A YOUNGSTER from Chernobyl on his third visit to East Lancashire has fallen in love with something some kids usually hate - school dinners!

Ten-year-old Vladimir Savchenko can't get enough of the meals after he was offered a temporary place at a primary school.

Dinner times are the highlight of the day for Vladimir, who was undernourished when he first came to Blackburn from Belarus through the Friends of Chernobyl Children Charity.

Ann Royle, head of Holy Souls Primary School, where Vladimir will stay until the end of term, said: "He's settled in well in the three weeks he's been here and he adores dinner times.

"He can't order the food so he points at what he wants and he loves the way it's just served up to him. He's also taken part in our school sports day and he's learning our language really well.

"He's a smashing little boy. When you consider what he's been through it shows what amazing resilience he has." Olwyn Keogh, of the Blackburn-based charity which brings youngsters over from the nuclear stricken region, added: "Vladimir has been here before and at one point we could not locate him in Belarus after he was taken away from his mother.

"But we managed to trace him and bring him back again. When he first came he was probably on of the worst cases we have seen.

"He was so thin and his teeth were black. He didn't even own a coat.

"But being at the school and mixing with others his age has done him the world of good. He's a changed boy."

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