Dancehall Disappearance

 THURSDAY 13^TH OCTOBER 1960

‘Police throughout Britain are today looking for an attractive 18-year-old Glasgow girl whose parents believe that she is being held somewhere against her will.
The girl, dark-haired Ann Gibson, was last seen on Saturday afternoon leaving a Glasgow dance hall with two men. She is described as having appeared reluctant to accompany them. Almost frantic with anxiety after a three-day search of dance halls, cinema queues, and cafes, her parent now fear that she is being held.

Her mother, Mrs Jessie Gibson, said in her corporation house at 9 Kentigern Terrace Bishopbriggs, to-day – “I am convinced Ann is being kept against her will. She would never have stayed away as long as this – and, in fact, has never been away from home. She knows how worried we would be and would have come home.”
Her father, Mr Andrew Gibson, said: ‘She had only ten shillings when she left on Saturday. She couldn't have managed all this time on so little. That is one of the reasons why we believe she may be held somewhere.”

Ann’s parents reported her missing to Bishopbriggs police on Sunday night – but it wasn't until Monday that the mystery deepened when Ann’s friend, 17-year-old Isobel Fairbairn told her parents what had happened at the dance hall.
She said two men had been dancing alternately with Ann, but that Ann had not been very keen on them. Afterwards she left and went off with both men.

Mrs Gibson said her daughter was a shy girl whose main interests were knitting and the church choir. She added ‘she is that kind of girl: very rarely goes out in the evening at all. The only thing she did go to was the Saturday afternoon dance.’
Mrs Gibson, who is off work, ill with worry of his daughters disappearance, sad Ann was a very nervous type of girl. ‘If she was pulled out of the hall against her will she wouldn’t scream.’ Mr Gibson then told of another point which was worrying them – ‘Ann doesn't know Glasgow very well. The only place she really knows is the dance hall which is at the Charing Cross end of the city’

When she set out of the Saturday afternoon dance Ann was wearing a fawn and lemon skirt in rainbow stripes and a white woollen jacket – just knitted by her mother. 

Ann's disappearance occurred 8 years before the first reported victim of Glasgow serial killer 'Bible John'  who hunted for victims in Glasgow's dance halls between 1968 and 1969. He is believed to have murder three young women after meeting them at the Barrowlands Ballroom. The case remains unsolved.