THE transcript of rock star Tommy Lee's panic-stricken call to an emergency operator, made as friends tried desperately to save the life of a four-year-old boy who drowned in his pool, made chilling reading this week. And it will have given every parent pause for thought.

Pamela Anderson's former husband tells the operator, in the tape released by officials in Los Angeles, that Daniel Vres was found floating face down in the water, after falling into the pool, when no-one was paying attention. With other guests screaming and shouting around him, he tries to relay resuscitation orders to friends standing over the boy. Amid much noise and confusion, Lee becomes more frustrated and explodes in four-letter fury: "There's a bunch of people here all doing their thing, I don't know what to do, okay?"

Now Lee, renowned for his drug abuse, alcoholism and kicking his former wife in the stomach, would not be most parents number one choice to look after their precious infant for the afternoon. But as we enter the paddling pool season, it is worth all of us asking ourselves if we would have known what to do in the same situation. As Lee demonstrated, it only takes a moment for a tragedy to occur.

The reality is few parents do know what to do. And it should remind us all just how important basic first aid knowledge is. Spending one evening a week for a few months at a first aid class could be a life-saver. I am grateful I took a St John Ambulance course three years ago, for shortly afterwards my three-year-old son almost choked to death on a sweet. It was down to luck, as much as anything, that he survived, but at least I felt I knew what to do.

He started choking during a long car journey. It lasted minutes, but felt like hours. His face was white and his lips turned blue as I slapped him on the back, my husband turned him upside down and I hooked my little finger down his throat, trying to get hold of the sweet.

He was almost at the point of unconsciousness when, suddenly, he gagged and the sweet seemed to go down, rather then up. He started breathing steadily and, slowly, the colour came back to his face.

Even now, I shudder to think of it. And I am aware that, although I felt reasonably confident about handling such a situation then, that was three years ago. I am not sure how well I would cope now.

I wouldn't have been any better prepared than any of the other adults at that pool party, helpless in the face of tragedy. Time to sign up for another first aid class.

THE Mayor of Durham should be proud not just because one of his bodyguards has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honour List but because the bodyguard in question, former joiner Norman Donkin, is a remarkable 82. The mayor is doing his bit in striking a blow against ageism, while Norman is living proof we shouldn't write people off once they are old enough to pick up a pension.

TONY Blair's loud, large-flower patterned pink tie said much about his state of mind last week. Confident and relaxed since his landslide election result, he broke away from his usual smart, formal wear with a rather uncharacteristically flamboyant fashion statement, which seemed to say: "I've won. I don't have anything to prove to anyone anymore. This is me, like it or lump it."

THE Queen has banned unmarried staff from sleeping together in their palace rooms. How does she exercise this sort of authority with her servants but not her own children?

THE illegitimate daughter of disgraced former Tory minister Jonathan Aitken says he is a lot more humble since his fall from grace. But she goes on to reveal she has recently turned down an offer from him to take on his surname. And she calls that humble?

Published: 22/06/2001