‘Oh heck’ – islander shocked to find grenade in old shed
A SHED clear-out became a lot more scary than planned when Pete Le Page uncovered a wartime grenade.
The device was safely disposed of in a controlled explosion at Fort Le Marchant yesterday morning.
Mr Le Page found the device when clearing out his wife’s aunt’s shed last week.
‘It was an old shed and it was full of stuff,’ he said.
‘I thought it was just cupboards and tools. It had not been touched in years – I had to clear things to get in the door. Just inside was this old rusty thing. I thought it was an old hammer head, so I picked it up. Only then did I realise what it was. I thought “oh heck”.’
While the grenade was very rusted, the firing pin was still in place and Mr Le Page was worried about the nearby house and road.
‘I carried it at arm’s length to the end of the garden and then ran away and called the police,’ he said.
The police took custody of it and Mr Le Page continued his shed clearance, only to discover bullets from a Lewis gun – a machine gun – in a washing up bowl. The magazine was still two-thirds full of live bullets.
Further checks also turned up an anti-aircraft shell.
The police were called back.
After talking to the family. Mr Le Page discovered his wife’s aunt’s second husband used to collect old munitions and they were displayed around the house at one time.
The shell and the bullets were disposed of separately, but the grenade was dealt with yesterday.
It is not known whether the explosives are from the First or Second world war, but all were in a severely rusted state.
PC Simon Hamon from the Guernsey Police bomb disposal unit said before the explosion that the device was leaking a bluey-green liquid.
That could either be corrosion from the aluminium base or high explosive. It was only when the device was blown up that the force of the blast showed the device still contained high explosive.
Mr Le Page came down to Fort Le Marchant and at 11am he pressed the button to blow up the grenade.
