A mother and her ten-year-old son fled into the street in their nightclothes when fire ripped through their home.

Tanya Duford, 38, and son Craig were watching Saturday morning TV when they were alerted by smoke drifting down from an upstairs bedroom.

They raced outside to see thick black plumes billowing from the first-floor windows of their council-owned home in Thackeray Road, Worthing.

Ms Duford ran to a neighbour's house and made a 999 call. Firefighters battled for almost an hour to control the blaze.

When Ms Duford was allowed back inside she found her 16-year-old son Andrew's bedroom gutted.

Flames had charred his new bed, sofa, and carpet and destroyed all his possessions, including a DVD player he got for Christmas.

The whole first floor was badly smoke-damaged.

Mrs Duford said: "I keep crying but what I'm mainly worried about is how I'm going to tell Andrew he has lost all his things. We've tried his mobile but it's switched off, so he doesn't know yet.

"His whole room is gone and all his stuff - his clothes, his new DVD player, everything is ruined. We didn't have insurance so I don't know what we'll do.

"My family have been fantastic and are rallying round trying to find us quilts and things."

Craig said: "We just had to run straight out - I didn't even have any socks on and was just in my boxer shorts. The smoke was really black and the heat has cracked the windows.

"I don't like it because my mum keeps crying."