An auctioneer inadvertently triggered a full-scale police alert when he unearthed a hand grenade in a garden shed.
Charles Hanson, of Hansons Auctioneers in Lichfield, had been instructed to clear the home of Mary Craddock in Lichfield Road, Brownhills, following her death earlier this year at the age of 94.
Mrs Craddock had shared the home with her sister Ann Seedhouse until she died four years ago aged 92.
As he was rifling through an old chest of tools in the garden shed, Mr Hanson spied the grenade – thought to date back to the First World War – nestling in the corner.
Express and Star reports
