SHEILA Fox's heartbroken mum never believed her daughter was dead and always kept her front door unlocked just in case she came back.

Miriam Fox -- who last saw her daughter going to school on a wartime summer morning -- went to her grave without ever seeing Sheila again.

And today Sheila's sister Rene, 69, told how their mother had left the door of the home unlocked in case the little girl walked back one day.

Rene said: "My mum would never close the back door. She always believed Sheila was not outside that night, though, because she was frightened to death of the rain and it poured down."

A family friend said Sheila's mother and her coal-miner husband, George, never got over their daughter's disappearance in August, 1944.

And the 76-year-old woman, who still lives in Macdonald Avenue, said the mystery of what happened to Sheila had been a talking point on the New Bury estate ever since. She said: "Sheila's mum was devastated when she vanished and she never locked her front door again, day or night. It was like the whole family expected her to walk back through the front door at any minute."

The pensioner, who used to play with Sheila's elder sister -- also called Miriam -- added: "I remember Sheila very well. She was a sweet, very bonny, little lass. She was very close to her dad and always waited at the school gates for him to collect her on his way back home from the pit. But when he came back from the pit that one day she wasn't there and no one saw her again." Sheila's disappearance sent shockwaves through the New Bury estate.