It seems almost impossible that anyone can have watched unmoved the extraordinary international effort to free the Thai teenage football team trapped in the flooding mountain caves. During a month in which we have seen governments as well as individuals behaving appallingly on the global stage, it was particularly valuable to be reminded that people can be both generous and heroic.

I have never been diving or caving – and have no intention of trying either – but those who have assure me that this was a genuinely very dangerous mission and that the chances of a successful rescue of every trapped person were infinitesimal – far less likely than winning the lottery jackpot.