AS a regular reader of your paper I have been struck this year by the large number of times - usually three or four per week - that brave, skilful and devoted people, on sea and land, have had - often not doubt at some risk to themselves - to rescue people from potentially very dangerous situations that should never have occurred.

I don’t wish to be patronising, but I feel that some visitors to our county are not aware of its true nature. It may be that because parts of it are called a ‘National Park’ some think it is full of health and safety provisions, like a commercial amusement park, which, by definition, is an artificial environment.

But it is not.

It is a beautiful county simply because much of it, especially its coastline, is untouched, raw nature - coves, beaches, steep and rocky cliffs, edged by a superb path which, for most of its 180 miles, is just a cliff-top track unspoilt by man. The path and the beaches are perfectly safe, but only for those who realise that they are up against Nature, and have equipped themselves properly with the right clothing and footwear, and possibly walking sticks or poles.

The sea and the tides are also beyond human control: what was at lunchtime a gorgeous stretch of sand with a nice sea-breeze can, by teatime, be a stretch of deep sea with a heavy surf running.

That once far-off blue sea may have risen over 15ft while you were away.

Some people seem unaware too of the direction of the wind, but a brisk off-shore breeze can blow a child on a rubber raft a mile out to sea in a very short time.

The outboard motor that chugged you smoothly out to sea can cough to a stop and leave you wishing you’d got some stand-by means of propulsion.

Don’t get me wrong; the Pembrokeshire coast is a wonderful place for fun and adventure, but newcomers may need advice and guidance.

That brings me to our part in this.

It seems to me that all those who cater for (and profit from) our visitors have a duty to make sure that their guests are suitably briefed.

Even something as cheap and simple as a local tide-table would help, plus perhaps a chat about their plans for the day and a look at the day’s weather forecast.

To end with a cautionary tale: years ago my wife and I ran a small B and B in Newport.

An elderly man, who made a booking with us, set out from Poppit Sands to walk to us with a heavy pack and no stick, and with nothing to eat or drink.

Quite late that evening we were about to ring the coastguard when our customer turned up very late, totally exhausted and faint for lack of food and drink.

He told us later that he had planned to buy provisions ‘on the way’. That would have been difficult, to put it mildly, on a long, arduous and totally uninhabited coastline.

FRED NICHOLLS

Long Street

Newport.