Where are the Risk Assessments?

What makes authorities think that a warning sign of danger is an adequate precaution?  Do they think that children will stop and read them before running off to explore somewhere new and exciting?   Do they think that a child will look for all the safety notices before climbing on rocks or in our case heading for a river?  Do they not realise that placing stepping stones (specially made for the purpose) in a river is an invitation to people to use them?  Why place stepping stones across the river at the side of a bridge if they are not there to be used?  If, close to those stepping stones there is an area where the riverbed shelves downwards and the water is considerably deeper, why is the riverbank not fenced off?  Why all of these things in a place where the water does get deeper and the calm slowness of the river is deceptive, hiding a vicious undercurrent which can drag an unsuspecting child (or adult) down?   All of these things make a beauty spot a place of unexpected and unbelievable horror, and this weekend a family suffered the heartbreak of losing a child within moments of arriving at this maintained beauty spot.  A family is now in so much pain - my family.  My poor nephew and his wife and their surviving children are grieving the loss of their lovely boy on a trip which was taken to celebrate his 8th birthday - a day which should have been filled with such joy and happiness but it ended in tragedy.

The ruins of Bolton Abbey with the river in the foreground are so picturesque, and are enhanced by the stepping stones and the bridge across the river.  It makes for a beautiful picture but what happened there this weekend was just so ugly.  A child slipped and fell into the river and was dragged under and swept away before anyone could grasp him.  A family is left devastated and the other people in the vicinity, many of whom jumped into the river to try to save him, are traumatised.  However beautiful the picture is it worth a life?

Where is the sense of it all?

In Remembrance of Aaron Page 

5 June 2002 - 5 June 2010