A heavily pregnant mum-of-three has vowed to "shop in Tesco forever" after workers at the supermarket chain paid for her family to stay in a Luton hotel during the blizzard before Christmas.

Karen Scarborough, who is eight months pregnant, was travelling south on the M1 on December 21 with her children – Devon, aged 13, Joseph, nine, and five-year-old Ben – when the snow began to pelt down and her car ran out of fuel.

The 35-year-old said: "On the M1 it was nose to tail. Then my petrol light came on and with the kids in the car I started to panic.

"We came off at Junction 11 and when we came off there was no gritting on the roads and huge queues. There were cars zig-zagging all over the road."

After a treacherous journey down Dunstable Road, Karen saw the Tesco in Skimpot Road, Dunstable.

Karen said: "I thought: 'We can't sleep in the car' so we went into Tesco and asked if we could sit in their staff room. They were amazing, they were so good."

Workers re-opened the cafe for the family, providing them with hot chocolate, pizza and chips as well as heaters to warm them up and a magazine each for the children.
The customer services manager began calling round hotels in the area to find the foursome a place to stay.

Eventually they found them a room at the nearby Chiltern Hotel in Waller Avenue.

Karen said: "Not only did they book us into the hotel, they paid for us to stay there. I couldn't believe it."

The family had been visiting Karen's sister-in-law and her children in Milton Keynes during the day and were on their way home to Abbots Langley, near Watford, when they were caught in the snowstorm.

Karen is so grateful to Tesco for helping her that she has written a personal letter of thanks to the chain.

She said: "I told Tesco I will be shopping with them for ever. I just wanted to give them some recognition for what they did."

A Tesco spokesman said: "Obviously Karen was heavily pregnant with three children and we were delighted to help her."