MYSTERY still surrounds the discovery of some birth certificates lying on a pavement in Ipswich.The documents have been claimed by a relative of their owners, but the circumstances behind how they came to be lying beside Henley Road is still a mystery.

MYSTERY still surrounds the discovery of some birth certificates lying on a pavement in Ipswich.

The documents have been claimed by a relative of their owners, but the circumstances behind how they came to be lying beside Henley Road is still a mystery.

Sheila George, of Ganges Road, Shotley, read in the Evening Star last Friday how 18-year-old Carla Johns and her boyfriend Ben Poulton found the old papers when they were walking along the road.

Mrs George, 44, recognised the name Edith Elsie Spink written on one of them as her aunt and the other as her uncle Harry Rossiter.

She said: "I think they were in my elderly parents possession but no one knows how they came to end up lying on the footpath."

"Edith, who died in 1985 was my father's sister and Harry, her husband, passed away at the beginning of April. Their house in Bramford is only just being cleared."

"We hadn't realised the certificates were missing so it was a shock to them in the paper. It would be nice to get them back."

After finding the documents, dated 1918 and 1923, Miss Johns decided to take them to her home in Baronsdale Close for safe keeping, as they were so old and fragile.

Her father, Steve, brought them into the Evening Star offices at Lower Brook Street and they will now be sent to their rightful owner.