This woman was startled when she discovered that a wartime
shell she had used as a vase for 30 years was still live.
Kathryn Rawlins, 45, found the shell buried in the playing fields at her school when she was 15.
she Assumed that it was safe, and thought it would make a nice vase, she had kept it filled with her favourite flowers for more than three decades but not until she saw a TV documentary and realized she may have actually been unintentionally keeping an unexploded bomb.
After she invited the police, MoD experts were brought in to
take away the vase and safely remove the explosive - before returning the
casing to her.
Warks, said: “The police
said the shell had the potential to have killed anybody within about 20 metres
of it and could have taken the house down.
“It’s funny to think
that I had it on my mantelpiece the entire time - it’s just become a part of my
family now.
“I have had the shell on
the mantelpiece for three decades now and even took it to university. I used to
stick plastic roses out of the top of it when I was dancing around to Madonna.
“Luckily my husband
Chris just thought it was funny.”
Kathryn said: “I made
the strangest call to the police non-emergency hotline. I started off the
conversation by telling them not to panic and attempted to describe the shell
that I had.
“I told them it was 12
inches in length and three inches across at its base. The top of it has a
conical tip, which can be unscrewed.
“I used to unscrew it
and put the flowers out of the top.
“It’s really heavy to
hold and has some writing that looks like it could be German around the top.”
“In the end I just sent
them a photo of the shell I’d been using as a vase. After the police saw that,
they had an officer at my house within the hour.
“The situation then
became very serious after the police told me that they would have to take the
shell to the local barracks as the Ministry of Defence needed to examine it.
“It was a little bit
worrying.
“The police brought it
back to me when they assured me the shell had been made safe though, so I’ll
carry on using it for my flowers.
“I took it into school
to show the kids - they loved it.”
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