Supermarket bans balloons after lamb drama

Marks and Spencer has banned the use of promotional balloons across its entire network of stores - because a lamb was nearly strangled by one.

The hours-old lamb was found by a farmer with the balloon string wrapped around its neck and foot.

It could not stand, and had been left behind by its mother.



The farmer, Richard Fulcher, managed to free the lamb, in his field near Pott Row, in Norfolk and it is now back with its mother, doing well. He said: "If I hadn't been on site at the time, the lamb would certainly have been strangled to death."

He said that M&S told him the balloon had travelled 40 miles from a promotional event in Spalding, Lincolnshire.

An M&S spokesman said yesterday: "We have banned the use of the balloons across the entire division."