Regarding the letters concerning "Tombstoning" from piers and harbour walls, when I was a teenager this was regarded as normal behaviour.

Of course it was risky. We all knew serious injury could result if we were reckless or stupid. Such risk was part of the fun.

Occasionally there were accidents, some serious. But we did not try to reinvent the wheel as a result.

If our younger people are not to have adventure or risk and are to be totally wrapped in cotton wool, surely they will find risk elsewhere, possibly in much more dangerous or vicious pursuits such as drugs or the like.

Of course, such incidents occasionally take up the time of the emergency service but so do countless other incidents, also largely generated by human stupidity.

-Gerard Downing, Shoreham