We were interviewed by a reporter from one of the red tops and they had to re-take our photo several times because we didn't look miserable enough.
More exactly they put them on the side of the field and the military (eventually) hauls them off to sites so they can dispose of them.
The nuts thing is that quite often they're chemical weapons they do this with - but it's not much different to what the military do - but nobody wants a cordon sanitaire around a productive field, so DIY it is.
I've never seen it done, but I did meet a farmer with an impressive array of ordnance stacked in his grange, some of which he sold, the rest of which he said he burned in a deep hole. Sure, single data point, but he definitely held the "this is what we do" attitude. This would've been '93.
They are both stupid ideas, but I can't see how a farmer would live past maybe one or two of those burn piles.
Was your father prosecuted?
Edit: see stefanfisk comment, there is a surprising similarity between one type of wwi motar and wwi machine gun barrels.
The bomb went undetected as he travelled back to the
UK through the Tunnel but later, as he attempted to
return to France to show the device to a war expert
friend, he was stopped for a routine check.0. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-i/this-red-zone-i...
http://www.maginternational.org/what-we-do/where-we-work/mag...
> "If it hasn't exploded in all this time, why would it go off now?"
This explains why someone might be (erroneously) confident that it won't spontaneously go off, but even if that was right, saying it hasn't spontaneously gone off doesn't tell you anything about what will happen if you instead activate the mechanism. Why would they conclude it's inert from the fact that it hasn't spontaneously gone off?
Even if their understanding of explosives is wrong, they must still understand that it's an offence to have these munitions?
Also, be careful of first aid kits from that era, as they sometimes used picric acid as an antiseptic on gauze, often in contact with a metal case...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picric_acid
> In the early 20th century, picric acid was stocked in pharmacies as an antiseptic and as a treatment for burns, malaria, herpes, and smallpox. Picric acid-soaked gauze was also commonly stocked in first aid kits from that period as a burn treatment.
On the slightly positive side, picric acid also sublimates, but I'm not sure how long it would take for evaporate from the first aid kit. On the other hand, sublimation also increases the surface area of any metal container for forming metallic picrates.
How could he mistake a « piece of metal » with a machine gun barrel ?
As farmers work on the fields in northern France they regularly find artifacts from the war and just toss them aside as an annoyance.