Gardener thought WW2 bomb was bottle of Coke

A landscape gardener said that when he discovered a World War Two bomb he at first thought it was a Coke bottle.

Paul Probert was using a mechnical digger on Stephenson Road, Worcester, on Thursday when he unearthed the unexploded device.

"I put it to one side, rolled it out and that's when I suddenly realised 'this is a bit more than a Coke bottle'," he said.

The discovery saw the residential street evacuated, the bomb removed and then destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Mr Probert had been carrying out the work for his friend James Dobson.

"He was digging away in the garden, the digger stopped, [he] called me over and asked me if that was a bomb," Mr Dobson said.

"I phoned the client and showed it to him and he went 'oh brilliant' and thought it was highly amusing.

"I asked him what he was laughing at and he said 'oh it's not me having to deal with it'."

A cordon was put in place by police on Stephenson Road on Thursday after the discovery

Mr Probert added of the ordnance: "[It was] slightly rusted with a bit of a scrape mark on the top where I'd hit it with the digger, my lucky day I think."

West Mercia Police officers arrived within about 10 minutes of being called and put a 100m cordon around the site.

A specialist Explosive Ordnance Disposal team was called in to remove and destroy the bomb, the force said.