A book dealer's plans to secure £10,000 by selling notebooks thought to contain work by comic Spike Milligan has been dashed.

Phil Carey, 57, paid £30 for nine tatty second-hand books at a Sussex antiques fair which contain handwritten jokes, poems and comments.

The books, with scribbled notes in the margins and on blank pages, also contain comments believed to be from fellow Goons Peter Sellers and Sir Harry Secombe.

Mr Carey, from Uckfield, hoped to cash in on the find by auctioning the books with a £10,000 reserve price.

He sent them to London-based auctioneers Christie's to be authenticated but when they approached Spike's secretary and Sir Harry's brother, neither could be certain who penned them. The books have now been returned to a disappointed Mr Carey, who may hire an independent handwriting expert to verify them.

He said: "It's disappointing but I believe they are by Spike. You only have to look at the comments and jokes to make the link with him."

Supporters of the Goons classic BBC radio show, which ran from 1952 to 1960, have been trying to discover where they came from.

When Mr Carey bought them in Ardingly last year he was told they came from a house clearance in Hastings.

Spike died aged 83 in 2002 at his home in Udimore, near Rye.

The scribbles contain references to Goon Show characters and the word "use" has been written next to some of the jokes.

One entry said: "This book belongs to a wandering idiot of no fixed abode known on most police charge sheets as Terence Milligan, also Spike, also Eccles, also Minnie Bannister."

A poem reads: "There P Sellers goes on his toes, Chasing crumpet I suppose."

Another reads: "Oh to be in England now that April's there. Ah but I am in bed in East Finchley and April's bare. P. Sellers. Dirty lucky swine."

In the front of a children's book is written: "This book was presented to Peter Sellers by the East Finchley Borstal Reform School where he graduated in hoisting, bin whizzing, fraud, embezzlement, sexual deviation, silly voices and over-acting. Terence Milligan. August 1951."

A Christie's spokeswoman said: "We did conduct extensive research but we found it to be inconclusive."