KEEPING the kids occupied during the October school half-term break should be a doddle this year.

There are so many things going on in York for youngsters over the coming week, parents should be spoilt for choice.

Rancid rats have been released around the recreated Victorian Street at the Castle Museum and, throughout the holiday, visitors will get the chance to become an apprentice rat catcher.

Stuffed rats have been planted around the street and youngsters will be given special rat catching sticks to trap and collect them.

Gwendolen Whitaker, assistant curator of history-learning, said: "This half-term, we are looking at the same grimy side of Victorian life and we are hoping many apprentice rat catchers will come along and catch the rats."

The Life Of Grime events will be held every day during half-term from 10am to 4pm. Admission is £6.50 for adults, children £3.50 with under-fives free.

Meanwhile, the National Railway Museum(NRM) is holding a tribute to the swinging sixties with their All Change Event running throughout the week until October 29.

This year is the 40th anniversary of the electrification of the West Coast Main Line, and so the NRM's autumn half-term event is focused on the 1960s, a decade that saw the greatest changes in society in the 20th century, not least on British railways.

The 1960s brought fundamental changes to the rail travel experience. In 1959, more than half of all rail traffic was hauled by steam; by 1969 no steam trains ran anywhere on the national network.

In 1965, British Railways' rewrote the textbook on corporate identity when it became British Rail' and developed a look, which has continued to this day.

Displays will include Psychedelic Diesels, from the NRM's collection, which will be given a sixties treatment with groovy' oil-slide projections and pop music of the period.

As well as the psychedelic diesels visitors will have a one-off opportunity to experience driving a real diesel locomotive and also see the museum's staff getting into the swing of things by dressing up in sixties attire.

Visitors will be encouraged to use funky colours and wild style to create new designs and masterpieces of the museum's Giants of Steam.

Andrew Scott, museum head, said: "The event offers us a great opportunity to tell visitors all about the changes that took place in the sixties and the ways that the railways were affected.

An auction of sixties railway memorabilia will be taking place on Saturday, October 28, to raise funds for the overhaul of Flying Scotsman.