A HAMPSHIRE woman suffered an electric shock when lightning struck her house early yesterday and a factory was razed by another strike just over four miles away.

The electric storm reached its devastating peak at about 2am when a bolt of lightning hit a pair of semi-detached houses in Jumar Close at Warsash.

It struck the corner of the roof in the home of former long-serving Hightown firefighter Bob Goble, ripping a hole in the structure under the eaves, damaging the guttering and fascia board and sending shock waves into the house next door, where water pipes were damaged and some flooding occurred.

The woman occupant suffered a shock from the incident and a relative said: "When we arrived, there was a lot of darkness and a lot of wetness. She is quite shaken."

Next door, Mr Goble, 56, who recently retired after 30 years as a Hampshire firefighter, met some of his former Hightown Fire Station colleagues when they arrived to deal with the incident .

He said: "There was quite a bang and the house shook.

"It took one of the bathroom lights right out of the ceiling.

"But I've seen plenty of lightning strikes and if it's not on fire and not leaking, you just wait until you can get a builder in."

The strike came as an almighty shock to his 13-year-old daughter Becky, who said: "I was already awake because of the thunder. I jumped and ran for my dad."

Just over four miles to the north, lightning completely destroyed a factory building at Trio Mouldings on the Bury Farm estate at Burridge.

A flatbed lorry, two cars and a van were also caught up in the blaze, while corrugated asbestos and gas cylinders added to the hazards facing firefighters.

Crews from Botley, Fareham, Hightown, Hamble, Lymington and St Mary's dashed to the scene off Botley Road just after 2am and some were still there damping down ten hours later.

Station Officer Malcolm Pinchin explained: "There were a number of cylinders of various types and we had to establish what they were."

Fortunately, he said, one which it was thought might have contained acetylene turned out to contain something potentially less volatile.

Elsewhere in the county, firefighters in the Farnborough area had to deal with a blazing telegraph pole, also because of lightning.