Can anyone stop these tragedies on our beaches?

Summer is almost over and with it comes terrible news. Over the past week, 12 people have died at the British seaside. They were killed in separate incidents in Aberdeen, Newquay and Camber Sands.

All had innocently underestimated the power of the sea, were swept away and drowned by a danger which was, to them, unseen.

I’ve written before about how I spend a lot of time in Cornwall. There is a small beach near me — but I never swim there.

‘It’s safe on a rising tide,’ the locals say, but I wouldn’t know a rising tide if it smacked me in the face, which it probably would. The sea around there is never anything short of terrifying, even on a calm day.

Perhaps for an island nation, many of us don’t respect the sea quite enough. It’s not unusual to see tourists taking selfies against a backdrop of storm waves, trotting along rain-slicked piers, wandering into the waves for a splash around after a boozy lunch or dinner.

Or just innocently enjoying one of life’s most simple and glorious pleasures — a day at the beach.

Local business owners have already complained that there are no lifeguards at Camber Sands. But it is hard to see how such a huge beach could effectively be policed. It is seven miles long — and on the day the tragedy happened, it was packed with 25,000 people.

There are lifeguards at Fistral, near Newquay, but they were 1,000 yards away from the family who came to grief on the rocks. However, they did manage to save the mother and two other members of the family who had scrambled to safety.

The lifeguard teams there, the rNLI and all the emergency services around our coastline do a wonderful job. But they cannot be everywhere at once, they cannot legislate against innocent ignorance and they cannot save everyone from themselves.

I’d hate for even a whisper of blame for what happened this week to be laid at their door.