When a rice manufacturing company wanted 'honest, real children - not actors' to front their new national advertising campaign, they made a bee-line for Bradford.

And pint-sized performers at Feversham Primary School in Barkerend were delighted to oblige.

The children are now the stars of the TV campaign for Tilda rice and even got to miss a couple of lessons and earn a £40 appearance fee into the bargain.

At a specially-arranged screening at the school, the youngsters were shown a video of the adverts, which will go out for the first time today on selected Asian channels.

They squealed with delight when they recognised themselves in the ads.

"First they told us about it, then they gave us this script to learn - it was three pages in big bold writing," said Shafiya Najib, who is in Year 6. "We enjoyed doing it - we skipped two lessons! I would do it again if they wanted us to."

A number of the children were filmed delivering lines such as: 'Does Tilda Basmati come from the foothills of the Himalayas? No, from the shop!' The Bradford children are featured alongside other Asian youngsters from a school in Tooting, London.

Howard Jones of the marketing department at Tilda said: "We wanted it to be a multi-cultural campaign and we thought Bradford would be a good place to come. Feversham Primary School is absolutely rich in talent. We wanted to use real children rather than actors, who would actually represent a cross section of the community."

He added: "We are delighted with the results. The kids were real stars, they did a lovely job, coming across as open and honest, real kids."

Head teacher Stephen Archer said: "The children really enjoyed acting to camera. We already do a lot of after school drama but the kids had never seen all the professional gear before that the camera crews had. It was a great learning experience for them."

He added: "The company made a donation to the school, which was very nice. We are using it to fund a drama project.