In her mind's eye, Daphne Mitchell can still hear and see the sights and sounds of Brighton's West Pier in its heyday.

The memories come flooding back every time she looks at the crumbling wreck of the once stately structure.

She recalls the laughter of playing children, the smell of fish and chips in the Ocean Restaurant and the colourful characters who worked there.

Daphne, of Clarendon Road, Hove, spent the happiest 15 years of her life catering for the thousands of visitors to the pier before it was sold in 1965.

However, her happiness has turned to anger over the way the pier was allowed to deteriorate until part of it collapsed into the sea on December 29.

She said: "I know the pier was well maintained and cared for when I worked there. The decline and decay set in from the very first day it changed hands.

"Some of my friends think it is beyond saving and should be given a Viking funeral, a blazing burial at sea.

"I can't envisage it ever being rebuilt. I think it has struggled for long enough against the elements. Let nature finish what others started."

Daphne, 72, began work as a cook in the concert hall kitchens on the West Pier in 1956 but had never set foot on it before she applied for a job there.

She said: "I thought it would be quite frightening working over the sea but the strange thing was you never really noticed it.

"Several times I saw porpoises basking in the sea. The first time I thought they were whales.

"Miss Hardy was head of catering when I started there. She really frightened me.

"They said she had been in the Army catering corps and even the dog sat to attention when it saw her.

"I made many friends during my time there, including my closest and truest friend Bonny James. I will never forget her and wish she was still here to voice her memories."

The pier was open every day, including Christmas Day, and she worked six days a week from 10am to 10pm.

Daphne said: "Before I worked there, I'd only ever cooked for four but ended up cooking for hundreds at a time.

"We were taught to look after the customers and always heat the cups before serving tea or coffee.

"We also had a high standard of hygiene. The local food inspector never caught us on the hop because we were always told when he was on his way down the pier."

Because they were backroom staff, Daphne and her colleagues were expected to be seen and not heard, especially when Oh! What A Lovely War was filmed there.

Daphne said: "They were filming right outside our window at the West Bar and we had to be nosy and look outside.

"There were dozens of extras in army uniform singing Goodbye Dolly Gray to their loved ones before going to war.

"The military band was playing and it was a very moving scene."

On another occasion, television quiz show host Hughie Green took over the concert hall for a week to make an advert for White Tide soap powder.

Daphne and one of her friends were given the task of looking after him.

She said: "Every few minutes the cameraman would shout for everyone to be quiet, just as the water was going down the plughole in the kitchen. We had to hold a dishcloth in the hole until the shot was taken.

"In the advert on television you could hear the sound of breaking china where we had dropped a cup on the last take."

She never discovered why the board of directors decided to sell the pier - a decision which devastated the manager, who died soon afterwards.

She said: "The pier ended up like a ship without a captain and crew. It was virtually running itself.

"It was utter chaos and after all the years it had been kept going, it didn't take long for the obvious outcome.

"There are a lot of people who must remember when there was nothing cheap and nasty on the West Pier.

"It was only from the late Sixties when it changed and there was nothing any of us could do except watch it go down to become what it is today.

"I look at it now and take myself back to the 15 happiest years of my life. I can still hear the noise, the atmosphere - everything. That is how much of an impression it made on my life."

Daphne was so inspired by her time on the pier she wrote a booklet titled Oh! What A Lovely Pier, published by QueenSpark Books in 1996.