Jayne Dowle: Please, spare us the hot air as temperature rises

The good people at Public Health England (or the Department of Silly Suggestions as I prefer to call it) are spending their time and energy and our taxpayers’ money advising us how to deal with the heat. You might have thought they would have something better to do than inform grown adults to open the windows at night to ensure our bedrooms are cool. You might have imagined that they would trust us to find a bit of shade in the middle of the day when the sun is beating down. And if we’re thirsty, to drink a glass of water or get an ice pop.

Honestly. I know it’s in everyone’s interests to take care in the heat. I was living in London during the seriously hot summer of 2003. My son Jack was a baby and I spent most of my time trying to find ways to keep him cool. There is nothing more frightening than your child getting so hot he goes limp and lifeless.

When the temperature hit the 90s I used to strap him in the pushchair, take him to the shady air-conditioned calm of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, park us up on a bench in front of some nice pictures of boats and attempt to get him to sleep for a couple of hours. And I thought of that solution all by myself, without recourse to an “informative” leaflet or website. That summer, at least 2,000 people were believed to have died of heat-related problems. I didn’t want my son to become one of them.

And I know, even with my slightly shaky grasp of science, that our hotter summers are an indication that global warming is real and happening. Over time, this will have a massive effect on the way we live, what we eat and how we build our houses. I can take all this on the chin, but what I can’t take is hectoring public officials lecturing us on common sense from the safety of their no-doubt air-conditioned offices. Talk about the nanny state. Have we really become so incapable of making our own decisions that we have to be told to splash ourselves with cold water?

Surely their time, effort and money would be better directed into improving frontline services, such as access to GPs and emergency A&E provision. I recognise that much of what is suggested is intended to prevent exactly the kind of serious problems which require such professional medical attention. However, you’ve got to ask yourself whether it’s really worth it. And also, is anyone listening? Or have we become so immune to health “scares” that we just switch off?

Remember the panic over bird flu and the to-do over the swine flu vaccine? I suspect that most of us have come to the conclusion that it’s more sensible to keep calm and carry on every time the Government tells us there is cause for alarm. When the heat really gets to me, I begin to imagine a sinister conspiracy between the Prime Minister and the Met Office: whip us up into a state of paranoia over the pollen count and we won’t riot in the streets come August.

And also, it’s all very well telling us to take a bottle of water with us when travelling by public transport. What about the bus companies? The train companies? And, should you have the unfortunate experience of having to visit London in July, those in charge of the Tube? Haven’t the organisations we pay to take us from A to B got some responsibility for trying to make their customers’ journeys as pleasant and bearable as possible? Shouldn’t the Government have a go at them before telling us to take care?

I’ve sat on a coach coming back from the seaside where the driver refused to turn up the air-conditioning in order to save a bit of diesel. A pleasant journey home that was, too.

And what about employers? I’m never more grateful that I work from home than in the summer months. Too many offices and workplaces are simply too hot.

I remember the semi-delirious rants I would have wilting at my desk whilst the person in charge of opening the windows refused to do so in case a pigeon flew in or some other equally ridiculous excuse. Work is stressful enough without sweating so much it blows up your computer. And your head.

Anyway, never mind. For most families, today is the start of the school summer holidays. I bet you my last drop of sun protection cream that by the end of the day it will be chucking it down with rain.

I wonder if the Public Health people have got any ever-so-useful suggestions for what to do with a houseful of kids waging civil war over the television remote?