Christmas Day in Bethlehem, a trip to Jerusalem and the ruins of Athens: 'Not bad for £70!' Memories of a 1960s school cruise

For John Carter, it was a Christmas he would never forget. Up until that time, Christmas in the Carter household had been pretty much like that of most teenagers: a couple of weeks of school, opening the presents, possibly playing in the snow, and a hearty dinner with the family at their home in Aldridge, near Walsall. 

But for Christmas 1966, the 14-year-old spent Christmas in the sunshine of Bethlehem, visiting the birthplace of Jesus, on a trip that also took in Venice, Athens, Jordan and Jerusalem.

"Not bad for £70," quips John, who was one of the hundreds of schoolchildren in the 1960s and 70s who got to see the world aboard SS Nevasa, a ship specially adapted for school cruises.

This newspaper's feature on the Nevasa earlier this month, brought back memories for John, who also marked the start of 1967 aboard the ship. Nevasa, a former troop ship, had been adapted by the British India Steam Navigation Co, and John remembers how plush it looked in the brochure they were given. The reality was somewhat different. 

"it was very basic, we slept in a dormitory," he recalled. "It was just a very basic bed. When we were in Jerusalem, we slept at the monastery, but we didn't like the food, so we survived on chocolate bars for three days."

Still, at a time when the typical family holiday consisted of a week in Torquay or Bournemouth, he certainly wasn't complaining. And John said it was all down to one man, Bob Cherry - his slightly eccentric American teacher at Aldridge Grammar School, who was a passionate believer in the educational benefits of travel. 

While most of the cruises set sail from Southampton, John's trip began in a slightly more glamorous fashion.

"We flew from Gatwick to Venice," he recalls. 

"When we arrived in Venice, the teacher went off to buy some Italian shoes. He told us to entertain ourselves in Venice until he came back, well you can imagine how that went with a group of 14-year-olds."

In Venice they boarded the Nevasa, and set sail for Athens, where they saw the eye-popping beauty of the Roman ruins. 

"We then sailed to Jordan where we took a coach to the Holy Land,  where we were in Jerusalem for three days."

But it was Christmas in Bethlehem which had the biggest impression on him. John had been a regular churchgoer until he was 13, when he landed a weekend job at a farm opposite his house. Not only did this earn him a bit of extra pocket money, it also meant he could spend Sunday mornings driving tractors around a field. But visiting the holy sites described in the Bible was an experience that stayed with him for the rest of his life.

"It was fantastic, it was the most incredible experience to be in Bethlehem on Christmas Eve going into Christmas Day," recalls John, who now lives in Wellington, Telford.

"To be in the place where it all actually happened, and to visit all these sites in the Holy Land was the most amazing experience."

The following days also saw visits to the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus spent his last moments before crucifixion, the Decapolis where he attracted a large number of followers after healing a deaf and mute man and another possessed by a demon, and the Dead Sea.

The £70 cost of the cruise, which included accommodation, food and flights, is the equivalent of about £1,200 today when adjusted for inflation.

"It was all pretty good value, really," he says. "I managed to save about £30 from my wages working on the farm, and my parents paid for the rest.

"I wasn't from a well-off family, my dad was a grocer, so I don't know how they found the money."

A bit later on, John's slightly eccentric American teacher Mr Cherry came up with another idea for a trip. 

"He had got this big American estate car, and said he was going on a six-and-a-half week road trip around the UK during the summer holidays," John recalls. 

"He invited us to come, it was going to cost £80 each. He told us to 'beg, borrow or steal' the money. But that one was too expensive."