‘I whacked it with a hammer and then discovered it could have exploded’

A magnet fishing YouTuber was shocked to discover a wartime explosive in a town centre. A police cordon was put up after Raymond Berry pulled out the 10-inch First World War artillery shell from the River Medway in Maidstone . The 53-year-old, who lives in Bexhill near Hastings, told KentOnline how he and a friend had travelled to the town on Sunday (April 13) and taken up position underneath the A229 bridge near the Travelodge hotel.

For the last 11 years, Raymond has used a magnet to pull up objects from rivers and began documenting his finds on YouTube in September 2022. On his channel, Adventures In Finding Stuff , Raymond also mudlarks—something he learned to do on the River Thames when he was growing up in London. While he has found guns, knives and plenty of coins, this was the first explosive he has uncovered.



The social housing worker said: “I was pulling out the usual stuff like old bikes and shopping trolleys with a friend. “But around 3pm, up came an object about 10 inches long. It was covered in muck and rust, so I couldn’t tell what it was.

“I left it to the side for around 10 minutes to dry off before I came back to it and tapped it with a little hammer to get the muck off. “As it was coming off, I realised it was some sort of shell. I searched it and put a post in social media groups to see what it was.

“The consensus was it was a First World War artillery shell. I put it down and phoned the police who told me to stay with it until they arrived. “We just laughed about it, as just 10 minutes ago I had been whacking it with a hammer.

“It was very exciting and dramatic, and I can’t believe it happened to me.” But Raymond says he was “shocked” at how police took around “two hours” to attend the scene. He added: “I thought they would have flown here after I had told them I thought I had found a shell.

“While it was unlikely to explode after sitting in the river for more than a hundred years, it could have gone off. “Once the cordon was in place, we waited around for another hour or so to see if a bomb disposal unit arrived but they took ages as well so we decided to go home.” When the officers arrived at the scene, they set up a safety cordon next to the river footpath, following safety advice from the Ministry of Defence.

Kent Police would not be drawn on its response time. A bomb squad later attended and safely removed the item. KentOnline has approached the Ministry of Defence for more information about what happened to the shell following its removal.

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