SEASONED readers of this column may have seen the cross-reference from today's Page story about youths jumping into the Teme from Powick Bridge and already guessed the gist of what follows. It bears saying, anyway.

There's a view that 21st Century life is nannying a generation of youngsters for whom the art of assessing and taking risks is slowly being lost.

But, though we share the concern about the kind of parental generation which will emerge from it, we're just as worried by the dangers at the opposite end of the scale, where thrill-seeking and risk-taking is blind to the dangers.

The claim by one of the Powick Bridge youngsters - a 19-year-old, not a lad on some pre-teen rite of passage - is that "it's good fun and not really dangerous". Famous last words.

A cursory flick through the Evening News cuttings file - not even a half-hearted search - would reveal name after name of people who've thought the same, and diced with death in recent years, and come off second-best.

The tragedy of those names lives on in families around the county which, we imagine, have never filled the gap left by a moment of madness.

Each time we've reported a death, and reflected that places like the Teme and the Severn are as treacherous as they are beautiful, we've wondered if the lesson will ever be learnt.

All we can do, today, is endorse the warnings issued after yesterday's stupidity - and hope the madness stops before the next funeral.