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Single mother Karen Anvil, 39, from Watlington, Norfolk, snapped this photo (left) of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and his fiancee Meghan Markle walking to church at Sandringham yesterday. The image, which was posted on Twitter, is one of the first to emerge of pregnant Kate, 35, with her future sister-in-law and captures the mother-to-be beaming at the camera. It offers a candid shot of the four royals that the professional press photographers failed to capture. Now Ms Anvil hopes money will pay for 17-year-old daughter Rachel's (right together) university fees.

Sale shoppers queued through the night ready for doors to open as early as 6am at Next stores around the country, from Liverpool (top left) to London's Oxford Street (bottom left). Twenty-three million people are expected to swarm high streets and crowd shopping centres up and down the country today - one in every two adults. They're expected to splash out £4.5billion in total, far exceeding the Black Friday (£2.6billion) and 'last Saturday before Christmas' £1.67billion spends.

Everyone's been there - convinced themselves they just saw a celebrity, living among the humdrum of everyday life - just like the rest of us. But some have a better eye for it than others. And some, whether sober or inebriated, are completely off the mark. Users on Reddit came together to laugh at some of their most cringeworthy but hilarious 'celeb' encounters.

Hundreds of people gathered in Ledbury, Herefordshire, (left and top right) to watch men and women ride down the street during the Boxing Day hunt - after Theresa May U-turned over plans for a vote. The East Kent and West Street hunt also set off for the traditional Boxing Day meet from the village of Elham in Kent on Tuesday (bottom right) and former Ukip leader Nigel Farage was pictured laughing as he arrived at the hunt meeting point at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent (inset). It comes as Mrs May is set to abandon her Conservative general election manifesto pledge to give MPs a free vote on whether to overturn the fox hunting ban.

As Britain was losing the war against Germany in the spring of 1941, one Oxford-educated officer was making his own plans for retaliation. Lieutenant Jock Lewes (pictured left) armed his men with bombs that he had made himself and taught them to parachute behind enemy lines in the dead of night. The 27-year-old guided them through a desert minefield laced with Nazi explosives. And as his soldiers trained in the soaring heat of the Middle East, the champagne-drinking officer made them shoot bullets towards each others' heads to prepare them for the sounds of war. Such was his innovation that after his death later in 1941, David Stirling (pictured right with Jock) – the man known as the founder of the Special Air Service – said that Lewes should in fact receive the credit. In a letter (inset top) he wrote to Lewes's father Arthur (inset bottom): 'Jock Lewes could far more genuinely claim to be the founder of the SAS than I.' That letter, dated November 20, 1942, will go on display for the first time next year at an exhibition dedicated to the fighting force at the National Army Museum in London. Jock's nephew John Lewes reveals today his uncle's little-told story of the birth of the unit whose exploits became the stuff of legend. Mr Lewes, who has written A Spy After All, said: 'Prince William said to me, 'Jock Lewes is like the desert's version of [polar explorer] Shackleton'. And in a sense that sums him up well.'

Nick Clegg (pictured right) will be handed a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours. The former Liberal Democrat leader will become ‘Sir Nick’ when the full list is published on Saturday, senior party sources revealed. It is not yet known if his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez (pictured left) will take a title. The gong is in recognition of his five years as David Cameron’s deputy prime minister. But the knighthood is likely to be controversial given that Mr Clegg is an arch Remainer and that his party has been showered with honours in recent years. The Lib Dems have more than 100 representatives in the House of Lords despite their limited electoral success. Their peers will have considerable power over the course of the UK’s departure from the EU and Mr Clegg has called for a second referendum and written a book called How to Stop Brexit. Senior Lib Dem figures to have received knighthoods include party leader Vince Cable and home affairs spokesman Ed Davey. They were knighted after serving in the coalition government’s Cabinet. Both lost their south-west London seats at the 2015 election but returned to Parliament after winning again at this summer’s poll. Another former Lib Dem Cabinet minister, Danny Alexander, was given a knighthood after losing his Scottish seat in 2015, although he has not returned as an MP. Former pensions minister Steve Webb was knighted a year ago.

With an unsure smile and a firm grip on Harry's arm, the Californian actress emerged from St Mary Magdalene Church in a huddle of future in-laws on Monday and facing a gaggle of fans. Unversed in the Sandringham Christmas Day order of events, Meghan, 36, was put at ease by both Harry and William who seemed to offer words of encouragement and pointers as they left the church. Meghan was elegant in a wide collar, camel wrap coat by Canadian luxury brand Sentaler. It tapered in around the waist and flared out at the hem, for the St Mary Magdalene Church Christmas service. Matching her camel coat with a chestnut-brown felt hat, Meghan wore a pair of coordinating £630 Stuart Weitzman's Hiline high-heeled suede boots.

