A single word on the school register says it all: 'Missing'

The register of pupils, not the daily record of attendance, but the register of every pupil who ever attended the school, includes as its closing entry, the reason for leaving the school.

It is partway down the page, after a succession of entries: "secondary school" -- the most usual reason for leaving a primary school, that you come across that word.

The school, now housed in a bright red brick building barely a hundred yards from the original school -- the one that Sheila Fox actually attended -- also still holds the original School Logbook for the war years.

Sheila disappeared on Friday August 18 and the Logbook entry for Monday August 21, written in a neat, now fading, black ink, reads: "School routine interrupted to a great degree today because of police enquiry into the disappearance of Sheila Fox. Sheila Fox of 2nd Class disappeared after leaving school on the afternoon of Friday 18th August."

In those two short sentences lie the tragedy and the heartache of the disappearance without trace of a friendly, always happy, six-year-old girl. The world in which Sheila Fox lived for those six short years was very different to that which faces children today. She lived in one of the "new" council houses -- built in 1938 -- which were springing up all over Britain at the time, but was only a few minutes from green fields and farms.

Although the area in which Sheila lived was relatively new, whole streets of families had been moved from rows of sub-standard terraced houses so that everyone knew everyone else.

And if you didn't know someone you said "hello" to them in the street and soon got to know them.

Sheila made her way to school along the road where, today, police are digging for her body.

One woman, now 81, who became used to seeing Sheila going to and from school said: "She would be sitting on her dad's bicycle cross-bar. He would take her to school and pick her up again on his way to and from the pit, he was a collier. I remember them so well because he was a pleasant man who always said hello and she did as well. Then one day there was all this fuss with the police and everything and I heard that it was all about little Sheila Fox. Such a shame.

"I remember that, at the time, all the parents were stopping their children from going to play very far from home. We were surrounded by fields , most of these houses today were built just after the war, and there were supposed to be lots of breathing holes for the mines. Lots of mothers thought that she had fallen down one of those."

There were other theories around the area of course. Just a few streets away was the place where a young boy -- Jack Queintin Smith -- was stabbed to death. Another local, George Wells, said: "I was only seven or eight at the time and I remember there was a kids' story that the little girl had been buried in the same grave as Queintin Smith. One of my friends was told off by his mum when he asked her if it was true.

"Then there was the story that she had been stolen by gypsies. There were quite a lot around here during the war."

Mr Wells' wife, Marjorie, added: "We didn't think so much about it as children but I have thought about it since. I've had two children of my own. I can't help thinking about what her poor mum went through. I do hope they find the body so everyone can rest in peace."

George added: "It was a very happy place to be a kid in those days. The war hardly affected us, except grown-ups were always saying 'there's a war on' whenever you wanted sweets or anything.

"We would spend all the summer evenings and every weekend playing across in the fields. Then, after Sheila went missing it all changed. We had to stay within sight of the house which meant we had to be quieter because almost every man was a miner and they worked shifts.Then the war finished and the builders came back and the fields disappeared under houses." Young mum

tells of grief

at shock news THE trauma of a missing child transcends the years. Among the neighbours waiting outside the house in Barton Road yesterday were a number of young mothers with children in pushchairs.

One said: "I know if she was alive today she'd be old enough to be my gran but if there is a body in there it will be that of a six-year old child.

"Any mother can identify with that.

"I can't imagine what I would do if anything happened to one of mine." Ex-classmate

visits site of

police search THE search brought one woman all the way from her home in Blackpool yesterday.

Mrs Lilian Green said: "I was at school with Sheila and hearing it on the news this morning brought it all back. I just went cold.

"I don't know why I came really, I think I just wanted to be here when it ends. Since I got older I've thought more about what could have happened to her.

"We weren't especially good friends but she was friendly with everyone, she was such a happy girl."