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"Waterloo Road&amp;#039;s Alec Newman has revealed that the show will &amp;quot;always hold a special place&amp;quot; in his heart. The actor - who joined the series in 2011 as head teacher Michael Byrne - will leave the show at the end of the current series.  Newman told The Daily Record that his &amp;quot;life has changed considerably&amp;quot; since joining the long-running BBC series. Newman will depart alongside original cast members Tom Clarkson (Jason Done) and Grantly Budgen (Philip Martin Brown). He said: &amp;quot;My life has changed considerably and Waterloo Road will always hold a special place in my heart. It has been a huge thing for me. &amp;quot;In fact, meeting my future wife and the whole homecoming element will probably have a much longer-lasting effect than anything connected to the work. &amp;quot;I am grateful to everybody involved for allowing me to be a part of such a gigantic piece of television. That&amp;#039;s not flattery - anything nowadays which gets three or four million viewers is a big deal.&amp;quot;  Newman joined the show when it was filmed in Rochdale and was a part of the series during its move across the border into Scotland. The 38-year-old said the move allowed him to rediscover the place he spent his youth. &amp;quot;I was not aware the show was coming to Scotland. When I joined, we were based in Rochdale and living in Manchester. &amp;quot;Most of my youth was not spent in Scotland, albeit with an exclusively Glaswegian family. I feel like I have properly discovered where I come from and joined up all the dots. I will always be grateful to Waterloo Road for allowing me to do that,&amp;quot; the actor added. Newman said that Michael has been a &amp;quot;superb character to play&amp;quot; and will leave in a fashion &amp;quot;consistent with the way he arrived&amp;quot;. He revealed: &amp;quot;The way he leaves makes it easy to imagine him existing somewhere else outside the show. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not an unsensational exit but, in keeping with the character, it&amp;#039;s more about logistics and personality clashes than car crashes or him turning out to be a prostitute or a spy for MI6.&amp;quot; Waterloo Road continues on Thursday (May 9) at 8pm on BBC One. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/waterloo-road/news/a478963/waterloo-road-alec-newman-the-show-has-been-life-changing/>