THE one and only Chesney Hawkes gave music lessons and let schoolchildren play on his guitar during a recent visit to the borough.

Chesney, who enjoyed chart topping success with his song "The One and Only" which was number one for five weeks in 1991, visited Mornington High School, Hindley and St John Rigby Sixth Form College, Orrell.

And he was not the only celebrity students got to meet on the day as former Hollyoaks star Paul Leyshon was on hand to help youngsters learn about music via the Internet.

Marie Gallagher, head of music at Mornington High School, said the children were "mesmerised" by the pop star's performance.

"We were visited by two pop groups, one of whom featured Chesney Hawkes. There were two live performances for the pupils," she said.

"Chesney did workshops with the children aswell where he taught them about composition. He did what the children wanted to do. He even let them play on his guitar. Some of the children had written a song and he played it and then developed it, so I suppose you could say they wrote a song together."

Although Chesney did not sing "The One and Only", the song that made him famous, he did perform a new song he is releasing in January and John Lennon's "Imagine".

"A lot of the children had seen Chesney's film "Buddy's Song" which also starred Roger Daltry," said Sue Hitchen, a teacher at the school. "They were delighted to see Paul Leyshon because they all remembered him from "Hollyoaks".

On the morning there was a presentation regarding music on the Internet and e-technology and a series of workshops involving selected pupils from Years 8, 9 and 10 with a particular interest in the music industry and computers.

"He was fantastic and very professional," added Marie. "The kids were mesmerised, he has so much talent." Paul Leyshon proved to be popular with the children doing workshops with them on the Internet in the computer suite.

"Our pupils are already very experienced in working with computer technology in music and have been intrigued by their new Internet experiences," said Marie.

The musical tour of secondary schools was sponsored by dotmusic, Europe's biggest music entertainment website, and is the first national tour to be run by an Internet site.