THEY sailed through pages of great adventures and shared their favourite childhood stories.

But this time it was the school pupils who read the stories aloud.

Pupils from the Holy Trinity Catholic School in Chipping Norton aged six to 11 swapped tales of heroes and villains with residents at the Henry Cornish Care Centre yesterday.

They shared stories by the former children’s laureate Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.

Youngsters also listened to tales of Enid Blyton’s The Secret Seven for the first-time ahead of the Chipping Norton Literary Festival, which runs from today until Sunday.

Nine year-old Charlie Jennings said: “I did enjoy myself.

“I really like reading out loud to people. I like writing stories too. I think the older people thought I was a really good reader.”

Activities coordinator Sylvia Evans was thrilled to see stories shared between young and old.

She said: “It’s been lovely, really nice. The older people were introduced to books they hadn’t seen before and they really enjoyed having the children read to them. I think it illustrates how much the younger and older generations have in common as well as how much they can learn from one another.”