A TEENAGER from Barrowford is one of the major stars in a hard-hitting new BBC2 drama When I Was 12 which was filmed in Burnley.

The film is the handiwork of multi-award-winning film-maker Dominic Savage who recently picked up the best new director prize at the BAFTA Awards for his drama/documentary film Nice Girl, which was screened on BBC2 last year.

It will be screened next Wednesday and is scheduled to be on at 9pm. It highlights the issue of the growing numbers of young, disaffected British kids abandoning unhappy homes for a life on the streets .

It features Jody Latham, an ex-Burnley Youth Theatre actor, a bright lad who was expelled from school for being disruptive.

As with Nice Girl, which dealt with teenage pregnancy, the script outline for When I was 12 was developed and evolved in workshop sessions with a cast of unknown actors, and all

dialogue was improvised during filming.

Jody, 18, from Barrowford, said: "I loved the idea of this film being improvised, it is a part of acting I am good at.

"I didn't really prepare for the role, I just wanted it to be natural - to just do it and see what happened. Lee is a lad I know."

Jody admits that acting classes at Burnley Youth Theatre were his saviour. "I was a naughty kid," he admits.

"School didn't like me. I found it easy to talk and do the work -- and I got into a few fights.

"The only lesson I behaved in was drama. Even if I was poorly, I would always go into school if I knew I had drama that day.

"When I went to the youth theatre, they trusted me and I got really good parts - including Heathcliffe in Wuthering Heights."

But working on When I Was 12 brought back to Jody the life he could have ended up leading.

"I went to a special 'second chance' project to do my GCSEs and met a hard lad who I'd seen sticking up to the older lads -- he could look after himself.

"I got to quizzing him and he told me about his dad, coming home drunk and asking to fight him. But, if this lad landed a lucky punch it wasn't a game. His dad would just lay into him, like Lee's dad."

Jody has also appeared in Coronation Street, Heartbeat, The Cops, Big Meg Little Meg and Crimefile.

Dominic said: "When I Was 12 is about the transition from childhood to a knowledge of what you can get yourself into -- hard wisdom.

"From a child's perspective it shows how careful you have to be and how easily you can lose control through, drink, sex and drugs.

"The characters and fictional story were inspired by real runaway kids, some as young as ten, whom I met all over the country when researching the film."

It tells the story of 12-year-old Chloe who is bored, ill-treated and living on a faceless housing estate in the north of England.

Chloe's mum has little time for her -- she's far too wrapped up in drink and depression to put good food on the table. Chloe and her best mate Kelly spend most of their time just hanging out, smoking fags and talking about boys.

Then Lee, Jody Latham, a 15-year-old boy, comes onto the scene, bringing some much-needed excitement into Chloe's life. He's wild, funny, and when he decides to run away to the south coast, Chloe persuades him to let her come too.

However, the thrill of the adventure fades fast. First Lee, and then Kelly, desert the seaside resort, leaving Chloe penniless, desperately lonely and forced to throw in her lot with two boys who run a local thieving and drugs racket. Jody is now working on the third series of the BBC1 drama Clocking Off and a Channel Four production about the lives of the ancient Greeks.