A bomb ? You brought me a bomb ?

Jason was a wiry boy, short for his age and cheeky. Delightfully cheeky. He had exuberant hair not unlike my own, but his would have made Medusa fear she had a rival. Jason was in my class.

At that time, my class were housed in a hut across the yard from the main school. It was like shack in a bad cowboy film. There was a wonky stovepipe poking out of the roof, the window frames were falling out, and the whole thing was constructed of wood which had probably looked smart when it had arrived as a temporary classroom 70 years earlier. Inside, the floor was rotting through in places, and it re-defined the word ramshackle.

One Monday morning I was sitting at my desk counting the dinner money before the day got started for real. My class were doing what passed for silent reading. Jason arrived, late. This wasn't unusual, and nobody batted an eyelid in those days. He came in, already wrestling with his parka and walking across the classroom, sleeves flapping.

"Mr H,"' he yelled. "Wait till you see what I have got to show you". 

"Go and hang your coat up, Jason."

"Yes, but just wait till you see what I have got to show you."

I carried on counting, neat piles of coins across my desk. Jason came back, and there was a thump as he banged something on my desk. I remember the irritation as several piles of coins toppled over. I looked up. Jason was beaming proudly, expectantly. His eyes were sparkly, mischievously happy. He was so delighted I thought he might explode. I looked down at what he was so pleased with, and saw a hand grenade.

It did not look quite like this one. I could see straight away that the pin was missing, and the lever was sticking out almost at right angles to the grenade. It was held together with rust. I did not know a lot about grenades, but it looked to me as if this was bad news.

What to do ?

Without consulting me, a plan swung into action. I closed my hand round the grenade hoping that if the lever could not go further, then the thing could not possible blow up. I never did discover if this was true.

Telling the class rather sharply that they were to get on quietly, I edged out of the door and across the yard. Jason was standing in the doorway, no longer delighted, but slightly irritated himself.

"Mr H, where are you going with my bomb ?"

I confess that I was not in the mood to answer.

I went to see the head. (Incidentally, he was a lovely man who was like a father to me and gave me lots of chances to develop all sorts of wacky ideas). I knocked on his door and waited. There was some shuffling, and what might have been a newspaper folding. The wide door swung open. There was no conversation. I held up the grenade, and he pointed to the front door. I slunk off, still clutching the bomb. He shouted after me "Take it to the police station."

The police station was round the corner from school, and one of those small places where you have to ring for attention It was hemmed in by houses that seemed to be intent on overpowering it. The car park was littered with a few ill-parked Panda cars. I walked across and rang the bell. Nothing. I rang again and eventually a constable came to the door.

It was another wordless conversation. I lifted the grenade and he did the pointing. "Take it to the bottom of the garden," he yelled. I did, while he watched from the safety of the station. The bottom of the garden was as far from the police station as it was possible to get, and as close to private houses as I could possibly be without actually calling for breakfast.

I was beginning to feel that something had gone wrong with my day. It was not half past nine yet on a Monday, and here I was in a police station garden while my unsupervised class would be doing who knows what with all that dinner money. The officer yelled helpful suggestions, the main one being to cover it with leaves. Well, it was spring, and no leaves were in sight. In the end, I dug a completely inadequate hole with my hands and put the grenade neatly into it, covering it with soil like a large and slightly nervous cat.

I retreated.

Back at the hut Jason was indignant. "Where is my bomb ?" he demanded to know. I explained that the police had it. "Can I have it back at the end of the day ?" Jason was used to the concept of confiscation, and figured this would be the usual game.

I talked to Jason while the head rang his mum.

Jason had been camping that weekend in Clumber Park. Jason, his older brother, mum and dad, all in their small camping van. It was an adventure weekend.

At some point on Day 1, Jason and his brother had noticed some fins sticking out of the ground under a bush. Neither was much interested in reading, so they missed the yellow band that said "High Explosive", and went off to find a spade. While digging the thing out of the ground (clunk, clunk), they came across the grenade, and several rounds of ammunition, machine gun ammunition.

What to do ?

They were savvy enough to guess that Mum would not be happy with the find. They smuggled the grenade and the ammo into the camper wagon, and hid the anti-tank rocket (yes, that's right) under it.

(When Mum found out from us what had happened, she went white. I always thought this expression slight OTT, but yes, she went white. I thought she was going to keel over like a dead budgie.)

Home safely, they had set to, cleaning the ammo with brass cleaner, and taking the grenade out to play with in the garden. Playing turned out to mean chucking the grenade around the garden, more or less at each other.

(Cue Mum: turn white again.)

By mid-morning the bomb squad had arrived to collect Jason. They already had his brother from the secondary school. They whisked them and Mum off to locate the exact spot where the munitions had been found, and to recover the anti-tank rocket.

When Jason came to school next day, he brought a picture with him. It was him standing beaming in the crater left where the team had exploded his bomb, and they had taken the photograph for him. They had given him and his brother quite a talking to.

Jason talked to the class - all were excited and he held their attention brilliantly. Then we did creative writing about the incident. I think we started by talking abut what we had each seen the day before and it went on from there. We made the press, much to Jason's further joy, and the weeks' work on the bomb was some of the best the kids did.

Envoi

In the staff room, Tom, an older teacher formerly in the tank regiment was less than impressed. 

"You are a bloody fool,'" he said, unnecessarily brusquely, I thought. 

"Fancy taking the damn thing outside. You should have got the kids out and let it explode. We needed a new classroom and you missed the chance of a lifetime. Bloody fool."

Thanks, Tom.