THE great fight back is well under way in Hampshire as beach hut owners pick up the pieces after Friday's tornado.

More than 20 huts were damaged and some were completely written-off by the twister which also smashed the windows of cars and a coach and inflicted some damage on the main building at Calshot Activities Centre, Calshot.

But during a weekend of rebuilding, there was one unanimous theme among the beach hut owners at Calshot. No one was talking about pulling out or selling. All were saying Calshot, at the entrance to Southampton Water, is too good a place to leave.

As groups of friends and beach hut-owning neighbours got together to repair the damage, Jim Hallam from Shirley in Southampton, whose beach hut was flattened, said: "It's a bit like a war. It has brought everyone together."

An elderly couple cut free from their wrecked caravan, which rolled over several times with them inside as the 75mph wind hit, are also determined to return.

Bill Liddle, 73, and wife Joan, 74, from Christchurch in Dorset, suffered bruises in the incident, with Joan also cracking a rib.

But he said: ''This won't put us off. It's just one of those cases where we were in the wrong place at the wrong time.''

Brian Chilcott, a retired senior lecturer at the Southampton City College, was preparing to repair a damaged wall of his hut, which was lifted over or round the nine-feet high hut next to it and came to rest 50 feet away from its base.

He said: "It's going to cost a bit of money, but we'll get a little gang together and we'll get it back together. It's a beautiful spot here and far too nice for us to think about leaving."

John Duell from Dibden Purlieu was one of the luckier ones, with the four walls of his hut still intact, but the roof was knocked off by a runaway hut.

"The council phoned to tell us about the tornado and I didn't know what to expect, but I was quite relieved when I saw our hut," he said.

At the nearby Calshot Activities Centre, where two caravans were blown on to the beach and completely wrecked, Calshot Association chairman Bob Maidment said: "We seem to be suffering the sort of thing that has been happening to people abroad for years. They won't give up."

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