"I HAVE lost a lot of personal things and all the children's toys have gone, but the main thing is I could get my babies out and when I think like that it doesn't matter what has gone."

These are the words of 33-year-old mother-of-five Amanda Taylor, whose family home in Heather Close, Locking Stumps, went up in flames two weeks ago after her youngest child accidentally set fire to his bed.

Bradley, aged four, had found a box of matches and managed to strike a match alight in his room, dropping it in panic on to the bedding.

Wiping away tears as she spoke, Amanda said: "I was downstairs at the time. It was the school holidays and the children were all upstairs.

"The next thing Bradley was shouting to me and I went up and the bunk beds were on fire.

"It just went up so quickly - it went from being small to the whole bed going up in seconds.

"It was terrifying."

A single house-mum with children spanning in age from four to 16, Amanda did not have house insurance and has been overwhelmed by the generosity of neighbours and the community that have donated cash and household items to help her start again.

"Everything from upstairs has gone and we were left in what we were standing in," she said.

"All the kids' toys, their clothes, their school uniforms and their Christmas presents have been destroyed.

"I went through such a rigmarole to get them Nintendo DSs for Christmas because they were sold out everywhere and they were late arriving - they only had them five minutes and now they've gone. It is so upsetting, but the main thing is that the children are okay.

"Everybody has been so good and I can't thank them enough."

Amanda and her children have now moved into temporary accommodation while repair work is carried out on the upstairs of their family home, which was gutted by the blaze. Firefighter Matthew Kindon, who attended the fire on February 15, said: "When we got to the house the fire was pumping out of the bedroom that it started in and the bathroom.

"The whole house was smoke-logged and the upstairs was ruined."

Amanda said: "You just don't think it's going to happen to you and if people who don't have insurance or have left matches in reach of young children read my story it might make them stop and think and prevent this from happening to another family."

l Amanda wishes to thank the following for their donations and support: Birchwood Fire Service, Frontis Housing, friends, family, neighbours, Emma Whaley (support officer), St Joseph's Church, Thomas Risley Church, Bethany Pentecostal Church, Asda, QVC, Peacocks, Locking Stumps Primary School, Red Cross.