Last updated at 16:23, Monday, 14 May 2012

BOMB disposal experts swooped on a house in Ulverston after the discovery of Second World War munitions in the loft.

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However, resident Joan Brown said she was nonplussed by the arrival of the crack team as she had been happily sleeping with the weapons in the attic for years.

Mrs Brown, 83, said the two rifle bullets and two spent anti-tank grenades were discovered at the weekend while her daughter Rachel Buckley was helping her clear out the loft of her Princes Street home.

It was not until Wednesday night that Mrs Buckley suggested they tell the police about the items, which were souvenirs Mrs Brown’s late husband, Major Robert Brown MBE, brought back from the war.

Police asked Mrs Brown to go and stay with her daughter until two members of the bomb disposal squad from Catterick, North Yorkshire, were able to make the 180-mile round trip to go and remove the items yesterday.

Although both the grenades, which Mr Brown brought back from his time serving in the anti-tank regiment in Europe, India and Burma, were spent, the bullets were still live.

Mrs Brown said she had been happily living in the house with the items since 1965.

She said: “They were very kind and they thought it was funny. I knew there were things like that there. It didn’t bother me, there was no way somebody who had been through what my husband went through in the war would have left live stuff. Although the little bullets were live, you would have needed to hammer them in all directions to make anything of them.”

After returning from the war Mr Brown worked as a lawyer for Barrow firm Brown and Murray, receiving an MBE for services to industrial tribunals. He died 16 years ago, aged 82.

Mrs Brown said the discovery had caused particular excitement for her grandson Alfie, six.

She said: “Alfie my grandson hoped they would be live and asked if we could get him out of school if they had to go and throw them in a field and explode them.”

A Cumbria police spokeswoman said the ammunition had been disposed of by the bomb squad and had never posed a risk to the public.

First published at 13:16, Friday, 11 May 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk