A landscape gardener had his life in his hands when he discovered a live Second World War bomb last week.

The 37-year-old uncovered the six inch shell while working in Elm Road, Collier Row, last Friday.

Thinking it was an imitation shell, plucky Steve Fisk quickly dug up the live bomb and walked around the garden with it, showing the war-era device to his shocked father-in-law.

Steve, co-owner of S&K Gardening Services in Romford, said: “I picked it up in my hand and said: ‘What do you think this is?’ My father-in-law knows quite a bit about war history and said her thought it was from an ack ack gun used in anti-aircraft missiles.

“When you’re landscape gardeners you don’t think about digging up that sort of thing. At that point I literally had my life in my hands.

“I placed it in the middle of the lawn and we called the police.”

Within a few hours the house was surrounded by five police cars and two van-loads of army bomb disposal experts who evacuated the street.

Confirming it was in fact a live bomb, the army men decided to move the shell to an open field close-by and explode the device.

Steve said: “After 60 years in the ground the outer casing had rotted away but the fuse was still attached.

“It still had two to four ounces of powder in it so it could have done a fair bit of damage.”