Woman used live artillery shell as a doorstop for 20 years

For decades the seven-inch-long shell had been a family memento, polished and given pride of place on the mantelpiece. 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 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. A spokesman for the bomb squad said a firing mechanism had been activated during the First World War but the shell failed to go off. The mechanism had since fallen off but the 'live' charge could have exploded at any time.