A father and son who are both keen magnet fishers had a lucky escape when they dragged up a live hand grenade from the bottom of the River Medway.
Chris Homden and his 10-year-old son Leyton were magnet fishing off Aylesford Bridge on Sunday afternoon.
The process involves casting a powerful magnet on a long wire into the water and then hauling it along the bottom to see what it attracts.
The pair, who have fished from the same location five or six times before, put their haul of muddy objects in a bucket to take home for further inspection.
Back at their home in Allington, they put the finds in the garden before they joined Mr Homden’s wife Dawn and four-year-old daughter Paisley for a late lunch.
Mr Homden then went out to wash off the finds. As he wiped one lump of metal with a wet rag he quickly recognised the distinctive raised pineapple pattern of a hand grenade.
He said: “When I revealed the initials JPS, that clinched it. I knew that was a well-known make of grenade back in the Second World War.”
The family called the police, who notified the Army.
Mrs Homden said: “We were told to leave it where it was, and we and our neighbours were told to stay in the front of the house, on the far side of the garden until the Army arrived.”
The bomb disposal unit from Folkestone carefully removed the grenade, which they identified as a Mills bomb, taking it to a nearby field where it was safely detonated.
Mrs Homden said: “Leyton is very into his history and was really excited to think what they had found.
“I was more ‘Oh, my God!’
Chris and Leyton Homden at Aylesford Bridge
“Thank goodness I never let them wash their stuff in the house – always outside – because of the smell from all that river mud.
“The Army said it was still live and so potentially could have gone off.”
Mr Homden was blasé about the experience and said it would not put him off magnet fishing.
He said: “My friends are saying I should be giving thanks it didn’t blow me to pieces.
“But you know, we usually only pull out bits of old boats or maybe a horseshoe, so this was quite exciting.”
The Army said the 80-year-old hand grenade was still live
Mrs Homden has not banned the pair from their hobby but said: “I have told them if they ever pull out anything like this again, they are to leave it there and not bring it home.
“We only moved into our home six months ago, and the garden doesn’t need re-landscaping thank you very much!”
Designed by William Mills, the Mills hand grenade, originally known as the Mills bomb, was first used by the British Army in 1915 and was in use until 1972, with India using them up until 2021.
It is believed more than 75 million were manufactured. It was a fragmentation grenade, designed to cause death or injury by bursting into shrapnel on detonation that could prove deadly for up to 100 yards.
Josiah Parkes and Sons (JPS), a Staffordshire-based locksmith company, converted to making grenades during the Second World War.
The first grenade used by the Army was confusingly called the No 5. There were many variants over the decades although the appearance remained remarkably similar. It was the No 36M model that was mainly in use during the Second World War.