Guardian Angels I

Protection from Drowning: T

Author's treasured gift from T.

Picture the seaside scene from the mid 1980s: The sky is cloudless and a pleasant breeze cools the holiday-makers enjoying a break on the beach.The staccato cries of wheeling seagulls play against the muffled sound of surging surf.The tide has gone out, exposing the sand and the great groynes, stretching their water-weathered wands out into the sea.  E is relaxing on a deck-chair, high up on the pebbly strand. The girls have gone off in search of shells and adventure. P is knee-deep in the sea, with his D not far away. Toddler T, as happy as a sand boy, is busy with his bucket and spade. 

Suddenly, a shout from P rings out:

'Dad! What's T doing?'

D turns to look. Horror of horrors. Little T is purposefully toddling over to one of the pools of water left by the outgoing tide next to a nearby groyne. These pools can be deceptively deep as the sand is scoured out and away by the tide.

D sprints over to the pool. Almost in slow-motion now, T is bending over the water with his bucket and...  he stumbles forward. D arrives just as T's head disappears under the water. He grabs the scruff of his T-shirt and hauls him out. Sea-soaked and blithely bedraggled, T spits out a mouthful of water and then laughs, quite unfazed by his brush with the sirens of the deep.

The sand-side of the groyne pool was very steep and the water was a good foot deeper than T's height. It could have ended very differently but for several, alert Angeli.. D.G.