A youngster's prank saved six people after fire ripped through the house where they were sleeping.

Mandie Collins was woken yesterday morning at 1.30am when an alarm clock, set by one of her children as a practical joke, went off.

When she went to turn it off she found the television in the front room, where three of her children and one of their friends were asleep, had caught fire.

The flames quickly destroyed the room and spread through the rest of the semi-detached house.

She said: "I woke up in the night, went downstairs and the TV was alight and then it all went pear-shaped.

"At that point the fire was quite small. It spread at an amazing rate. I could not believe it. We did not even have time to get any clothes on."

She and her boyfriend hustled her children Annie, 12, Andrew, 11, Alfie, two, and their friend Jack Bourne, 11, who was sleeping there, out through the back door.

She said: "We were very, very lucky. If the boy had not played the practical joke with the alarm clock I do not think we would be here."

Mandie woke her neighbours at The Green, Ringmer, in case the blaze spread.

The house was burning fiercely when firefighters arrived and the stairs had already collapsed.

Mandie's two other children were staying at her mother's house nearby.