Potter-mania sweeps county

County stores opened at midnight to meet the demand from fans eager to find out how the wizard's adventure ends.

Readers, who had queued for hours, rushed from the tills to open their hardback copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh book in JK Rowling's series.

Shops across the world were all putting the book on sale a minute past midnight British time. Among the Shropshire stores to embrace the global phenomenon today was Waterstones in Shrewsbury.

First in the queue were 15-year-old friends Becky Archer, of Castlefields, and Meg Moss, of Worthen.

Next in line was Claire Turner, 27, of Broseley, who said :"I've read every book."

Harry Potter's spell on the Shropshire public shows no sign of fading after fans rushed to get their copies of the final book in the magical adventure series.Telford Shopping Centre resembled a scene from Hogwarts as The Shropshire Star's winning Harry Potter and Hermione Grainger look-a-likes got their hands on the final instalment of the best-seller.

Josh's mother, Jill, said her son had been very excited when he found out he had won the competition.

"He has read every one of the books, some for a second and third time. He has been waiting and waiting for this latest book to come out and I don't know how we will get him to stop reading to go to bed now he has finally got his hands on it," she added.

A queue started forming at the shopping centre from 5pm yesterday as excitement started to build. Among those first in the queue was Abi Tudor, 17, from Oakengates.

"I can't wait to see what happens, I just hope it's not as much of a blood bath as some people are predicting," said Abi.

"But I love the way the shops have opened at midnight to sell it. It all adds to the excitement."

The appropriately named Rowling family, from Newport, arrived at the centre at about 10pm.

"We are no relations to JK, as far as we know, but we are massive fans," said Claire Rowling, who was there with Benjamin, 11, Sophie, nine, and Harry, seven.

"We are getting two books - one for the adults and one for the children."

Julie Evans and her daughter Mel from Randlay were planning to start reading as soon as they got home after buying the book in the early hours of this morning.

"It's my job to put on a pot of tea and then we are going to get reading," said Julie.

Chris Kellett, who was helping with last night's Potter effort at Asda in Donnington Wood, Telford, said the 24-hour store shifted 600 copies before 1am.

"They were queuing way past the door - it went exceptionally well. And they are still flying off the shelves this morning."

More than 1,000 fans lined the streets around Waterstones' flagship store in central London and another 1,000 waited at Asda's superstore in Pudsey, near Leeds.

Many will have already started reading the book this morning but one of the first to finish it was speed reader Anne Jones, who read more than 199,900 words, on 607 pages, in 47 minutes and one second.

It is believed she has set a new world record by reading 4,251 words per minute (wpm) then giving a synopsis of the book to prove she had read it all. That equates to 70 words per second.

The previous record was 3,850 wpm, set 15 years ago by Sean Adam.