AT FIRST glance, these look like a group of foreign visitors who have invaded Oxford.

In fact, they are city schoolchildren arriving home from a Mediterranean cruise.

They were all pupils at Cutteslowe County Junior Mixed School in Oxford.

They were pictured at Oxford railway station, with their sombreros, furry animals and drums – mementos of an exciting journey that took them to Lisbon, Tangiers, Gibraltar and Vigo in May 1970.

The Cutteslowe children were among a party of more than 200 from Oxfordshire schools, who joined the trip.

The Oxford Mail reported: “As the children stepped off the special train that had brought them from South-ampton to Oxford, their main comment about their 10-day cruise in the Western Mediterranean was: ‘The swimming was the best bit’.”

Others remembered bartering for presents in the North African bazaars and gazing in amazement at the discoveries made by early Portuguese explorers.

According to the Mail, the joy on their faces made it clear that it had been a “wonderful but rather overwhelming experience”.

More than 1,000 children from the Midlands, London and the South had taken part in the cruise aboard the SS Neresa. The Oxfordshire children were from Church Cowley Primary School, Cowley St James, Cutteslowe, East Oxford, St Andrew’s, Wolvercote, Overmede, Blackbird Leys and Wheatley.

Julien Hyde, a teacher at Cutteslowe and one of the staff who accompanied the children, said the real benefits of the trip would not become apparent until later, when the children had had time to sort out their impressions.

Do you recognise anyone in the picture, or have memories of the cruise? Let me know.