THREE overgrown smurfs were among dozens of pupils at St Edward’s School in Oxford who raised £3,000 for charity by spending a day dressed as cartoon characters.

Olivia McAloon, 14, Meg Johnson, 13 and Fleur Green, 14, spent 20 minutes daubing themselves in blue paint in aid of the Boundary Brook House mental health centre in Headington.

Olivia said: “We used three packets of body paint, and had sport in the afternoon so we had to de-blue ourselves. It took us about 20 minutes, but we struggled to get it off our ears and nails before our netball match.”

Pupils at the independent Woodstock Road school have been raising funds all year.