WE'RE now roughly one week away from the start of the main school holidays, where will see the beaches suddenly get very busy. The mass population explosion on our shores heightens the probability of something going wrong for the RNLI lifeguards.

I call this the silly season, as we suddenly get so many incidents and rescues, and, believe it or not, with the recent downpours, this tends to be the best part of the summer for weather.

Nature seems to turn up the heat a notch or two and everybody makes an exodus to the beach. All the new lifeguards hear stories of mass rescues, major first aids, kids galore missing, and even all three at once, from more experienced colleagues.

The RNLI lifeguard really has its work cut out over the next six weeks. If it's sunny and there's swell, we can spend all of our day at the water's edge.

There are times at Constantine beach when I have literally to run up to the hut, grab a bite out of my sandwich, a swig of water and then straight back down to the patrol area.

After several weeks of this, and it pains me to say it, but I wish for a rainy day so I can recuperate.

Our new lifeguards will get a real sense of what their job is now, and hopefully by the end of the day they will get a good feeling of job satisfaction.

This time of year you can be going down to the beach just before work and pulling people out of the water, before you have even opened the lifeguard hut door.

If the forecast is for sunny weather and there's a nice two to three foot swell running with lulls between the waves, the beach is guaranteed to be busy.

The lifeguard knows he's got his work cut out when the surf isn't big enough to keep everyone in their depth, and the lulls allow people to get out beyond the breaking white water.

You suddenly find a handful of people are now behind the surf zone and being carried by currents towards the rip.

They realise they're drifting further away from land than they feel comfortable with. But by now they are most likely in the rip, and all their paddling is making no headway.

In most cases, the lifeguard will now be present on the rescue board or inflatable rescue boat to assist before panic sets in.

A typical day will see several of these incidents; throw in a major first aid and a couple of lost kids and RNLI lifeguard earn their wage and the new ones will have something to tell their grandchildren.

Here's to six weeks of sizzling sunshine and six feet swells every day –no lulls please!

● For more beach safety information see www.rnli.org.uk/beachsafety