Children sing with Strictly star

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Children from Northamptonshire are set to feature alongside Strictly Come Dancing star John Sergeant in a song vying to be the Christmas number one.

Singers from Kettering's Masquerade choir were asked to provide backing vocals for The One Show's song Let's Not Fight This Christmas.

It features former Squeeze frontman Chris Difford and BBC One show hosts Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley.

Former political journalist Sergeant, 64, sings as part of the chorus.

The Masquerade singers will also feature in the video for the song.

Forty singers aged between 11 and 18 took part in the recordings.

Barry Clarke, the choir's conductor, said the children were "quite excited about it all".

He said: "Universal, the record company, contacted us to say they were doing this in conjunction with the BBC and they were looking for a children's choir to back part of this song and (asked) would we be interested.

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"We went down to Maida Vale Studios and recorded part of it there and a week later we went down to the BBC Television Centre and did the video for it."

However the choir was not aware of Sergeant's role in the song until after they had recorded their part.

Let's Not Fight This Christmas was written by Difford after The One Show attempted to uncover what made a Christmas number one.

Proceeds from the track, which will be released on Friday, will go to BBC Children In Need.

Sergeant was a huge hit with viewers when he appeared on the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing.

However he quit the show after facing criticism from the judges about his dancing, saying he feared he would win.