A school holiday sleepover almost ended in tragedy for seven children and two adults when a candle set fire to bedroom curtains.

Only quick thinking by the children, who carried out lessons learnt in school fire drills, and working fire alarms in the house owned by Bob Withers, 51, and his wife, Mel, in Freshfield Road, Brighton, ensured everyone escaped safely.

Christy Gates-Bowes, 12, raised the alarm when he went to the toilet at 2.30am yesterday and saw a glow from 16-year-old Polly Withers' room next door. He realised there were flames and raised the alarm.

Bob, a Jungian analyst and college lecturer, dialled 999 and roused all nine people in the house to get them out.

He ushered the half asleep Polly out of her smoke-filled room as flames licked against the windows.

He then dashed upstairs to wake his daughter, Imogen, 13, who had friend, Bella, 13, sleeping over and then ensured his son, Leo, 12 and his schoolfriends Ben, 12, Bobby,12 and Christy, were all safe.

Christy had no idea of the danger at first, saying: "I saw a red light flashing and thought it was a police car or an emergency vehicle or something. Then I heard a bang and saw smoke coming from Polly's room. The fire alarm went off and I dashed up to Bob and Mel's room to warn them the house was on fire.

Bob said: "Christy came into our room and said there was a fire. By this time a fire alarm was going off.

"The smoke was coming from Polly's room. There were flames four feet high by the window. I woke her up but she tried to go back to sleep again and I had to drag her out.

"I then checked everyone was out of the property and then started to tackle the fire myself by filling buckets of water from our goldfish pond and throwing water at the flames."

Fire crews from Roedean arrived within five minutes but the flames had been extinguished by then.

An ambulance was called and Bob and Polly were given oxygen as a precaution.

Bob said: "It was lucky the children had been prepared to act calmly from fire drills at school. It was also lucky we had three fire alarms in the house.

"If there had been any further delay, Polly could have been seriously injured. We have obviously had a word with her about going to sleep with night light candles still burning."

Polly said: "I have definitely learned my lesson about leaving candles burning at night. I will not do it again."