THE brother of a teenager killed in a World War Two bombing was distraught to see her grave desecrated by vandals.

Retired Dorset traffic warden Mr Green, 79, says he was shocked at the toll taken by vandalism on many of the memorials at New Milton cemetery.

He travelled from his home in French Mill Lane, Shaftesbury, to New Milton to visit his sister Barbara's grave.

Barbara was killed in a war-time air raid on New Milton as she left Matthew's cycle shop to bicycle to Bournemouth. She was 17.

At the time Mr Green was 14 and employed as a farmhand at Golden Hill, Hordle.

He heard the German aircraft overhead and the explosions as the bombs fell, but had no idea they had rained terror, death and destruction down on the town centre.

Barbara's body was buried in the cemetery at the parish church of St Mary Magdalene, Old Milton.

Mr Green said: "The stone is broken in half and the other half missing.

"But it's the devastation of the whole cemetery. It's like a nightmare. You don't expect it to be desecrated like that.

"It made me feel ill to see it. It's terrible."

The area where his sister's grave is was worst affected, he said.

Rector the Rev Andrew Bailey said he had got the impression the damage had been done to Barbara Green's grave "a long time ago".

"There have been some times in the past when people have damaged graves and monuments, but this hasn't happened recently," he said.

"A great deal of time and effort is spent in the churchyard keeping it tidy and in good order."

Police had been helpful with patrols to stop repeat attacks after past incidents but fast food outlets and other late night shops at Old Milton were an attraction, he added.

"They are almost exclusively young people aged about 12 or 13 who gather in the churchyard and they are the group, regrettably, suspected of causing the problems, which is a sad reflection of today," he added.

Churchwarden Doris Stanley said: "We haven't had any real vandalism for six months or so, but they took all the tiles off the lytchgate about nine months ago. We got it re-tiled and then they got up there again and took some more off."

In addition windows had been smashed by yougsters throwing stones.

She said the older part of the churchyard was in a bad condition. A retired churchgoer spends his Saturdays tidying up and community services teams are helping out as well.

"It does look a bit like a bombsite, to be honest," she said.

First published: August 20