Pensioner tidy's up garden as house burns down

A pensioner's £525,000 four-bedroom detached house became a bonfire while he was busy in the garden.

John Stopher said: "I didn't hear the fire as I had the strimmer on or smell it because the wind was in the wrong direction.



"When my neighbour shouted over the fence, 'Your house is on fire', I looked and saw flames out of the window. I poked open a door and smoke singed my hair. I made a rapid exit. We lost nearly everything."

John, 69, and wife Suzanne, 55, had lived for 36 years in the house in Barton-on-Sea, Hants, which was gutted by the blaze. The cause of the fire is being probed.

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