JENNI MURRAY: A tidal wave like the one behind the Bournemouth tragedy nearly killed me…

What a horrific start to the first sunny holiday of the year. Twelve-year-old Sunnah Khan and Joe Abbess, 17, must have enjoyed a trip to Bournemouth’s long sandy beach and looked forward to a swim with friends.

It wasn’t to be. They, along with eight other people, encountered difficulties when they swam close to the pier. Sunnah and Joe did not survive. An inquest revealed that they died from drowning after being caught in a sudden wave.

I can only imagine what their parents are going through. Who would have thought that the sea in such a popular and busy holiday resort could be so dangerous?

None of us in this country live more than 70 miles from the coast and the fresh clean air lures so many to its beauty. I like being by the sea, but even though I’m a good swimmer, I haven’t dared go into the sea for half a century, not even to paddle.

In 1971 I had my own brush with a terrifying tidal wave. A year after my university course in French and drama, I spent a few months in Israel.

I had a job selling sculptures at the Frank Meisler gallery in Jaffa. On Friday afternoon, all work stopped for the Sabbath, and some of the young men who worked in the studio asked if I’d like to go with them to the beach a few miles from Tel Aviv.

Along the coast of Israel there are many sandy beaches and a soft, still, clear blue Mediterranean Sea. We took swimsuits, suntan lotion, towels and a picnic. The perfect end to a hot week at work.

The guys I was with quickly fell into a group of the same age, build and love of football. I left them to their own devices and went to the water. I stood there for a while, had fun jumping over the gentle waves as they came in, then dove in for a swim.

I had no fear. I had been a breaststroke champion in school. My father had taught me to swim in the North Sea at Scarborough. When I got older I swam with him in Bournemouth. I knew the sea. Or so I thought.

But a little jump over a wave and suddenly there was nothing but water under my feet. The seabed had simply disappeared.

I started to swim to shore. Nothing happened. I felt the current pull me further out to sea. As much as I struggled to fight the riptide’s force, I made no progress.

Not only did it pull me into the sea, it also pulled me down. I panicked and screamed for help.

Luckily the boys on the beach heard me. They ran to the water and yelled, “Float, just float, we’re coming.” They held hands, formed a chain, started walking and then swam towards me. Importantly, one remained on the beach.

After what felt like hours, the first in line reached me – just – and dragged me to shore. There were 26 of them and they had barely managed to cover the distance to where I was drowning. That’s how strong the tide was.

They tried to make a joke of it by saying, “Oh, when that happens you just float on your back and the sea throws you a little further up the coast.”

Not that I would ever go into the sea again. I was terrified. Not only did I learn to respect the sea, I also learned to be afraid of it. I am happy now just sitting and looking at it.

I was lucky. The RNLI website tells a similar story about a family — Gordon, his cousin David and his two children — who were paddling on the shore in Argyll when a wave swept them out to sea.

They managed to save one of the children, but Gordon fell over and was pulled further and further from the beach. People on the beach had dialed 999. He was eventually rescued by a lifeboat.

A Respect The Water campaign over the past 20 years has had some effect. In 2005, 435 people died along our coasts; that went back to 226 in 2022. But that’s still way too much.

Most of them are caused by tidal waves like the one that took me, Gordon and those poor kids in Bournemouth. So what should you do if you get caught up in it?

The experts say they’re hard to spot, but usually appear as a channel of swirling water on the surface and are common around river estuaries, estuaries and man-made structures like piers.

The advice of the RNLI is never to swim against it, because you will get exhausted. If you can stand on the bottom, wade, don’t swim. If you can’t stand, swim parallel to the shore until you’re clear of the rip, which moves out to sea. Go to the coast when you can. Most importantly, raise your hand and call for help.

Funnily enough, the advice to float I was given all those years ago still holds true. All of our children need to learn to float as well as swim, which of course means taking them to a swimming pool at a young age. (Good luck finding a pool: England have lost nearly 400 since 2010.)

But please don’t float on a lilo. Try to find a beach with a lifeguard and flags that indicate where it is safe and check the tides. It’s all too easy to get stranded on a sandbar at high tide.

Sorry, that’s a lecture, but I’m speaking from the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had.

I’m sure being in the sea can be fun, but don’t be fooled by gently lapping waves. The sea is dangerous and deserves respect.

A man’s place is at the BBQ

Here comes the barbecue season and until winter no more cooking for me. What a relief that men still think it’s their job, the latest survey shows. I just want to have a drink and sit down, thank you.

Derby rioter is lucky to have been arrested

Frankly, these young animal rights protesters have no knowledge of history? On Saturday, Ben Newman was dragged off the track at Epsom as the Derby started.

On June 4, 1913, the suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, attempted to stop the King’s horse in the race. She died four days later. It strikes me that Ben was lucky to be arrested.

Stick to the pill – you can’t rely on apps

Tonight Channel 4 airs Davina McCall’s Pill Revolution in light of a new trend on TikTok, where young women are being urged to stop taking the pill because it makes you “ugly, fat and depressed.”

Research for Davina’s program has shown that oral contraceptive use has more than halved and “natural family methods” have nearly tripled in the past decade.

I doubt Davina will be vehemently opposed to the pill and women putting hormones in their bodies.

She’s pretty excited about HRT, so what’s the difference?

I worry that women will be put off by something that has changed the lives of my generation for the better. I took it for years, planned the family I wanted and felt good.

Some of my friends tried the “rhythm method,” where they tracked their menstrual cycles to predict ovulation. There are apps for that these days.

But many of these friends came to the conclusion that trying to track when you are fertile is too much like hard work. Quite a few got pregnant and I doubt Gen Z would want to risk that. So stick to the pill, girls!

In her book Old Rage, published today in paperback, Sheila Hancock is as opinionated as ever. She is now 90 and worries she will be canceled when her grandchildren say she used the wrong word. Don’t worry, Dame Sheila, no one would dare cancel you.