early hours at Next stores across the region ahead of the 6am openings. At Next's store at St John's Retail Park in Wolverhampton the lines stretched as far back as the ring road with some queuing from as early as 12.50am. And at the Merry Hill Centre in Brierley Hill around 400 shoppers queued outside from 3am.

The traditional Boxing Day queues arrived today despite retail experts predicting that around £228 million would be spent online on Christmas Day by Britons. Next, River Island, Currys and PC World were among the high street names which launched their sales online for Christmas Day.

But it was Selfridges which shone at the sales today having had its clean-up. It is the second time Mr Gamble's team has taken on the task. He said:?"The first time it took six months because we had to polish each one individually – that was from October to this April.

"We each had a handheld polishing machine that weighed about three kilos on a lanyard attached to our belts so we couldn't drop them to the ground."

This time around though, he said, they only had to give the discs a wipe and check none were loose.

Father-of-one Mr Gamble founded the firm in 1998, combining his love of climbing and what he felt was lacking in industry. Since then, the 41-year-old, of Brunswick Terrace, has worked on towers in the Middle East, Ireland and offshore wind farms.

He admits that when scaling towering buildings in England at this time of year it is freezing cold. He said:?"I normally wear at least three layers and a lot of climbing-type gear and waterproofs."

As the mercury plummeted to as low as 2C(28F) the temperatures did not put off around 400 people queuing at St John's Retail Park in Wolverhampton city centre.

There some shoppers had been waiting for the doors of the Next store to open from 12.50am.

Arvindpaul Singh, aged 29, from Chapel Ash was the first in the queue. He said: "I'm here with a few friends and it's a bit of a competition of who can get here first.

"I was queuing up last year and I'm here again today – it's good to get in the shop ahead of everyone else and seek out the bargains because if you come back in the middle of the day all the good stuff is gone."

Mr Singh's wife, Sonamdeep Kaur, 29, added: "When you see clothes with 50 per cent off what you would have to pay a couple of days ago it does make queuing worth it.

"My friends give me a list of things to get too. It's been a cold night and I haven't slept but I'll forget about all that once I'm inside the shop."

Billie-Joe Jansen, 31, from Bilston had called it an early night on Christmas Day to rest before the opening at 6am.

She arrived at the shop at 2am. She said: "It's cold, my friends and family think I'm mad and I haven't been able to go to the toilet. I went to bed at 9pm and slept until 1am to get here.

"The kids clothes are just so cheap and I was online shopping yesterday but it doesn't beat actually coming to a shop.

"It's like a tradition for some people, I was at the Next in Bentley Bridge last year doing exact same."

At the Merry Hill Centre around 400 shoppers were queuing outside from 3am ahead of today's sale launch, with children's clothing the big draw.

Karen Kelly, 46, a chef from Quarry Bank, was shopping with her daughter Zoe James, 27. Together they spent £450 in the store and been waiting from 4am.

Mrs Kelly said: "We come to the sale every year there's always lots of reduction on children's clothes. We won't need to do anymore shopping until the summer sale."

Angie Burford, 32, Stourbridge, had been in line since 3.30am. She spent more than £100 for clothes for her three-year-old daughter Lily-Rose.

She said: "I only come here for the children's clothes. A lot of them are more than half price so I can save a lot of money."

Bargain hunters, Emma Maney, 36 and her friend Shelley Jones, 27, both from Cradley Heath, spent £400 between them.

Mrs Jones said: "We arrived at 3.45am and there was already a queue but it wasn't as bad as we were expecting. There were no queues at the tills so we were able to pay for our things very quickly." More shops than ever started sales on Christmas Day with millions of Brits expected to have browsed on the big day spending an estimated £228 million.

Experts were predicting six million transactions would have been processed yesterday while retail forecasters predicted Britons would spend 45 million hours shopping online during Christmas Eve and on Boxing Day.