Just before Christmas we reported that a memorial had been found in a layby just outside Newent in the Forest of Dean (click here to read the original story).

The inscription on it was to Susan Simonson, born 1950, died 1985, and her loving son Paul (1968-2013). As the second inscription was new we speculated that it might have been removed from a cemetery for it to be added. That is indeed what turned out to be the case.

A PC Stuart Cunningham had contacted the National Association of Memorial Masons to see if any of their members had lost the memorial.

It turned out they had.

Fortunately, when the memorial was spotted in the layby the police were informed and they took it to a police station for safe keeping.

It had come from a cemetery in Cardiff, from where it had been removed for the second inscription to be added by the memorial masonry company Thomas Cakebread Ltd based in Banbury, Oxfordshire.

Once the work had been carried out, the memorial was one of several loaded on to a van in Banbury to be taken to the layby in the Forest of Dean where they would be transferred to a van from Cakebreads in Cardiff to continue their journey.

In the layby near Newent, all the memorials were unloaded from the van from Banbury ready to be loaded on to the van from Cardiff. But by the time the vans met it was dark and one memorial was missed and left in the layby.

The police managed to tarce the memorial to Thomas Cakebread Ltd and it was cellected from the police station to continue its journey to Cardiff.