Elvira Olsen and Annie Farrugia say an incident involving their neighbour being abused on the streets is not an isolated incident.

A 95-year-old Palmerston North war veteran says he's had "a gutsful of living" after copping abuse from people in the street.

The man, who did not wish to be named out of fear, was on his mobility scooter driving along Broadway Ave on Wednesday, February 3, when a group of kids allegedly jumped on the back of his scooter and tried to push him off.

A pair leaped on the front and began playing with the levers and pushed his face, he said.

"They tried to pull me out of the seat," he said.

The boys were scared away by a man who was driving past at the time and jumped out.

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"Like a fool I just carried on, I didn't even thank the man.

"I went into the ANZ and the girl said to me 'what's the matter' and I said 'I've had a gutsful of living'."

He said the boys were not wearing a uniform.

His neighbours, Elvira Olsen and Annie Farrugia, said he was in shock when they saw him. He was shaking and was almost in tears.

He hadn't been sleeping properly since the incident, he said.

"I'm terribly scared, I don't know why?

"The best thing that could happen to me is to die."

Olsen and Farrugia were disgusted by how their neighbour was treated.

"He fought for this country and this is how he is being repaid?" Olsen said.

"They think, oh they're old, who cares."

However, the group said it was not uncommon for elderly to be abused in the street.

The man recalls being yelled at by a woman at The Plaza a few months ago after she bumped into his scooter.

"She said: You old bastard what use are you? I lay in bed for a day thinking about it. She was right."

Olsen said she was sworn at by a woman after the pair collided while entering a supermarket. She was using her walker, the woman was on her cell phone.

"She stood there and swore at me."

Farrugia has two broken toes after slamming into a metal pole near Pak N Save trying to avoid hitting a child who was running in front of her. The child's parent did not seem to care, she said.

"It happens all the time," Farrugia said.

"They are coming at you, and you're stopping and they walk into you and they're calling us bastards and things like that.

"Just because we're old they treat is like we don't exist."

Inspector Dave White said police had not heard of such incidents but hoped that those involved would contact police straight away.

"They should ring us at the time and we can try and investigate."

Grey Power president Lew Findlay said the behaviour was completely unacceptable, considering that man had gone to war "to ensure those juveniles' freedom".

Older generations were respected in years past, however now they were targeted, bullied and ostracised, Findlay said.

He hoped that the children and their parents were ashamed of the behaviour the man had been subjected to. The altercation gave further impetus to making sure Palmerston North was a World Health Organisation-accredited age-friendly city, he said.

Age Concern New Zealand's social worker in Palmerston North, Robyn Baker, said incidents like this could be harmful to anyone's self-esteem.

Making people feel as though they were unsafe to go out in public was a a form of abuse and it was disappointing that older people were being treated this way, she said.

"That's not OK. People should be able to feel confident in the community."

She urged those people to notify the organisation when it happened.