FORMER teenage tearaway Michael Buckley is planning a reunion with a difference - for his old approved school mates.

Michael, now aged 49, from Nelson, was sent to Starthwaite School, near Kendal, and now wants to get in touch with the friends he made there.

He said: "Many people nowadays don't even know what an approved school was. I can tell them my school was special and approved by her Majesty and they don't get the old joke.

"Like me, many were sent to the approved school because they continually played truant and then got into trouble.

"The magistrates would think there was nothing else they could do with us and then send us off to an approved school where discipline could be strict.''

Michael wants to meet up with other lads who were there in the early 1960s.

He said: "Although we were probably all thought of as tearaways I made some good friends there. I hope they went on to do well in life. I am interested in how they have got on and would like to hear from them.''

Mr Buckley, who lives in the Netherfield Road area of Nelson, became a semi-skilled worker in the engineering industry but now is a disabled asthmatic.

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