A MEMORIAL mass is being held this week to mark tomorrow's 10th anniversary of a motorway crash in which a dozen children and their teacher were killed.

The service will taken by the Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nicol, in memory of those who died in the crash, which happened on the M40 at just after midnight on November 18 1993.

The group, from Hagley High RC School in Hagley, were returning from a prom at London's Royal Albert Hall at the time of the accident.

The memorial service will be held on Thursday in the school hall. The school chapel will also be open tomorrow for prayers.

Ten of the children, aged 12 to 13, and their 40-year-old teacher Eleanor Fry, died instantly as the minibus they were travelling in was involved in a collision with a maintenance lorry and was engulfed in flames. Two other girls died shortly afterwards in hospital.

Steve and Liz Fitzgerald, whose 13-year-old daughter Claire died in the smash, have since set up a charity to help children cope with bereavement.

The other children who died were Richard Pagett, Louise Gunn, James Hickman, Nicola Misiolek, Anna Mansell, Charlotte Bligh, Fiona Cook, Charlene O'Dowd and Katie Murray.

"Some people will choose to remember it in a very private way and wouldn't wish to come to a public event while others will wish to come to school to remember it with a mass," said headteacher Ted Hammond.

"It is a very sensitive time though and obviously our prayers and our thoughts are with the children who died and their family and friends."