THE police search in the back garden of a Bolton house for the body of a six-year-old girl who disappeared 57 years ago has brought back terrible memories for one of her former playmates.

Dennis Martin, 63, of Windermere Road, Farnworth, was a close childhood friend of Sheila Fox, and two other friends Jack Queintin Smith, who was later murdered, and David Lee, who was stabbed. All three youngsters played around the New Bury district in the 1940s.

And today he admitted the police dig by officers searching for six-year-old Sheila -- 57 years after she disappeared without trace -- had reopened terrible memories of the search for the missing girl, Queintin's murder and David's stabbing.

Mr Martin, 63, said: "We used to play with Sheila and her sisters all the time. We would go to Gorton Street and play hop-scotch, top and whip and skipping.

"She was a quiet little thing really, she didn't have much to say. But I remember the day after she disappeared all the kids sat down on a pub's steps. Everybody was just stunned.

"Some of the kids were crying. Some of us looked round the streets to see if we could find her but I couldn't do much else, I was only six."

As reported in yesterday Sheila was last seen on August 18, 1944, as she walked home from St James' Primary School, New Bury.

Just four years later 11-year-old Jack Queintin Smith was brutally murdered and his body found on a railway line, close to the scene of yesterday's excavations.

And his nine-year-old pal David Lee staggered home having been viciously stabbed in the chest and abdomen by the killer who attacked the two boys on April 12, 1948.

A doctor who tended the injuries was later said to have described them as "the work of a sexual maniac -- a madman".

Despite his injuries David Lee recovered from the stabbing.

Today Mr Martin, a retired spray painter and grandfather of 12, told how Queintin and David had been close friends of his from an early age.

He added: "In the summer we would all go camping and I remember Queintin creeping up to the tents and pulling the pegs out and then running away.

"I'd known the two lads since I was four and I remember we were all playing football when somebody ran over and shouted that Queintin had been murdered.

"It was all the same feelings as we had felt for Sheila. Again all the kids were sat around. I felt sick and everyone was scared. We just didn't feel safe anymore."

Now as forensic experts continue to dig up the Barton Road back garden, hunting for Sheila's body, Mr Martin says it has reawakened all the childhood memories of his three friends.

He added: "When I heard what was happening I was completely shocked. I couldn't belive that after all these years this was happening.

"All my memories have come flooding back. It's been such a strange time."