To celebrate the 150th anniversary of John Lewis, the Watford department store launched a "Story Time" session with with 30 children from Central Primary School dressed as their favourite literary characters.

Story time is a fun storytelling campaign aiming to highlight the importance of interaction and communication to a child’s early development while raising money to support the UK’s most vulnerable children, Barnardo’s.

After listening to two stories the children had afternoon tea in the store’s Place to Eat restaurant, complete with a celebratory cake.

Pearl Robson, the store’s community liaison co-ordinator said: "It was a great day with staff reading in Bushey Manor Junior school and Beechfield school in the morning.

"Then we loved having Central Primary in with us on Friday as we had so much to celebrate.

"With key milestones of our 150th birthday, our partnership with Barnardo’s and the first birthday of our little Waitrose it was a great opportunity to share the fun with a local school."

Central headteacher John Mynott  said: "Central were delighted to join John Lewis for afternoon tea and some wonderful story-telling. The children enjoyed the whole afternoon."

Children’s author Sue Hampton was also there to read an original story in support of the launch.