Defence secretary Gavin Williamson yesterday said he would 'not hesitate' to defend Britain following an upsurge in the number of Russian warships in our waters. Royal Navy frigate HMS St Albans was yesterday tracking the Russian vessel Admiral Gorshkov as it made its way across the North Sea menacingly close to Britain. Although such crossings are fairly routine, there has been a rise in the number of Russian ships passing close to British territorial waters in recent days. On Christmas Eve, HMS Tyne was dispatched to escort a Russian intelligence-gathering ship through the North Sea and the England Channel. A Wildcat helicopter was then dispatched to monitor two further Russian vessels. In an unusually strong statement, Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said: 'I will not hesitate in defending our waters or tolerate any form of aggression. Britain will never be intimidated when it comes to protecting our country, our people, and our national interests.' Russian warships of the northern and Baltic fleets routinely pass through UK territorial waters en route to or from deployments in the Mediterranean and Gulf regions. Chris Ansell, the Commanding Officer of HMS St Albans, said: 'My ship's company take great pride in serving Great Britain and the role they play dealing with both the routine and unexpected. Missing parts of Christmas and New Year with our families is never easy, but it is absolutely required as part of our duty to keep Britain safe all year round.'

There are not many men who, decades later, can still fit into the suit they wore on their wedding day. But it’s a measure of Prince Philip’s pride in his appearance – born of his naval training – and remarkable vitality that he can. While most eyes were on 36-year-old, ultra-flexible yoga fan Meghan Markle, it was the 96-year-old duke who put in the most impressive performance.

As millions face misery due to rail closures, the perks take some private contractors’ daily salaries to the equivalent of twice what the Prime Minister is paid. Network Rail is spending £160 million on its ‘biggest-ever investment programme’ during the holiday season, and 32,600 in-house staff and subcontractors have been drafted in to work around the clock. Insiders say high wages have to be offered because of a scarcity of engineers in specialist roles. But critics last night highlighted how many vital public sector staff who have to work over Christmas get nothing like the generous sums available on the railways.

Mustafa Aziz, who works as a British Airlines aircraft controller near Heathrow in London, was on a trip to Iraqi Kurdistan when he took the photo with a grenade launcher on a family farm in 2008. The 40-year-old said the photo was taken, before he started working at BA, and he only posed with the weapon to 'look hard'. The photo of Aziz with the grenade launcher was shared alongside another of a Kurdish militant holding an assault weapon.

The first man to walk to both the North and South poles is spending Christmas away from his son after being forced to abandon the pair's mission to reach both poles using solar-power. Durham-born Robert Swan, 61, made history in 1989 as the first man to walk to both the North and South poles. This year he hoped to break another record with his son, Barney, 23, and reach both poles using only renewable resources.

A topless activist from a feminist group has attempted to snatch a statue of baby Jesus from the Vatican's Nativity scene. The woman stormed the display in St Peter's Square on Monday but was stopped by police as she grabbed the figurine. Witnesses said the woman jumped over guard rails and rushed onto the larger-than-life Nativity scene shouting 'God is woman'. The protester, from the Femen group, had the same slogan painted on her bare back. A Vatican gendarme stopped her from taking the statue and she was detained.

The death toll from a storm that unleashed landslides and floods across the southern Philippines has climbed to 240 with scores of others still missing, officials said on Monday. Tropical Storm Tembin on Friday struck the country's main southern island of Mindanao, which often escapes the 20 or so storms that batter the rest of the archipelago nation each year.

At least four people are said to have died after a bus came off the road and hurtled down a set of stairs leading to a metro station. Horrifying video footage of the incident shows the bus cross the pavement and speeding down the stairs, hitting pedestrians.  It happened on Kutuzovsky Avenue, near the Slavyansky Bulvar metro station in Moscow. 

A gloomy Pyongyang was tranformed into a festival of dance on Christmas Eve to recognise the 100-year anniversary of Kim Jong-un's grandmother's birth.  The North Korean capital was dusted with snow as the temperature plummeted below freezing when thousands of people lined the streets to dance in front of the Monument to Party Founding yesterday.  Waving the country's red, blue and white flag and with women wearing colourful dresses under their thick coats, she was honoured in front of the the iconic worker's party sculpture which can be seen eerily towering above them in an eerie set of photographs. Wreaths were then laid at the statue of Kim Jong-suk in the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery on the occasion of her centenary birth anniversary on Mount Taesong.