IT IS a heartbreaking tale that echoes from nearly half a century ago.

In 1959 a new Southampton was rising from the bomb sites and muchneeded housing estates together with modern shops were being developed in the town, as it was then, but for one teenager the pressures surrounding her young life became too much and she decided to take drastic action.

Edith Walsh was aged just 17 when she walked out the door of her family home in Denzil Avenue and from that day, 48 years ago, she has never been seen again.

In 1998 there was a sighting of someone who was thought to have looked like Edith in the Weston area of the city but it was never confirmed.

Perhaps the biggest clue as to why Edith disappeared was that she was the child from an affair between her mother and a black American GI soldier during the Second World War.

Back in those austere and unforgiving days, when society had less tolerant attitudes, it would have been difficult for a mixed race youngster ever to be totally accepted by her neighbours and the wider community.

N ow her brother, Edwin Haynes of Avenue Road, Southampton, has taken on the tough task of trying to trace the sister who is his lastremaining close relative.

"I was nine when she left but I do remember her as she was such a pretty girl but it could not have been easy for her all those years ago but I was so young then I didn't really understand why she disappeared,'' said Edwin.

"Edith is a missing part of my life and I would just like to know what happened to her.

Of course she might have changed her name or perhaps she is dead, although I have checked to see if a death certificate has been issued in her name and there is nothing in the official records.

'' Edwin, who still lives in the house he shared with his late parents, Tom and Frances Haynes, after they moved from Denzil Avenue, has carried out exhaustive searches on the Internet and with agencies such as the Salvation Army but all to no avail.

As Edwin grew up his mother was reticent to talk about Edith but gradually, little by little, he was able to piece together his sister's story.

"Edith was born on April 13, 1942 and I did not realise for a long time, as my mother did not tell me, that she was the likely result of a wartime affair with an American soldier.

My mother's parents disowned her as she was an unmarried mother and had a mixed-race child which was considered unacceptable in those days.

"I am not sure of the year but later my mother went on to marry a man called George Walsh and he took on Edith as his own daughter.

As far as I know that marriage broke up in either 1948 or 1949.

"In 1950 my mother married my father, Tom Haynes, and I was born soon afterwards.

I can vaguely remember my sister but I have been told she was unhappy at home.

"She and I were both pupils at Mount Pleasant School, although she had left by the time I started.

The only clue I have been told about her disappearance was that she ran away to join a fair that was in Warminster, Wiltshire which then moved to Norfolk.

"Before my mother died she did try to find my sister but it was before computers were available and she had no success.

"I was told that someone, who looked like Edith and who would have been the right age, had been seen in Weston Estate nearly ten years ago but I am not sure if it really was my sister.

'' Anyone who can help Edwin is asked to contact Hampshire Heritage at the Daily Echo.