Emergency services descended on a quiet canal-side path this afternoon after a five-year-old boy pulled an artillery shell out from the canal in Ashton under Lyne.
William Nixon, 51, was out with two of his sons, five-year-old Leo and seven-year-old Riley, and friend Andrew, 49, magnet fishing in the canal this morning, June 19. The group, who are known online as the Leeds Magneters, were just about to finish at their spot at the bottom of Margaret Street and head to another bridge when little Leo unearthed an artillery shell, which is believed to date back to WWII.
The shell was discovered at around 11.50am, according to Mr Nixon, with police being called to the scene and putting a cordon in place for the bomb disposal experts to be called in. Greater Manchester Police had set up a cordon around the canal, which branches off from Cavendish Street and down several side streets, with the main scene focused around the bridge on Margaret Street where the shell was discovered.
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At around 3.10pm, bomb disposal experts removed the device from the area, speeding away from the scene with a full police convoy. The Manchester Evening News understands the artillery shell was being removed from the site to then be destroyed in a controlled explosion away from the scene, but no police confirmation had been received at the time of publication.
Mr Nixon said: "It was me, my two sons, and a friend of ours that came along and it was a bit of a rubbish bridge to be doing so we were just about to call it and head to another when low and behold little Leo pulls this shell out. To be honest, we don't like to find them because it causes too much mayhem for everyone around but when they're out they're out and you can't really do anything.
"I've been doing it for nearly three years and I've had a grenade and a shell, Leo actually found a Magnum 38 9mm handgun in Manchester around four weeks ago. When you pull something like that up it just kicks in, not a panic but more of a 'right now, what are we going to do?'.
"We used to ring the non-emergency number but the last time I did that I was on hold for an hour and then it took another three-and-a-half before anyone could come out so for things like this we just ring 999 and their response was amazing to be fair. It's one of them days, but for a five-year-old it's made his day."
Mr Nixon, who lives in Leeds, regularly travels to parts of the country to magnet fish, having been out in Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, and Ashton previously. It's not the first time he or his sons have found weaponry, with the group often coming across knives, several guns, and even a grenade before.
Little Leo found a Magnum 38 9mm gun in Manchester just four weeks ago, with Riley finding a German SIG Sauer WWII 38H handgun in Lincoln in December 2019, when he was just five. Older son Reece found a 106-year-old Vickers machine gun in a canal in Rotherham - taking both Reece and his dad's strength to pull it out of the water - which has now been displayed in a museum.
The bodies of water around Greater Manchester are one of Mr Nixon's favourite places to magnet fish, as they "always seem to give the goodies" - the interesting finds that can then be passed to police if they're prohibited weaponry such as guns or zombie knives, or kept if they're BB guns and not restricted by law.
Mr Nixon regularly makes YouTube videos showing off his finds, and will often sit in front of a board displaying all the items he's fished out and been legally allowed to keep. A number of bikes and phones are also fished out of the water, and whilst the team will try to locate the owners of them, it's often quite difficult to reunite people with their lost or stolen property - which makes it even better when they're able to locate the rightful owner.
Due to how common it is to find various weaponry, Mr Nixon has had to keep up-to-date with the latest legislation to ensure he hands over his finds to the police where necessary, calling officers out to pick up guns, machetes, and serrated blades picked up from the bottom of the water ways. However, explosives are one of his least favourite finds due to how disruptive they are to people in the local area.
He added: " We don't like to find them, it's a disruption to everybody's day, especially on father's day, people do moan and say 'oh they've caused chaos again' but it's not like we're fishing them out every week, that's only the third time in three years for us. I do feel for the residents though, it's not fair on them but as a hobby for me and my kids it's great.
A lot of people who do magnet fishing videos have mental health issues so getting out is great, it's a great hobby to get out as long as you clean the mess up too. People on the canals are pretty happy to not be getting their boats damaged by trollies and scaffolding bars, everything gets collected and scrapped. We really are good people who just sometimes get made out to be bad ones.
"It's a great hobby, and the kids love it. Mystery wise it's fantastic because you just never know what you're going to get. We've had everything, some WWII knives, bullets, guns, I mean everything. I love the history stuff, all the handguns have to go to the police but we can keep the BB guns but we have to be very careful."
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