Water: It's Cold. It's Wet. It's Deep. It's Dangerous. We Know.

WARNING: CONTENTS MAY BE CONTROVERSIAL

On Sunday morning I was amused to receive the following e-mail (I have removed all clues to the author’s identity).  It was so enjoyably rude that I feel it reasonable to make it (and my response) public.

 

‘So you'd be happy to run the risk of getting swept away by huge storm waves?  Are we to assume that means you are also happy to risk the lives of people who would be despatched to try to save your life?  You, and all the people who run such ridiculous risks, should be left to drown.’

 

I replied, beginning

 

‘Dear *******’

 

 

Thank you so much for your interesting letter. I think one can take reasonable risks, and that our general attitude towards risk-taking is absurdly over-cautious. Maybe it’s because my parents had endured the dangers of war (my father was on the Russian convoys, where the combination of appalling weather and a dangerous and effective enemy meant each journey was compassed about by the risk of death, and survival not to be taken for granted. My mother was in Liverpool during the heaviest German bombing of that city, so bad, that news of it was suppressed) , and had things in better proportion than we, in our ultra-safe world, have them. In my childhood I was allowed to roam about unsupervised all day, climb trees, get cuts and scratches etc. I once climbed on to a horse in a field and rode it , bareback, for all of 15 seconds before being thrown off. It hurt. Risks? Undoubtedly. But worth it? Definitely. You’re quite right that, if swept away by the sea, I should be left to drown. It would have been my own choice to take the risk.

 

Best wishes,

 

Peter Hitchens

 

This led to a response, and an improvement in manners (but a hidden splat concealed therein). 

 

 

 

‘Dear Peter

 

Thank you for that full reply.  I agree that in days of yore and childhood we all took risks like climbing trees etc which did not involve emergency services putting their lives at risk to save us and indeed, as children, it would never have crossed our minds that anyone else would ever be involved, as children think only of themselves.  Hopefully, most of us have grown up and do consider other people.

 

I remain firmly of the view that the sentiment expressed in your final point should have been included in your article rather than encouraging other idiots to behave in such a reckless, selfish manner.

 

Regards…’

 

 

Gosh, did anything I wrote encourage anyone to go out and risk his life? I’d no idea I had so much influence. I’d just repeat, in response to this,  that a sense of humour, and a sense of proportion, are necessary when facing the normal dangers of life. Excessive caution is just as bad for us too much rashness. Most of us are in far more danger from excessive, unregulated traffic (when did any of you last see a police traffic patrol? I don’t mean a police car rushing noisily at dangerous speed to the scene of a crime the police had failed to prevent, but an actual traffic patrol),  than we ever will be from the raging of the sea. Crossing or using a road ( as a cyclist or a pedestrian) is a deeply dangerous thing, and ought to be made safer. But it won’t be.  That is why some people actually wear body armour when they venture out on to our nationalised and subsidised state highway system.

 

Our absurd culture of excessive safety has already had many daft results. Idiotic signs can already be be found along one stretch of coastline known to me, warning that the cliffs are steep and the sea may be wet (or some such). And an Oxfordshire riverbank known to me is dotted with expensive metal signs warning of deep water. In a river? What next? There are also signs advising walkers that it may be risky to venture on the towpath when it is under water. Who’d have thought it? 

Next winter, I’ve no doubt, many sea fronts will be cordoned off by persons in high-visibility jackets, as soon as the wind rises above Force Two on the New Beaufort Scale (‘Plastic carrier bags fly through the air. Burger containers skitter along the pavement. Empty lager cans begin to rattle. Cannabis smoke no longer rises vertically’).

And my morning cup of milky railway station coffee (or ‘caffeine hit’ as Decca Aitkenhead would call it) is given to me in a cup whose lid proclaims ‘Contents May be Hot’.

 

Surely this sort of thing, if unchallenged, will turn us into hopeless milksops, scared of being savaged by our own hamsters and calling an ambulance (or the police) if we scratch ourselves while opening a bottle?  

 

For instance, On Sunday I rode my bicycle through floods twice. In one place, I did so where a man was drowned a few days ago, God rest his soul.  But I had walked into the flood before riding into it, to check the strength of the current and the depth of the water, which was much less than it had been on that sad occasion. I must confess that I rather enjoyed the slight feeling of adventure, and the fight against the elements when I had to pedal hard to overcome the (expected) side-on current. And I also enjoyed the fact that I had saved myself several miles of detour. Earlier in the week, I had deliberately walked as close as I could sensibly get to the flooded Thames (or Isis, as some still call it round where I live). I was rewarded by the most beautiful sight (invisible from anywhere else) of the overflowing river running at speed between two lines of overhanging willows up to their knees in the flood, the water looking like polished pewter in the late afternoon light. It could have been a painting by Fragonard or Samuel Palmer, and was one of the loveliest things I have seen in a long time. I think I was a better person, in several ways , for having taken these small risks.

 

I am a state-registered coward, and need to train myself to take risks, or I would never have lived properly. One particular risk I took, now almost 25 years ago, so transformed my life for the better that I still tremble to think what would have happened if I hadn’t taken it. I was in much greater danger from taking the safe way out. Goethe (I know I’m not him) used to force himself to climb the great tower of Strasbourg cathedral to cure himself of his fear of heights. And so he did.

 

I’m not suggesting that people take obvious mad risks. I’m suggesting that it is quite reasonable, and indeed good,  to get close to the sea in such storms, and that all the media fuss about ‘irresponsibility’ will lead to seafronts and breakwaters being roped off and taped off with those silly ‘Police : Do not cross’ tapes, and indeed ( as i said) guarded by portly officials in uniform. You wait and see if I'm wrong.