FAMILY and friends of a former Horndon on the Hill man were shocked to see him make national newspaper headlines after a bombbeleivable brush with death!

Landscape gardener Stephen Cochrane, 36, who used to live in Gordon Road in the village before he got married and moved north, was with his team working on a home in the North Yorkshire village of Weeton when they dug up a cannister.

They freed it from the mud and thought it might have been a dud bomb. They passed it around and posed for selfies with it - but were stunned to find out it was real and unexploded Second World War munition.

Stephen, whose sister and other family members still live in Horndon, said his labourer was digging about two feet down when he struck metal.

"He's hit it with shovel a couples of times. We were passing it around and having a look" he said.

Stephen started to jet-wash the missile so he could take a piece of real-life history for his young son.

But after stopping for lunch, he thought to get a second opinion on the situation and rang the police, who asked him to email through a photo of the bomb.

And he was left shell-shocked when they called him back and told him to evacuate the site as soon as possible as bomb disposal experts were on their way to the scene.

The bomb disposal crew arrived and evacuated the whole street before making the bomb and site safe.

"It's not everyday you come across a World War Two bomb at work. "It didn't hit home until later how dangerous and silly we were being" said Steve.

"When I got home, it was a sense of 'bloody hell that was dangerous', but also relief."