VISITORS to the Steam Museum might have thought the sight of 40 children dressed as Victorian apprentices meant it was about to start employing child labour to ease its financial woes.

But the 39 children from Minety Primary School were there to get a taste of Victorian life and to put on a play about what it was like to be a 19th century apprentice with the Great Western Railway.

The youngsters have been learning about Britain during the Victorian era with the help of performing arts.

Headteacher Bernard Crooks said: "We have been using drama and music to bring what the children are learning to life, because if they enjoy it they can work better when it comes to reading and writing about it.

"They have been finding out what the conditions were like for back then the long hours and poor pay for the boys on their apprenticeships and the downtrodden over-worked housewives the girls became."

Catrin Garland, 10, from Minety played a schoolgirl in the play said: "I think it would have been hard to go to school in Victorian times because you had to wear skirts and long sleeves all the time."