FOR the Edwards family, the world stopped turning at 7.40am on September 5.

That was the moment when David Edwards went to make sure his daughter, Rosemary, was getting ready for the first day of the new school term and discovered her room was empty.

Rosemary, 15, had slipped out of the house during the night after a furious row with her parents.

The family have been in limbo ever since.

Life may have gone on around them but Mr Edwards, 52, his wife Jennifer, 47, and their other two children, Robert, 17, and Lucy, 19, have been left numb with worry.

Each waking moment is taken up with thoughts of Rosemary and where she could be.

Police are reluctant to speculate on what might have happened to her but every possible scenario has been played out in the minds of her family and the detectives involved in the search.

Their nightmare began after Rosemary lied about circumstances in which she lost her part-time job in a shop near her home in Dibden Purlieu.

When her parents discovered the truth, she ran upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom. As the evening went from bad to worse each remark made to the teenager resulted in the same terse response: "So what?"

The animal-loving student is a keen horse rider who wants to become a vet.

However, Mr Edwards decided to ground his daughter and banned her from riding for a month. She was also barred from using the Internet and told to surrender her mobile phone at 10.30pm each day.

Rosemary was still upset when he wished her goodnight but agreed to hand over her phone.

When she was found to be missing the next morning, Mr Edwards crossed the A326 and began searching the New Forest, concentrating on an area where they often walked as a family.

When he returned home, there was still no sign of his daughter.

Even more worrying was the fact that she had left home without taking any of the items essential to daily life, including money and a change of clothing. Rosemary had also left behind something she would never normally be without - her MP3 player.

Mr Edwards examined her phone and discovered a series of text messages she had sent to three teenage boys she knew through Internet chatlines.

The tone and content of the messages only heightened his anxiety.

He rang the police, who immediately classed Rosemary as a "vulnerable" missing person and circulated her description to the local media.

Most teenage runaways return home within 72 hours and everyone hoped that Rosemary would prove to be no exception. However, police decided to step up the search after she failed to make contact with any of her friends or relatives.

Last Friday, three days after she was last seen, scores of people began to scour woodland in Dibden Inclosure, a short distance from her home.

The operation involved about 40 police officers, including an off-duty colleague who heard that Rosemary had gone missing and asked to help. They were joined by members of Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, the Forestry Commission and a voluntary group, Hampshire Search and Rescue.

Dogs and an aircraft equipped with heat-seeking equipment were also used in the search.

The Edwards are well known in local theatrical circles but nothing could have prepared them for the real-life drama unfolding around them.

A succession of police officers called at their home in Wellington Close, a quiet residential road away from the busier parts of Dibden Purlieu.

The couple were also approached by the media and agreed to talk to the Daily Echo. They regard themselves as a private family and were reluctant to venture into the spotlight, but agreed to do anything they could to encourage the local community to help them find Rosemary.

Mr Edwards, an electrical consultant, described his daughter's disappearance as totally out of character.

He said: "She's quite outgoing and will talk to anyone but in some ways she's slightly insular. She doesn't really go out much, other than to go horse riding, and has only just started going into Southampton with her friends.

"Everyone who knows Rosemary and knows what's happened is absolutely gobsmacked - they just can't understand it."

Police later received more than 50 calls from people who said they had seen a girl matching her description.

Rosemary has highly distinctive blonde hair that falls below her waist.

Police Superintendent Barry Talbot, heading the search, said: "One concern we have is that Rosemary may be worried about the reaction she might get from her parents or us.

"I would like to reassure her that she has nothing to fear. She is not in trouble. We just want to hear from her to know that she is safe and well."