A COUPLE whose house caught fire were saved by their alert young neighbour.

Clive and Noreen O'Leary were asleep in their home in Newsham, near Richmond, North Yorkshire, on Saturday morning when the fire broke out.

But thankfully for them, looking out of his bedroom window, was nine-year-old Tom Hunter.

Tom's mother, Helen, said: "I was in the kitchen when my husband, John, shouted that Tom thought he could see smoke coming from the neighbour's garage.

"At first we thought it was just steam coming from the central heating, but Tom insisted that it was smoke and that we should go and have a look.

"Even as I walked towards the garage, I wasn't 100 per cent sure it was smoke. It wasn't until I could actually hear the sound of the flames and I heard what I thought was a loud bang that I realised it was a fire."

The mother-of-three ran to the front door of the O'Leary's dormer-bungalow and was able to wake the couple as her husband called the fire brigade.

By then the fire had spread through the garage, which is attached to the house, and into a roof void of the property in Hall Garth Court.

Mr O'Leary, a 41-year-old marketing manager, said: "I remember exactly what time it was because my wife said 'who the hell could that be at 7.12 in the morning'.

"We were lucky to get out when we did, it could have been a lot worse. We can't thank Tom and Helen enough.

"The firefighters were great too, really professional, and we managed to save some of the furniture and my daughter Amanda's wedding dress.

"She only got married last week and she is away at the moment, but it will be the first thing she asks 'are you okay and how is my dress?'"

Mrs Hunter said that she was proud of her son, but she was not going to make too much of a fuss just yet.

"At the moment we are thinking of Clive and Noreen. We are thankful that they are safe, but they still have their house and their lives to put back together."

An investigation into the cause of the fire, by North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, is on-going.