Every year shops selling vinyl records take part in Record Store Day, an event encouraging music lovers to support small independent retailers.

Shopkeepers tempt collectors with rare pressings, and today’s occasion resulted in shops in Canterbury and Ramsgate seeing queues begin to form from early this morning.

Vinyl nostalgia is at an all-time high and even many born long after the dawn of the cassette tape were waiting in line to get their hands on limited vinyl releases.

In Kent, towns hosting the tradition included Ramsgate, where Vinyl Head Records had a queue forming more than two hours before its normal opening time.

The shop shared a photo of the line of excited vinyl fans on social media, along with this message: “Record Store Day is here… We have a queue!

“Massive thanks to everyone outside.”

Even larger queues formed elsewhere in Kent with Nick Pygott arriving at his Canterbury shop, Vinylstore Jr, to find around 60 people waiting.

The first group in line had arrived at 3am to get first dibs on the 51-year-old’s stock.

Nick Pygott, who opened Vinylstore Jr in the city in 2016, said the most popular albums today were new releases from Taylor Swift and The 1975 but they had also handed over an unexpected amount of the Irish hard rock group, Thin Lizzy.

He said: “It’s the busiest day of the year by a huge margin so in financial terms it's critical. Along with Christmas, it is one of those two times of the year when you catch up with yourself.

“More than that, I think it brings people out supporting record shops and what has been good this year has been the spread of the releases.

“We usually specialise in indie, a bit of classic rock and some jazz, but this year there’s some new releases, from Taylor Swift and The 1975 specifically, that have brought new, younger people into record shops for the first time.

“They might not necessarily shop in record stores otherwise, so it’s bringing new people to us and that is very exciting.

“It’s been a long, busy day but it’s fun as well. There’s a nice bit of camaraderie that goes on in the queue - people literally make friends and exchange phone numbers. It is really quite lovely.”

Record Store Day is an annual event which began in the USA in 2007 before arriving in the UK the following year.

It is traditionally held on the third Saturday in April.