THESE were the days when foreign holidays, even for adults, were rare.

Members of Cowley Community Association in Oxford, however, were the exception to the rule – they made a habit of heading abroad.

This picture was taken in 1961 as they prepared to leave for a 12-day holiday in Austria.

It was third year running that a group from the association had travelled to foreign lands.

The previous year, a party had enjoyed a visit to Holland.

It looked as if those who had booked for the trip to Austria would have needed plenty of stamina – they were facing a lengthy coach journey.

The first part of the trip was fairly easy – a coach ride to Dover, where they would catch a plane to Rotterdam.

At the Dutch port, they would be met by another coach, which was to take them through Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland to Austria.

No doubt it would have taken some of the party a couple of days to recover from such a gruelling journey.

In fact, that wasn’t the end of their coach travel.

During the visit, they were planning coach excursions from their base at Worgl, in the Tyrol, to neighbouring areas in Germany and Italy.

Then, of course, they faced the long coach journey home.

The picture above gives some indication of how well used the community centre was in the early 1960s.

One sign shows that it was also an educational establishment of some kind – City of Oxford Education Committee appears above the door.

There are also signs showing it had a chess club and was used as a child welfare clinic.

Do you recognise any of the holidaymakers?

And can anyone tell us the location of Cowley Community Centre in those days?

Let me know.