TWO illegal immigrants were found clinging onto the bottom of a coach as a choir made its way home from a tour of Belgium.

The Orpheus Singers were ordered to get off the two coaches they were travelling in as they were about to board the Eurotunnel at Calais, in France, so border control officers and sniffer dogs could inspect them.

The dogs instantly rushed to the front of one of the vehicles, where two men were discovered hiding in a small space between the front axle and the coach driver's seat.

Marion Orchard, chairman of the choir, now based in Hadleigh, said the two men are believed to have climbed into the space whilst the coaches were parked up overnight in Ostend, Belgium.

She said the pair, thought to be ages in their twenties, are lucky to have survived.

The singer added: "When you get to border control everyone gets off the coach and the coach gets checked by officers. We were kept there a long while and didn’t know why. The coach was checked by dogs and they went straight to the front.

“We were completely shocked. It was unbelievable, not what we were expecting.

“How they survived and managed it in that space I don’t know."

“They were there when we were travelling through horrendous weather.

"The coach driver said they were two young men in their twenties. If they had changed the suspension on the coach they would have been squashed and killed.”

The 70 members of the ladies choir were travelling with Motts Travel, based in Buckinghamshire.

During their Belgium tour, the Orpheus Singers performer at the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, and at St George’s English Church, both in Ypres.

They sang at St Salvator's Cathedral, in Bruges, on Sunday before starting their journey home.

Mrs Orchard said the tour was a success, despite the unexpected additions to their group.

She said: “It had been a most enjoyable weekend.

“Seventy of us were travelling home in two coaches but this was not quite the finale we were expecting.

“The drama happened at the end of the trip when we were very tired, but we had a really good weekend."

Nobody at Motts Crusader was available for comment.