FORBIDDEN teenage sweethearts got engaged two weeks after being re-united following a 23-year separation.

Michael Hampson and Sharon Thompson first met when he was 15 and she was just 13 but their parents stopped them from seeing each other.

They met up again almost by accident -- when one of Michael's friends nearly ran over Sharon while driving his car.

When they first met, Sharon was a pupil at Fred Longworth High School and Michael attended a boarding school for the visually impaired in Bromsgrove.

The lovebirds hung around together in a gang and were sweethearts for nine months before their parents banned them from seeing each other.

Michael said: "We were forced to split up by our parents. Because I'm blind and Sharon was only 13 they stopped us seeing each other. They thought Sharon wouldn't be able to cope."

The pair were heartbroken at being split up and Sharon remembers "sobbing for hours" while playing their favourite Seekers' song The Carnival is Over.

For years Michael continued to send Christmas and birthday cards to Sharon's old address in Gin Pit village, not knowing she had moved.

Attempts

Neither forgot each other and Michael made many attempts to try and find Sharon.

He said: "She was always in my heart, I never forgot her. She's always been with me."

And Sharon confessed: "I kept on thinking about him too."

The couple had a 23-year wait until fate brought them together again when one of Michael's pals almost ran over the woman he immediately recognised as the sweetheart Michael had spent years searching for.

He phoned him straight away and the couple met up again shortly afterwards.

Michael said: "I was so flustered about meeting Sharon again. I could hardly tie my shoelaces. But when we got together we just clicked. It was like we had never been away."

Just two weeks after being re-united, Michael, now 38, and Sharon, 36, got engaged, and are now sporting matching diamond and amethyst rings.

The pair discovered they had actually been living close to each other for years in Hindsford and Tyldesley. Now they are looking forward to a future together, along with Sharon's four children, aged three to 16.