My heart bled for the family whose spaniel drowned chasing ducks across the ice in South Park .

Imagine the anguish of watching as the poor dog exhausting itself in the freezing water.

I know the park well and I understand why the fire crew were reluctant to venture onto the ice without the correct equipment, but we have to ask what if it had been a child?

Fortunately it wasn’t, but just suppose? We need to answer that question BEFORE it is. Surely it’s not beyond our ability to have a small dinghy available in the store with the gardening equipment or come up with some solution?

There is obviously an answer to this without bemoaning lack of funds or have we all become so good at excuses that we’ve lost all initiative?

You may recall, a few years back, those terrified young girls robbed at gunpoint in a Tytherington off-licence and locked in a storeroom. They used their mobile phones to call both 999 and their parents pleading for urgent assistance.

Despite the incident being less then a mile from Macclesfield police station the armed response unit turned up after the girls had been released by their parents and taken home.

This is not the way for a sensible community to manage its emergency services.

I have a terrible feeling that if our grandparents knew how inept we’ve become in the face of danger they would weep with embarrassment.