Starting from expressions in Connor et al. (1988), we derive a one-dimensional tearing equation similar to the approximate equation obtained by Hegna & Callen (1994); Nishimura et al. (1998), but for more realistic toroidal equilibria. The intention is to use this approximation to explore the role of steep H-mode pedestals, bootstrap currents and separatrix boundaries, on the stability of tearing modes which are resonant in the pedestal region of finite aspect ratio, shaped cross-section tokamaks, e.g. JET.