A dad and son reeled in an unexpected catch while fishing last weekend - an unexploded WW2 grenade.

Chris Homden, 37, and his son Leyton, 10, pulled the explosive device from the river Medway in Kent on January 12.

They didn't realise until they returned home with their muddy objects - which resulted in a bomb disposal unit turning up at their home in Allington.

Mr Homden said when he and Leyton first returned home they left their haul in the garden and joined his wife Dawn, 44, and four-year-old daughter Paisley for a late lunch.

Afterwards, Mr Homden went back outside to clean the objects - and while wiping one lump of metal recognised the distinctive raised pineapple pattern of a hand grenade.

He said: "When I revealed the initials JPS, that clinched it. I knew that was a well-known make of grenade back in the Second World War."

The family called the police, who notified the Army.

The Homdens and their neighbours were then told to wait outside the front of the house until the Army arrived.

The bomb disposal unit from Folkestone carefully removed the grenade, which they identified as a Mills bomb, before taking it to a nearby field where it was safely detonated.

Mrs Homden said: "Leyton is very into his history and was really excited to think what they had found. I was more ‘Oh, my God!'"

"Thank goodness I never let them wash their stuff in the house – always outside – because of the smell from all that river mud."

"The Army said it was still live and so potentially could have gone off."

Mr Homden was more relaxed about the experience and insisted it would not put him off magnet fishing.

The process involves casting a powerful magnet on a long wire into the water and then hauling it along the bottom to see what it attracts.

He said: "My friends are saying I should be giving thanks it didn't blow me to pieces."

"But you know, we usually only pull out bits of old boats or maybe a horseshoe, so this was quite exciting."

Mrs Homden has told her husband and son to avoid bringing any unrecognisable objects home in the future.

She said: "We only moved into our home six months ago, and the garden doesn't need re-landscaping, thank you very much!"

Designed by William Mills, the Mills hand grenade, originally known as the Mills bomb, was first used by the British Army in 1915 and was in use until 1972, with India using them up until 2021.

It was a fragmentation grenade, designed to cause death or injury by bursting into shrapnel on detonation that could prove deadly for up to 100 yards.

It is believed more than 75 million were manufactured.