Skegness Magazine

YOUNGSTERS FIND STOLEN AMMO: STILL LIVE, WARN POLICE

STOLEN ammunition, dumped in Skegness’s seafront waterway in 1967, and hunted for later by police frogmen, was found by children when the waterway was drained prior to being cleaned out for the next holiday season.

A senior police officer said: “We have recovered a lot of it from youngsters, but there might be others who have some of this ammunition and do not realise how dangerous it is.
“They or their parents should contact us immediately.”
The police went to the waterway this week after the find had been reported to them. They took away a .22 rifle and several hundred rounds of .22 ammunition which had been buried in the mud.
But the children had been there before them. Several of them were seen later by the police and gave up ammunition they had taken away.
STILL LIVE
The police spokesman warned “Anyone who still has some of this ammunition should know that, despite it being covered in mud and being underwater for so long, it is still live.
“The rounds had been well greased and have not been affected much by the water.
Any youngster ignorant of this will be in danger if he tampers with them or throws them about.”
The ammunition is believed to be the remainder of a hoard stolen from a rifle range last year. The children found it almost under a waterway bridge not far from the Sun Castle bowling greens.
That was where police frogmen, called in shortly after the rifle range theft, also found rifles and ammunition—a find which later led to men being dealt with by Skegness magistrates.

Research Source: Skegness Standard 24th April 1968