THEY looked like tramps, acted like tramps and so were treated as down and outs as they staggered around the streets of Teignmouth.

Suspicious police checked them out, and they were refused entry to a pub on New Year’s Eve.

But the pair were in fact a couple of respectable middle-aged local ladies garbed in fancy dress.

Their scruffy persona fooled everybody, even their best friends.

Other revellers out on the town, felt so sorry for them, they even donated cash.

The guise was just too good, and now Jill Vowden, who works at Waitrose, and Shane Maryon, the manager at Summercourt care home, are having a good old laugh over how they fooled everybody.

‘It was hilarious – we had no idea that the make up and props that Shane came up with would be so good,’ said Jill.

The pair toured around the town with their trolley full of possessions, and clutching bottles of ‘booze’ wrapped in brown paper bags, stopping outside several pubs.

‘We saw many of our friends, who obviously did not recognise us and shunned us, until we revealed who we were.

‘I think we were being tracked on CCTV, because two police officers turned up who had been following us and thought we had been begging and selling alcohol in plastic glasses. When we explained, they laughed, and assured us there was no problem.

‘We actually tried to go in one pub, but the manager barred us. That was a pity, but I suppose you cannot blame him.

‘We have donned many different costumes over the years, but this was the best yet – we did not realise it would look so realistic and take everybody in.’

The pair were offered money by others out on the town who took pity on them, and they had to explain it was just fancy dress, and the cash was not needed.

‘But we said we would donate it to charity instead, and by the end of the night had collected £80, which we gave to HITS. It was the best New Year’s Eve we have had,’ Jill added.

HITS chairman David Cox thanked the pair, saying: ‘This is a lovely new year story, and one which is doubly poignant as people initially reacted to them like genuine vagrants.

‘I would remind people, however, that whilst Shane and Jill are 100 per cent genuine, normally collectors for HITS would have marked buckets and be wearing photo ID, so please don’t hand your cash to just anyone.’

A VAGRANT IDEA: Below, Shane, left, and Jill, in their vagrant guise which was too realistic for some.