AS A young man, 84-year-old William Chapman devoted his youth to fighting for his country.

The Hampshire war veteran served with the Royal Artillery during the Second World War, fighting for the rights of the generations to come in Britain.

When the pensioner was demobbed in 1946 he turned his dedication to a small allotment plot in a Southampton suburb and has tended it ever since.

But horrifyingly his world has now collapsed after vandals torched his shed, damaged his greenhouse and ransacked the Borrowdale Road plot. They destroyed a lifetime's work and thousands of pounds worth of gardening equipment.

Mr Chapman, of Wimpson Lane, Millbrook, who helped defend supply ships as troops landed on the shores of Normandy during D-Day nearly 60 years ago, says he may be forced to give up his lifetime's passion.

For the last 56 years he has carefully worked the plot, providing his large family with fresh vegetables.

Devastated by what has happened, he told the Daily Echo: "All my tools have been burned. My potatoes were all stored in the shed and there was fertiliser there too. My rotovator was burned along with my wheelbarrows.

Mr Chapman, who lives with two of his daughters one of whom is disabled, added: "My shed was burned to the ground. Everything in the greenhouse went. There has been more than £2,000 of damage. I spend all my time over there and I don't know what I'm going to do."

The vandals are thought to have run riot on the allotment site, breaking into four different plots and stealing thousands of pounds of equipment from sheds in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Mr Chapman's daughter Maureen Hughes, 52, said her distraught father was now talking of giving up working on the allotment.

She said: "He is saying he will give up today. He does not know what to do. It is his life's work and you can't salvage anything from it."

Alan Shepherd, 64, also had his shed torched when the vandals found they could not remove his two rotovators.

He said: "Because they were chained to a roller they torched it. I think youths were responsible."

Millbrook councillor Chris Proctor said he would be taking up the case urgently with the council with the aim of improving security at the allotments.

He said: "I don't understand the mentality of this. This sort of thing seems to be becoming more and more frequent in society and seems to be creeping into life in Southampton. The mentality seems to be unreal and a lot needs to be done."

Shirley police are investigating the incident which happened at about 4am and want anyone with information to contact them on 0845 045 4545.