'The sky turned red' - My lucky escape on the worst night of the Blitz

When the frightening drone of air raid sirens began on a winter's evening in 1941, Ted Bush was at the cinema with his mum and dad.

Within hours, his mid-terrace family home in Cardiff had been completely destroyed by bomber planes, during a night when 165 people across the city were killed.

More than 35,000 tonnes of bombs and incendiaries were dropped on UK towns and cities during the Nazi's eight-month aerial campaign known as the Blitz.

Now aged 92, Ted has recalled his dramatic journey out of Cardiff that night and believes it was was sheer "luck" that he and his family survived.

"It was a George Formby film, and we're an hour into it and the sirens sounded and everyone was asked to go to the shelters," recalled Ted, 85 years since the end of the Blitz.

"And my dad... because he was on leave from the Army and he was stationed in Newport, he had use of a small Army car for doing 'gofer' work.

"He decided to drive [us] out of Cardiff that night and go to his family in Port Talbot."

Ted still vividly remembers his journey out of Cardiff that night on 2 January 1941, the city's single worst night of the Blitz.

"I was in the back of the car and looking out the back window when we drove up the big hill out of Ely," said Ted.

"Cardiff had been pitch dark at night for a year or so, but looking back that night it was like Guy Fawkes night," he said.

"There was a red glow in the sky around Cardiff."

The 10 hour air-raid, during a full moon, had started at 18:37 GMT.

Grangetown was the first area to be hit by 100 aircraft, including a bakery where 32 people were killed as they sheltered in a cellar.

Around 50 people were killed on De Burgh Street in the neighbouring suburb of Riverside.

And on nearby Jubilee Street, where Ted's family home had stood, four people were killed when half the street was flattened.

When Ted and his family returned to Cardiff the following day, they were met by devastation.

"When we saw our house, it'd been flattened," said Ted, who was just eight-years-old at the time.

"My mother was in the car crying when she saw the street, and was just looking at the rubble."

More than 400 people across the city were injured that night, while nearly 350 homes were destroyed or had to be demolished.

"My dad went into the rubble, and he was gone for about 10 minutes and he came back with two things, my Hornby set which I'd just got for Christmas which was still in its wrapping paper and a pound of sugar he'd won from the Army."

Nazi Germany's air-force - known as the Luftwaffe - continued an almost continual aerial bombardment of Britain for eight terrifying months between September 1940 to May 1941.

More than 43,500 civilians across the UK were killed in the raids.

Ted is one of a number of survivors who has shared his experiences as part of a new BBC documentary, Children of the Blitz.

It focuses on the two million British children who were not evacuated, instead staying at home in towns and cities at risk of being bombed.

"If we'd have gone home and not been in the cinema that night and we would have been underneath that stairs, I wouldn't be talking to you tonight," Ted told the documentary.

"Luck, absolutely."

Ted said after his home was destroyed, he lived with his dad's sister in Port Talbot for four years before moving to the Canton area of Cardiff with his family.

When he finished school he trained as an electrician and went on to marry his late wife, Betty.

He also worked for Brains brewery for more than 20 years, delivering beer.

Betty died 10 years ago, and Ted began volunteering at a community centre in Splott after being encouraged by friends to get involved.

He still returns to the street where he lived as a child, which today looks very different.

"I used to go to Jubilee Street with my wife for a look and I still do, its half the original houses and half modern houses," said Ted.

"I stare at the houses and look at the street and think how lucky we were.

"There's two important words in my life and they are discipline and luck."