Growing up on the WW II military training grounds of southern England meant that any small boy who was a boy at all had as his prized possessions a number of live .303 rounds, a hand grenade or two, a two-inch mortar bomb, and perhaps a Piat anti-tank rocket. We knew how to take them to pieces and how to extract the fuses, but that defeated the object. This all came in very handy for those of us who later found ourselves caught up in various conflicts around the world. When we were not playing with our bombs and explosives and letting off thunder-flashes under tins to see how high they would go, we were racing our soap-box go-carts on pram wheels down the hillsides at breakneck speeds, and not a helmet in sight. We would climb to the tops of high trees, no ropes, no safety harnesses. Our first sailing boats we made from aeroplane drop tanks, in which we sailed the tidal waters of the harbour, sometimes venturing out onto the real sea. We were not good swimmers, but as for buoyancy aids, had we known about such things we would have deemed them fit only for sissies. In those days men were men doing men's things, and we as boys looked up to them and did all we could to emulate them.

It was all part of an attitude, an attitude that had built an empire, and was gradually winning a war against tyranny. The war was won but the empire was lost. An old order had passed on, a new generation dawned, liberated from the social restrictions of the past as the stratified society gave way to a general affluence. No more the social and military struggles of times past: "Grim imaged war had smoothed his wrinkled front". A soft and pampered generation was emerging. The way ahead was freedom of choice, the only price be to be paid being no choice of freedom.

Such is today's world, and although we do our best to escape it for a short while, we and our little craft remain subject to it.

Young people have always been gregarious, but even more so today, for they too live in fear, fear of being the white sparrow their culture shuns, for it is driven by shameless profiteering; fashion and mass production is the order of the day. Dinghy cruisers, therefore, are by and large of the older generation, and as those of us of that age group drop off the end, the DCA will contract. It is therefore both interesting and puzzling as to why the DCA seems so intent on hurrying its demise.

Over the past two or three years the DCA Bulletin has become concerned with safety almost to a point of obsession. One cannot help but gain the impression that there are those in the DCA who, given the power, would make the long list of recommended safety precautions compulsory. I well recall a member stamping his foot and resigning because other members did not go along with his views on capsize practice. When I started sailing we scorned safety for three reasons. Firstly out of ignorance, secondly because safety equipment was expensive and we did not have the money, and thirdly because it was part of the thrill to run the risks. Stupid perhaps, but it was a stupidity that built an empire and won two world wars.

Now we are old we are poor again, and as the economy slows down we will become even poorer. There are however many differences between when we were poor before, and being poor now. We are now expected to purchase a whole variety of safety equipment that was not previously readily available. We now have expensive insurance to think about: could we risk being taken to court for hundreds of thousands of pounds? We live in an aggressive and litigious society. Everyone expects to be paid. Rough shingle slips are concreted over and poshed up, we are expected to pay for that. The old gravel car park is tarmacked over and we are expected to pay for that also, not only to park our car but the trailer as well. The fuel to get there and back is becoming increasingly expensive, and this will not improve because it cannot. On top of all this the pages of the DCA Bulletin are forever reminding us of the dangers of a capsize, even a Drascombe Lugger was recently reported to have capsized!

Well, once I was young and gung-ho, but I am now an old man. It is still my joy to sail my small boat, but the constant warnings of the DCA Bulletin have at last sunk in, I have to concede that sailing small boats is a very dangerous and expensive pastime, exposing me to risks beyond my control and expenses I cannot sensibly afford. In the spirit of today's DCA, I would strongly recommend that anyone who is no longer strong and agile, and or does not have the funds to purchase up-to-date flares, wet suits, dry suits, hand-held radios, GPS, recommended first aid kits, fashionable funny hats etc, should follow my example, and hang up their oars.

Editorial comment: My memories of our dangerous games in World War II are not unlike Bob's, but I should not like the DCA to be associated without qualification with paragraphs 2 & 4 of his article. I have considerable sympathy with his concluding paragraphs though not with his conclusion that we should stop sailing. JA