THEY only know each other by their ‘tweets’.

But this group of carol lovers from Oxford decided to make their own version of birdsong by forming the Oxford Twitter Choir.

The choir was formed by Headington social media lover Becca Chaplin, 40, after a meet-up – or ‘tweet up’ – with a friend she had met on social networking site Twitter.

The website allows users to leave public messages of up to 120 characters via their phone or computer and follow other users “tweet” messages in real time.

And on Saturday they met up and performed two sets of Christmas carols for shoppers at the Oxford Christmas Market at Oxford Castle.

Mrs Chaplin said: “I went out for lunch last year with one of the people I met via Twitter.

“We were talking about carols and how unless you go to church regularly, you don’t get to sing carols any more, and we thought it would be a really good idea if we got together to sing carols.”

She got the word out – via Twitter of course – and a handful of people turned out to sing last Christmas.

This year, a 25-strong group joined the Twitter Choir – performing in public without a single rehearsal. The group of singers ranged in age from nine to mid 60s.

Mrs Chaplin said: “I have absolutely no music training whatsoever, I cannot sing and am completely tone deaf.

“I’m the most unmusical person in your life but I’m a good organiser.

“But there is one woman who is an opera singer and another who is a music teacher. I think we were pretty good.

“A couple of people joined in and no-one asked us to stop, so I think we were okay.”

The group were collecting money for Oxford’s Sobell House Hospice, at the Churchill Hospital, and are currently counting up how much they have raised.

Mrs Chaplin said: “I don’t think anyone has been feeling particularly festive this year because the weather has been too mild and the Christmas marketing seems to have been going on forever, but this has started to get people to feel more festive and that Christmas is on its way.”

To follow the choir on twitter, visit @oxtwitchoir. Follow the Oxford Mail at @TheOxfordMail