LONDON - When a friend out diving found a foot-long lump of metal on the seabed, printing firm boss Jeff Hayes decided it would make an ideal paperweight, reports Daily Mail.
For the next two years it sat on his desk as he chatted to his 150 employees - unaware that it was an unexploded bomb from the First World War.
It was only after the firm went into administration that the office landlord arrived with a friend who is a weapons expert and they realised the truth.
The pair gingerly carried the bomb out of the building and placed it in a flower bed before calling 999.
Ten police officers arrived at the offices of Goodman Baylis Printers in Worcester while two fire crews stood by. After inspecting the device, two soldiers from the Army bomb disposal unit placed it in the back of a truck and drove it to their base in Powick Hams, Worcestershire, where it is understood a controlled explosion took place.
The landlord, Clive Parks, had been touring the empty building with his friend Jon Williamson.
"I saw the bomb on the desk and thought, "That looks dangerous", said Williamson. "I shoot so I know about firearms, it still had a live detonator and the explosive TNT was exposed.
"We phoned the managing director and told him and he said, "I cannot believe it is dangerous, it was given to me by a friend". A fire brigade spokesman said: "There was TNT still left in it. If the managing director had put his feet on the desk after a hard day and accidentally knocked the shell on to the floor with a big thud, who knows, it may well have gone off."
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