ACCIDENTS happen. They happen in the best regulated families. They happen in the most well-ordered school trips. And sometimes they are not anybody's fault. They are simply dreadful terrible tricks of fate.

As soon as we learnt that 11-year-old Bunmi Shagaya had drowned on a school trip to France, people started looking for someone to blame. First in the firing line are the teachers, who might yet face charges of negligence in the French courts.

But the school had more than the required number of staff to supervise the children. The lake was shallow, there were lifeguards nearby. It is difficult to know what more they could have done - what more even a parent could have done - except, of course, left the children at home in Brixton, never to give them a taste of adventure and foreign travel.

Is there a parent out there who has never lost sight of their child for a minute on a crowded beach? Never seen them go too close to a river edge or busy road? Never tended to one child while another walked into the road/fell out of a tree/played with the kettle? Never lain in bed on a Sunday morning while small children roam the house looking for matches, sharp knives or trouble?

You cannot watch every child every minute of the day. And if you could and did, you would end up doing them more harm than good.

But now teachers will think twice about taking children on holidays. (Come on, would you want to do it?) Parents will think twice about letting them go. And the death of an apparently bright and lively little girl will mean that for many other children life will be a bit less fun, which is a pretty rotten memorial really.

Life is dangerous. We do what we can to make that danger less - especially when it involves our children - but we can never make life completely safe. And maybe it's time we learnt to accept that.

IT'S never too late. At the age of 57, smoothie singer Julio Iglesias has just finished his law degree. With just one exam to go, he dropped out 35 years ago to start his singing career, to his father's eternal annoyance.

So finally, to keep his dad happy, Julio went back to university, passed that final exam and is now a fully qualified lawyer.

So there you are, parents. Just nag your drop-out child for 35 years and they'll eventually see sense.

THE bonus of that Men's Final on Monday was Pat Rafter gave Goran Ivanisevic a generous congratulatory hug. That's sportsmanship, which seems to get pretty much forgotten these days when sport's only concern seems to be winning for the sake of the money.

But now we have the usual post-Wimbledon breast-beating and soul-searching about our inability to produce a winner.

There is, actually, a very simple solution - apart from the one that we're just not good enough. Look out in the streets and parks, and even when tennis has had its biggest plug of the year, what do you see?

Masses of small boys, teenagers and grown men, and even quite a lot of girls, playing football. A few playing cricket. But apart from these few weeks of the year, there's hardly anyone playing tennis. Courts are usually deserted. Children rarely take racquets and ball to the park.

The reason we're not good at tennis is simply that, actually, we don't like it very much.

We all know it's going to rain during Wimbledon so you could wonder why the All England Tennis Club hasn't yet realised. Time they put a lid on the Centre Court.

On the other hand, no-one's done anything yet with the Dome.

SO the Blairs are going to have a holiday in this county in a bid to boost the tourist industry wilting under the effects of foot-and-mouth.

Unless they go bed and breakfasting in Blackpool, which seems pretty unlikely, thumbing through the cottage brochures, I reckon that to house his brood in comfort could cost up to £1,000 for a week.

But hang on, he's already got quite a nice country pad at Chequers; house furnished with antiques, tennis court, swimming pool, space to kick a ball about. Any family would be happy to stay there.

How about a house swop, Tony?

IN the discussions about legalising cannabis and also about the rise in under-age sex, two statistics are always quote;

1.That Holland is one of the most relaxed countries concerning cannabis;

2. It has one of the lowest rates of teenage pregnancies;

Maybe the kids are just too stoned to bother.

Published: 11/07/2001