A MOTHER who discovered that her baby is buried in a mass grave, along with 59 others, has spoken of her tragedy.

June Townson, 58, learned the details of her daughter's final resting place after reading in The Northern Echo that more than 2,000 babies were buried in unmarked graves, over several decades, in Middlesbrough's Linthorpe Cemetery.

It was common practice up until the 1980s for hospitals to carry out burials, placing up to 60 children in plots barely larger than an adult's grave, in the belief they were sparing parents the anguish of paying for a service themselves.

Mrs Townson, of Middlesbrough, like many other women facing similar anguish, was encouraged to forget about her dead baby.

Her daughter, who she called Paula, died on December 30, 1967, after she was left to give birth alone at Parkside Maternity Home, Middlesbrough.

Following the tragedy, Mrs Townson was told to go to an undertaker and pay £6.50 for the burial, but she was unable to afford it and left arrangements to the hospital.

"I was in floods of tears," she said. "I thought they might get in touch at a later date, but they never did."

She recently contacted a local funeral director and discovered her baby lay in Pauper's Corner, in Linthorpe Cemetery.

"We were told it was plot x and we worked out where it was from another marker," she said. "It was just so barren. There was no number, or anything. I can't believe there are so many babies in one grave."

She now visits the grave regularly and also puts flowers on another baby's grave on behalf of a mother from Bishop Auckland, who cannot get to the cemetery.

Mrs Townson, along with husband Edward and their children, Chris, 35, Wendy, 32, and Dianne, 30, have placed a plaque and bronze statue on the grave, to remember Paula.

Maureen Gibson, of Care for Bereaved Parents, said: "This is a devastating story. I think she has been let down greatly, as many ladies were in that era."

Middlesbrough Borough Council has drawn up plans, as part of a £1.2m National Lottery bid, for a memorial to the children buried in mass graves.