Your doorstop is a bomb

For decades the seven-inch-long shell had been a family memento, polished and given pride of place on the mantlepiece. The First World War relic also served as a toy and finally, for the past 20 years, as a front doorstop at the home of 68-year-old Thelma Bonnett. At any time during all those years, however, it could have exploded.

The German squat shell was live, packed with its original payload and with its firing mechanism primed, experts have said. It was only when a neighbour saw the shell outside Mrs Bonnett's door that the danger became clear.

The police were called and they summoned Royal Navy bomb disposal experts to the house in Paignton, Devon. Several neighbours were evacuated from their homes and the device was taken to a local quarry and exploded.

It had been in the family for nearly a century after her grandfather Arthur Croxall brought it home in 1918. "I had no idea it was dangerous," Mrs Bonnett said.

"Grandfather picked it up on his travels with the Merchant Navy in 1918. My father used to polish it all the time and kept it on the mantelpiece. It looked German because of the writing on the top. When I was young, five of us children would play with it. I don't think he would have brought it back if he'd known it was live."

The mortar shell was seen propping open the door by neighbour John Malinovskis.

He said: "I put two and two together and thought, 'That really shouldn't be there'. I asked Thelma if she knew about it and she said, 'Oh yes, it's from the war'. She said her father had polished it and kept it on the sideboard."

Mrs Bonnett's son Steve added: "I remember it in my grandparents' house when I was growing up. I probably played with it a few times. It was just one of those things that was always around."