'I had my first swimming lesson in 20 years - everyone like me should do the same'

One in three adults can't swim the full length of a 25-metre swimming pool , and I'm among them - despite having received lessons up until age 11 at my inner-city school.

That's why this week I decided that, as part of our Save Lives for Sam campaign , I would take my first swimming lesson in 20 years. I've had zero confidence in my swimming ability for a long time, and that lack of confidence has seen me dangerously panic and flounder when attempting to swim during summer holidays. So I was keen but scared to venture back into the water of even a controlled environment like a pool.

But I was able to rediscover some of my lost skills thanks to the incredible tutoring of an experienced teacher at Highbury Leisure Centre in Islington, North London . As thousands of Brits like me head out to the seaside this summer, I can only recommend that they do the same - especially if they've never learned how to swim before.

I have happy memories of learning to swim as a child, and got some high praise from my family and teachers for being relatively good at it.

I was even lucky enough to get one or two of those coveted Frosties badges while Kelloggs were sponsoring the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

But I've spent all of my 31 years in London, meaning that like most inner-city Brits, I tend not to encounter many opportunities for a swim.

Swimming as a skill has become more vital than ever, especially during years as hot as this one, when people try to beat the heat on the coast, whether here in the UK or abroad. According to the Royal Life Saving Society (RLSS), our partners on our Save Lives for Sam campaign, most drowning deaths occur during extreme heat.

Dozens of people have died this summer alone, with 52 deaths of both adults and children since May 24 and August 9. Among them are six-year-old Saja El-Khawasm, who died days after her parents Hassan, 55, and Zeina, 37, and sister Sara, 14, perished after getting into difficulty in the sea in Shoreham, West Sussex on Tuesday.

The charity has found that three times more people drown accidentally in the UK during extreme heat compared to typical summer conditions. I've gone running to the sea myself in recent years, and discovered while there that I was woefully unprepared to enter the water.

So this month (ahead of another summer holiday) the RLSS put me in touch with their partners at Greenwich Leisure Limited, to organise some lessons with a teacher, Martine.

Martine teaches across age and ability, ranging from the very young to older people who want to brush up on their skills later in life, when swimming can serve as an essential health boost.

Before we got into the pool, she outlined to me just how important it is for people know how to swim. She told me: "Swimming is a life skill, it's a survival skill. It's something that, if you learn as a child, you're lucky.