What happened when a troupe of Zulus turned up at a special school

Had they forgotten about a booking?

It turned out that there had been confusion over an address and the eight dancers were actually meant to be a 200-mile four-hour drive away in London.

But the case of mistaken identity had a happy ending as the Lions of Zululand, who hail from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, decided to stay and give the children two not-to-be forgotten performances, complete with spears and shields.

Lesley Davis, headteacher at St Anne’s Special School, in Welton, said the caretaker was approached by one of the Zulus at 8am asking: “Is this London?”

She said staff weren’t sure at first if they had booked them, but in the end agreed they should stay and perform, paying their charity a fee.

She said: “It turned out that they should have been in London at a special school called St Anne’s. I don’t know whether someone took the address down wrong.

“We have 138 children on site and they have severe and complex needs. They did two performances - an hour in the morning for the lower school pupils and an hour this afternoon to the upper school. It was a workshop, some drumming, dancing.

“They had shields and spears and were doing a War Dance, banging their feet.

“Children who would normally sit through a performance were just glued for an hour. It was fantastic.”