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WW2 bomb found in back garden

Tom Rowley
24/ 8/2005

A GAMESLEY woman discovered something unexpected while planting her borders...an unexploded World War Two bomb.

Pat Ellison was digging a hole to plant roses when she saw a metal object in the ground. Not realising what it was, she banged it a few times with a pick.

Pat, 67, said: "At first I thought it was a piece of a drain pipe. It was very corroded, shaped like a flask and about 10 inches long with a screw at one end. I prised it out, called my husband John and he said, 'that's a bomb!"

They called the police and the bomb squad, who identified it as a British PIAT anti-tank weapon. They then spent around four hours at the scene in her back garden on Glossop Road last Friday afternoon.

Cool-headed Pat had dug a hole near her concrete garage and carefully placed the device in it.

She said: "I thought that if it did go off any explosion would be contained.

"There used to be a firing range at Melandra during the war and that's where we think it came from. When the bomb squad said the field across the road wasn't big enough to blow it up in, it did make me think! They put it in their bomb box and took it away."

A Glossop police spokesman said: "Our advice to anyone who finds something suspicious that looks like a grenade or a mortar, is give us a ring. We will take it from there and contact the army bomb disposal squad who will come and make sure it is not live and make it safe if necessary."