TWENTY five homes were evacuated in the Luton area of Chatham after a suspected Second World War bomb was found in a garden.

Police sealed off Upper Luton Road and Army bomb disposal experts were called in. The alarm was raised after a grandmother feared an object found in her son's back garden might be unsafe.

But when the army arrived, just after 4pm yesterday, they found...an old-fashioned wash basin.

Police Insp Peter Tongue said: "It was the type with a little gas ring and used by people to boil their washing between the 1920s and 1950s. They were usually about 2ft in diameter and 2 to 3ft long."