TAUNTON schoolboy Alexander Parmar sparked a major bomb alert when he discovered a live hand grenade while playing in his uncle's garden.

The ten-year-old from Barr, near Bishop's Hull, discovered the live Second World War hand grenade hidden among some bullets.

Alexander was exploring the garden shed of his uncle Gordon Chamberlain, who lives next door, when he unearthed the bomb.

Gordon, 77, said: "Alexander came running towards me shouting at what he had found in my shed. He was holding what seemed to resemble a Second World War hand grenade.

"On closer inspection it was a hand grenade. I'm a former Para, so I knew it was real and very dangerous.

"Alexander showed me to my shed where an old box lay open containing bullets. There were two boxes and one was open. I told the children they had to keep well away."

Police sealed off the road around surrounding houses for nearly five hours while a bomb disposal unit from Gloucestershire examined the box contents and made the grenade safe.

The boxes had remained untouc-hed since Gordon closed his removal business, Chamberlain's Furniture Works, about three years ago.

He added: "I worked as a military contractor for the army, and the business involved moving soldiers' belongings over to Northern Ireland.

"The boxes were the last few left over after I sold my factory and I just moved them into my shed and forgot about them.They had been in my factory for around 20 years."