SHE vanished without a trace 60 years ago - but police say they still want anyone with information on Sheila Fox's disappearance to come forward.

Exactly 60 years, the six-year-old Farnworth schoolgirl failed to return home from St James' Primary School, New Bury.

It has remained one of Bolton's biggest mysteries and is one of Britain's longest unsolved disappearances.

Sheila vanished on August 18, 1944, and there were several sightings of a girl matching Sheila's description riding on the handlebars of a man's bike.

But despite an extensive search, the young girl - who that morning dressed in a pretty blue frock, green coat and with pink ribbons in her hair had been waved off by her mother from their home in Macdonald Avenue - has never been found.

Today, a spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: "Over the years various pieces of information have been given to us from members of the public which have so far proved unsuccessful in locating Sheila's whereabouts. Any new information which is passed through to GMP is investigated fully."

Over the years, the police have returned to the case several times.

Three years ago, officers excavated the back garden of a house in Barton Road, Farnworth, after a man claimed he remembered seeing a man digging at the time of her disappearance.

The dig in 2001 failed to find any trace of little Sheila.

The publicity surrounding the excavation prompted a former schoolfriend Marian Standring, who now lives in Canada, to contact detectives to say she had seen the little girl talking to a cyclist on the way home. But the cyclist never came forward.

The original file outlining the details of the disappearance has since been lost as a result of police force boundary changes.

It was previously stored at Lancashire police station, Bolton's Castle Street police station and then at Bolton Central police station. But Greater Manchester Police say any new information about the young girl would be treated seriously.

Although it is unlikely that she will ever be found after such a long time - and because no body has ever been found - she is still treated as a "missing person".

Sheila's initial disappearance was investigated by Lancashire Constabulary.

Procedure at the time stipulated that unsolved murders were sent to Scotland Yard for review and then storage. But because Sheila's body has never been found, her disappearance has always been treated as a missing from home.

Anyone who thinks that they may be able to help should contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.