Nothing explosive, but family’s beach find remains a mystery
A FAMILY’S afternoon stroll on the beach with a metal detector took an unexpected turn when they found what they feared might have been a bomb.
Jon Russell, who works for Betway, wife Maria, and children Samuel, 11, and Daniela, 7, had only just begun their walk at L’Eree when the detector indicated a find close to the top of the beach in front of the car park next to the public toilets.
Mrs Russell said the family were Wombles and often removed rubbish from beaches, but they did not use the metal detector often.
‘It’s a good incentive to get my son away from computer games though, which was why we had it down there,’ she said.
Mr Russell and Samuel chose an area to use the machine and they made the find within about a five minutes.’
‘We’ve never really found anything significant before and just things like old tin cans,’ said Mrs Russell.
It became clear that the object was quite long and Mr Russell and Samuel started digging.
‘Then my husband said it could be something like a bomb so we decided to stop and call the police.’
When officers attended they told people to keep away. Mrs Russell said the officers seemed to be digging around for a while and then they left.
The area was soon covered by the rising tide and she said they had heard no more.
A spokesman for Guernsey Police said the call had been made with good intent but they were satisfied that the item was not a bomb and just rubbish.
‘When we got home we looked at the photos we took and it looks as though it’s something like a cannon barrel,’ said Mrs Russell.
‘I’m quite curious about it.’
They returned to recover the object, but have not been able to identify it.
