Bay's dangers always there.

Re: The heart-breaking tragic loss of precious lives in Morecambe Bay. To anyone who has no knowledge of this bay, my memories of it during the late 1960s/early 70s is a vast area.

When the tide is out, it is one massive expanse of, as they say, the most dangerous sands in England. It reaches almost to the horizon and certainly in those days there were guided walks, seven miles as I recall, across these sands to the far point of Grange-over-Sands in Cumbria. No sane person would have attempted this walk without the knowledge of local guides.

Thora Hird often recalled, having been born and bred there, the horse and carts crossing two miles to the cockle beds and the famous Morecambe Bay shrimps.

In nearby Heysham, overlooking the bay, is a very old churchyard climbing very steeply to the tiny church perched on the top of cliffs. Here we discovered a poignant reminder of this most cruel of bays, a large headstone, 1800s or early 1900s, carved on it the names of three young girls, 14 and under, daughters of the vicar, drowned while swimming in Morecambe Bay.

I pray for the souls of these poor people who last week had their lives snatched away so cruelly and needlessly.

JEAN MURRAY, Prudhoe.