WW2 device becomes beer cooler after bomb scare

Ross Miller had been getting ready for a barbecue when he found the device

A man who was mowing his lawn ahead of a sunny afternoon barbecue with friends hit a metallic object and uncovered a World War Two bombshell.

Ross Miller had been getting ready for friends to visit his home in Putley, Herefordshire, on Saturday, but ended up with police cordoning off the garden and a visit from a bomb disposal unit instead.

The 1940s device turned out to be a 25lb (11kg) bomb casing, experts said.

Bomb disposal experts confirmed there were no explosives left in the shell before they cleaned it and gave it to him as a souvenir, with Mr Miller saying he would "polish it up and use it as a beer cooler."

The Miller family moved into the 1950s property last August, knowing the previous owners had said there was something metallic at the bottom of the garden.

They believed it was a pump, or part of the water supply.

When he stumbled on it, the 48-year-old software engineer said: "I had a quick look at it, brushed it and thought 'this doesn't look like a pump'.

"There's a percussion cap in the middle – what looks like would be on the end of a bullet… and it said 1940 at the bottom."

The family knew there was something metallic in the garden but did not know it was a bombshell

He said his nine-year-old daughter was standing beside him at the time and he thought "the last thing we want is for anything to explode".

He tried 101 and held for 30 minutes before he dialled 999, and West Mercia Police told him to stay away from the wartime discovery and send them pictures.

Mr Miller told his visitors to "stay away" and police turned up at about 13:30 BST and set up a 100m cordon around the shell and closed the street.

"After about two hours' waiting around, EOD (explosive ordnance disposal unit) turned up and said 'yep it's a 25-pounder'," he said.

Mr Miller said he planned to put ice in the casing and use it to hold beer at the barbecue he rescheduled for Sunday.

"I had to take the sensible approach and had to call the police," he said.

"Unfortunately, when you find something like that in your garden, you've got to do something."