St Annes heartthrob Jonas had grown women screaming as they toured Arnold, the school where he learned his acting skills, and – bizarrely – he wasn't even there!

Star

More than 30 registered members of the Jonas Armstrong fan club, made the pilgrimage to the Fylde coast on Saturday to enjoy a weekend in the home town of the star.

All 30 members of the group, who call themselves the Armstrong Angels, were female and eight of the party had come all the way from the USA.

Colin White, director of admissions, said: "I got an e-mail about eight months ago from the organiser saying they wanted to come and see the school grounds – but we thought as they were coming all that way we would give them a tour.

"The women turned up dressed in Armstrong Angel's T-shirts, they had obviously gone to a lot of effort.

"They were all passionate about Jonas, they described his as a charmer with bags of personality and said he had 'it', whatever that might mean!"

The tour, which was organised by his fan club, started with a visit to Blackpool Zoo to see the Amur tiger which they have adopted in his name.

Then they descended on the South Shore school to see the stage on which his acting career began.

Jonas's former drama teacher, Colin Snell, led the tour of the drama studio and explained about some of the projects the star had been involved in as a sixthformer.

As the tour came to an end however, Mr Snell had an unexpected treat for the ladies.

Mr White added: "Colin received a phone call and to everyone's amazement it was Jonas!

"He is working on a new film or I'm sure he would have been here in person to greet the ladies.

"Once they had stopped screaming and calmed down Jonas was able to express his thanks for their support and hold a conversation with Michelle, co-organiser of the convention weekend."

The women were able to get a number of photographic mementoes from their tour and were particularly taken with a photo of Jonas dressed in a chicken suit worn during an unconventional production of Romeo and Juliet.

The fansite called www.jonasarmstrongfansite.com has 3c214 registered members.