A MOTHER and her teenage daughter "played catch" with a hand grenade before the danger dawned on them.

An Army bomb disposal team was called in and neighbours were evacuated after Mrs Jacky Vose, from Oswaldtwistle, came across the wartime relic in a chest of drawers.

Mrs Vose and 13-year-old daughter Anita, a pupil at St Wilfrid's High School, Blackburn, were in Bury clearing out the house of a great uncle who had died.

Mrs Vose was under the stairs kneeling on the floor with three bin bags for rubbish, charity items and other belongings.

Mrs Vose, of Buttermere Drive, said: "It was like some sort of Monty Python sketch.

"I just picked this item up in my left hand and without thinking wondered 'which bag do I put a hand grenade in.'

"I shouted to Anita to come downstairs and just tossed it to her and said 'here catch, do something with this'.

"She said 'I don't want this, here you have it' and tossed it back to me.

"I was bouncing it in my hand and then it dawned on me what it was. It was a proper hand grenade, a tiny bit rusty with the pin still in. "I went cold and just sat there very still thinking it could blow up in my hand." Shaking, Mrs Vose carefully put it down next to the telephone and called the police.

The police called in Army bomb disposal experts from Liverpool and the area was sealed off, with neighbouring houses evacuated and other residents told to stay indoors.

Fire and ambulance service were on standby during the hour-long alert.

Mrs Vose, an occupational therapist assistant at Accrington Victoria Hospital, said: "The bomb disposal squad took it away with them.

"They said it was a real World War Two hand grenade."

"I don't know if it was live or not. Someone told me if there was any powder the older it gets the more sensitive it is."

"We can laugh about it now, but it's not funny thinking that could have happened," she added.

An Army spokesman said: "It was an inert number 5 hand grenade and taken back to the barracks at Liverpool for disposal.

"We would always encourage anyone who finds something they consider suspicious to contact the police straightaway," he added.

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