On Friday I was woken by helicopters, sirens and the phones ringing. A big fire, apparently, right by me.

So I ran out the house and the West Pier was on fire. Really on fire. Big flames, lots of smoke, the lot.

But it's disconnected from the land so the firefighters had no way of getting to it.

We don't have any fire boats in Brighton and Hove so what could we do?

The crowd slowly gathered and we just watched as this best pier of all times burnt itself out.

It took only a couple of hours. Lovely clean smoke. No chemicals or nasties which we expect of fires, just the smell of quality wood - oak and pine, I thought.

There are rumours, as usual, but maybe she just self-immolated. She was her own funeral pyre and knew it was time to go. A sad day.

-Nimrod Ping, Regency Square, Brighton