A Leigh family had a close call with an Second World War explosive when they considered taking it home to give to a relative as an amusing gift.

Narrow escape - Hollie Grace and mum Lea made headlines finding the shell Picture: MAXINE CLARK 2TEWQ9

The abandoned shell was later blown up by the Navy off the coast, after police had evacuated a 200m stretch of Old Leigh next to Bell Wharf to allow the procedure to go ahead safely.

Hollie Grace, 15, went for a stroll along the seafront with her family on Sunday evening when they discovered the shell. Hollie, a Cecil Jones pupil, was the first to spot the old explosive, which was about three inches in diameter and a foot long, and took it up to her mother, Lea.

Mrs Grace, thinking it was a spent shell, suggested taking it to Hollie's grandfather, Stan Herd, to put it in his garden.

Mrs Grace said: "I said to her 'your grandfather would love that. I thought it would be a joke to have a spent Second World War shell in the garden. It would be nice as a souvenir."

But common sense prevailed when Hollie's father, Bob, told his daughter to put the shell down and notified the foreshore officer.

Mrs Grace said: "I told him not to be silly. I assumed it was a spent shell and didn't imagine it would be dangerous. Maybe fishermen had trawled it up and tossed it overboard.

"It's a good thing my husband was there because if he hadn't been, the shell would have been bouncing in our car boot shortly afterwards."

The Grace family waited until the police arrived and then went back to their home in Guildford Road, Southend.

Royal Navy bomb disposal experts performed a controlled explosion offshore later that evening, but the family didn't find out it was an explosive shell until the following day. Mrs Grace said: "I feel very silly. I should know better."

Published Tuesday July 13, 2004

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