I can’t imagine what it must have been like to realise that you were a mile underwater and you were about to die. Even worse if you’d taken your son with you. It’s easy to be wise after the event. It was also easy, as we saw during the week, easy to strike the wrong note with any public expression of your thoughts. Some people spoke of safety, with all the clarity of hindsight. Others were unfeeling enough to use it as an excuse to say it showed the rich didn’t pay enough taxes, or to contrast it with the experiences of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean.

Personally, I’m not very much concerned that over 70 refugees (or economic migrants or illegal immigrants – whatever you want to call them) drowned in the Mediterranean. This isn’t because I am callous, it’s just that there is so much news these days that I think we have all become desensitised. We are also quite insular.

Last week in Nottingham a grandfather was killed and his van stolen, The killer stabbed two 19-year-old students and rammed a bus shelter with the van, injuring three people. One of the three victims of that attack is still in hospital. I know the area, my kids used to go out clubbing in Nottingham like the dead kids.  I can empathise with the victims.

The submarine victims all had faces and stories and I can identify with them to an extent. Plus the Titanic is always a source of interest.

But present me with a crowd of victims and there is little impact. I think I covered a story a while ago where it was suggested we call cyclists “people who ride cycles”. Cyclists are faceless demons who ride recklessly on pavements and ignore traffic regulations. People who ride cycles are people like Tootlepedal – blogger, raconteur and grandfather. Despite the cycle, they are very different people.

So my suggestion is that we stop referring to people as refugees (or economic migrants or illegal immigrants) and start using their names. We still don’t need a flood of them coming into the country, because we are struggling to look after the people who are already here, but we could at least start treating them like human beings, and that might help us to sort things out. Seventy people drown and I can shrug it off. Seventy people with names and stories is a different matter.

Day Lily