The following letter appears in the December edition of "Swimming" magazine
(the journal of the [British] Amateur Swimming Association). I would welcome
comments from around the world on other people's experiences in this regard.

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Dear Sir,
The annual Sandown to Shanklin swim has, for the 56th year, once again seen
a large number of swimmers of varying ability swim the two miles or so in
the sea, which is an integral part of Shanklin Regatta. They do it for the
adventure and the sense of achievement and well-being it produces. Sadly
though, for the last 2 years we have had to close the swim to under
18-year-olds, despite many winners coming from the lower teen ages in years
gone by. Gone also is the traditional start by jumping off the end of
Sandown Pier, despite 56 years having produced no serious accidents from
this bit of fun.
These two regrettable changes result from the combined requirements of
over-risk-averse Insurance Underwriters and the disproportionate
requirements of the Child Protection 'Industry'. It seems to me that however
necessary either may be in principle, the lengths to which both have
progressed nowadays makes organisers of events simply back off when faced
with the bureaucracy and potential liability they could face.
Young people are naturally adventurous and as a society we do them no
favours by over-protecting them. If they are denied legitimate outlets for
their adventurous urges they will find illegitimate ones. Either that or
they will grow up to be namby-pambies who can't cope with life's hard
demands. Whilst having due regard for safety issues, I feel that we must
find a way of allowing people to take more responsibility for themselves and
allowing the organisers of events to do so without the constant fear of
litigation. A real problem is that organisers often do not know the extent
to which they could be liable because the law is so woolly on this. Exactly
how to do this I don't know, but I feel the time is here when Parliament
needs to cut through the forest of legal precedents which leave the layman
not knowing where he might stand, and unequivocally  approve the use of
legal disclaimers to pass responsibility for their actions back to people,
or in the case of minors, to their parents/guardians.
It is hard enough getting volunteers to undertake anything nowadays, and
unless this trend is reversed, people will simply give up. We must look to
our leaders in sport to press this matter forward with the legislators
rather than just sit and wonder what happened to our young people.
Yours faithfully,
Duncan Heenan