A Market Drayton man has relived the moment he discovered what was first thought to be a mortar device at his home this week.
Paul Sokolov was carrying out renovation work at his home in Westland Road on Sunday when he found the device at around 4pm.
Police sealed off the road for around four hours and asked residents to stay indoors, before an Army explosives expert confirmed that it was infact an illumination round used to light up battlefields.
Paul said: “I was just doing some work on the house which involved pulling down the ceiling in the bathroom.
“It’s quite an old house and as I was pulling down all the old plastering and insulation, I noticed this mortar shell which was about to fall down from the ceiling.
“I thought ‘that looks real – I better get out,’ then I called the police and got them to check it out as it’s not the sort of thing you can throw in the bin.”
Police arrived at the scene and took a photograph of the device before sending it to an Army Explosives Ordinance Depot for identification.
An explosives specialist sent to Market Drayton finally confirmed that it was an illumination round, possibly from the 1920s, that had already been fired.
Paul said: “My wife had just got out of the shower when I found it, so I had to send her off to my mother-in-law’s house.
“The device was so close to the edge of the roof and there was 80 years of dust up there.
“It wasn’t a good thing to go and leave in your loft.”
Richard Ewels of West Mercia Police said: “Police received a call from a resident who was doing some work to renovate his 1920s property when he found what appeared to be a mortar round in the loft area.
“He was obviously concerned and contacted the police who in turn contacted the Army’s Explosives Ordinance Depot, supplying them with a photograph of the item.
“They were able to deduce from that, with a degree of certainty, that it was not a mortar round and they sent out a specialist who was able to confirm that it was an illumination round.
“We would like to thank local residents for their cooperation during this operation and any inconvenience caused to them was regrettable.
“But we had to put public safety first and foremost and until the device was declared safe, we had to act on the advice of the army specialist.”
By Winston Brown