Other things seem trivial at the moment.

Thousands of New Zealand families have connections with the centre, but for me and my firm last night’s news was especially hard.  I get flashes of the numbness that enveloped my family many years ago when my sixteen year old youngest brother was killed in a cave climbing accident (not at the Centre).

Catharine (my wife) flatted with the founder Graeme Dingle at the time when he and his colleagues were planning the Centre.  We spent time up there on working bees in its earliest days. My sisters, my children and I have done courses there and I’ve stayed there many times.

Chapman Tripp long had the Centre as a major sponsorship cause, and has done thousands of hours of free work for it. One of my partners was an instructor there and other partners have been on its Board.

Please now remember the good that it has done as the witch hunt starts.

I suspect that we may now be losing more young adults to drowning because they can’t swim (amateurs won’t risk teaching school kids to swim, and not every school can organise professionals) than we ever lost to less than perfect swim learning sessions by the local teacher in the local school pool.