Imagine the surprise and joy felt by the municipal police in Chauchina when a man walked in with a rusty, 80-year-old, unexploded grenade and plonked it on the main desk…

He placed it down in front of the duty desk policeman and explained that he had found it on the outskirts of the town. The cringing policeman immediately phoned the Guardia Civil who sent around a bomb-disposal unit. No doubt, whilst they waited for the real police to arrive, the ‘gift bearer’ was quizzed on his IQ.

Amazingly, this was the second hand-grenade found on the same day (25th November), although in two different locations.

The first one was discovered in Alfaguara in Alfacar (Parque Natural de la Sierra de Huétor). A hiker spotted the Spanish-Civil-War era grenade next to the footpath. Fortunately, he had the good sense not to put it in his pocket and scare the hell out of his municipal-police personnel. He phoned, instead, the Guardia Civil and hung around for them to turn up, resisting the urge to kick it playfully.

After these two discoveries, the Guardia Civil issued a warning about handling unexploded ordnance, clarifying that the correct course of action was to phone 062. Picking it up and taking it into an urban area is a no-no… even if it is to the local police station.

Editorial comment: Being a Wiltshire lad and having grown up on Salisbury Plain, I spent much of my childhood hunting out unexploded mortar rounds, and spent bullet cases for their scrap value – my mother was blissfully unaware of this.

(News: Vega, Granada, Andalucia)