THEIRS is a real life story of finding treasure in the attic. While cleaning her mother's house Rosemary Walker stumbled across a little box.

Not thinking it could be a treasure chest she pushed it aside to look at later.

But when she did open the box Mrs Walker was astonished by what she found -- a gilt bronze medal from the 1906 Olympic Games held in Athens.

Shocked by their lucky discovery Mrs Walker and her husband, Owen, took the two-inch piece of metal to a jeweller who verified its authenticity.

Mr Owen, who lives in St Martin's Close, Lordshill, said: "I didn't realise I had married into an Olympian family. We don't know where it came from."

There is no name on the medal but it has Greek goddess of victory Nike holding a laurel wreath over Phoenix rising from the flames with the Acropolis in the background.

On the other side is some Greek writing and the date of the games.

Mrs Walker had been cleaning out her mother's home in Awbridge, near Romsey, after she moved into a care home.

It was when she moved some larger boxes that Mrs Walker discovered the 100-year-old medal.

"It can't be my father's. He was alive but just two years old in 1906," she said.

"It was ten years into the modern Olympics and we think there may have been a commemorative medal made that year to go with the games. But we don't know any more than that. We are just amazed to have found it."

The medal is an Athens Gilt Bronze Commemorative Medal and was manufactured from the unused inventory of 1896 Athens Participatory Medals.

It is the same medal but with a 1906 plague soldered over the original 1896 date and it is thought it was given to 884 participants from around the world.

A spokeswoman for the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland, said there had been an Intermediary Olympics in 1906 but that it had not been an official event.

This was because the IOC had not approved the games and the head of the IOC, Pierre de Coubertin, did not attend.

The medal is thought to be worth about £60.

Have you unearthed treasure in your attic? If so, then call Craig Mowat at the Daily Echo on 023 8042 4760.