PENSIONER Alec Boswell has laid down the gauntlet in response to a BEN article searching for Pikes Lane Junior School's oldest surviving pupil.

Aged 91, the former pharmacist and engineer from Farnworth, feels he has a strong claim.

The search is currently on before the Victorian junior school, built in 1874, is demolished in April, to make way for a new building.

And Alec told the BEN: "I started at Pikes Lane, aged four, in 1912.

"I continued there until I was aged 12 and started half time working. Part of the time I would go to school and the rest of the day I would spend at work.

"It was a smashing school when went and some marvellous people came from those classrooms - doctors, solicitors, chemists, we had them all."

Alec went on to be a pharmacist, later becoming an engineer.

He said: "The place is full of happy memories for me - most of which I couldn't put in a family newspaper!

"When I walked to school each day, the streets were full of horses and carts.

"It seems a shame for the building to be brought down, but I suppose it will have deteriorated since I was last in it." Unfortunately, Alec was recuperating from a stay in hospital, and so could not attend the open day at the school for past pupils.

He added: "It is a shame. I would have loved to have had one last look around." Alec has been married to wife, Ivy, 92, for 67 years, and the couple have one son, one grandson and one great grandson.

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