A YEAR and five months have passed since 10-year-old Jamie Brooks drowned as he hunted for tadpoles in an old mill lodge.

But his mum says the pain and the heartbreak is as acute today as it was on the day the dreadful truth dawned that she would never see her "young adventurer" again.

Carol Brooks of Myrrh Street, Astley Bridge, has four other children to occupy her thoughts and her daily life. But she says the nightmare of losing Jamie will never leave her.

The grieving mother is just one Bolton parent who is backing the Evening News campaign urging the authorities to fill-in Bolton's disused mill lodges and rubbish-strewn ponds.

The angry father of a 10-year-old who drowned in a canal during last year's Easter holidays is also joining the campaign claiming that lessons have not been learned following the death of his son. The parents have pleaded with the Evening News: "Help end our agony and prevent any more children from drowning."

The BEN launched the campaign this week in the wake of the tragic death of eight-year-old Jaffer Javid last weekend in privately-owned Blackshaw Lodge, Deane.

His parents are now enduring the tragic loss that Carol Brooks is having to cope with after the death of her son Jamie on his tadpole hunt.

She is still haunted by his death and says her children, particularly Chelsea, aged eight, are also still badly affected by the tragedy. She has vowed that she will back the BEN campaign in any way she can.

"Obviously, you can't fill in reservoirs and every attractive piece of water, but filthy, unused old mill lodges that are a magnet to children and just a dumping ground should be filled in. Even those that are fished should be fenced off."

Jamie was with his three sisters at the lodge off Waters Meeting Road, Astley Bridge, and was fishing for tadpoles when he went under. His mother says she can still feel the awful numbness that gripped her as a police officer called to tell her what had . But she says the overpowering sense of loss -- that she would never hear Jamie's laughter again -- turned to anger and frustration when she began to realise that it was a tragedy that need never have happened.

"I just can't go anywhere near that lodge now. It scares me to death," said Carol. "What really terrified me when I went there was that despite what happened to Jamie there were still seven or eight children playing near the water's edge."

It was that anger which led Carol and a group of her friends to campaign long and hard for the lodge to either be drained or surrounded with a proper security fence.

"But nothing has really happened," said Carol as her eyes filled with tears. "There's just a bit of rough fencing that any child could get through. I even arranged with a man to transfer all the fish to a proper fishing lake if the lodge was drained, but nobody seems interested."

Carol says her children Simon, 17, Sarah, 16, Kaley, 14, and Chelsea, 8, still grieve for Jamie who was "mischievous, adventurous and loved by everybody." She says that, after Jamie's death, she felt so devastated when she read of tragedies involving other children that she can no longer bear to read a paper.

She was told by a friend about the latest drowning tragedy in Bolton. She said: "I know just how those poor parents must be feeling. And I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

Grieving dad Antony Hardman is another parent who wants the Evening News campaign to succeed.

Mr Hardman, whose 10-year-old son John drowned in a canal during last year's Easter holidays, is angry that lessons have still not been learned.

Mr Hardman of Booth Road, Little Lever, accepts that waterways such as the Manchester-Bolton-Bury Canal cannot be filled in. In fact, work is going on to re-open some filled in stretches.

However, he thinks North West Water and both national park and country park authorities are not only showing how the dangers of water should be emphasised -- but also shaming many private companies who own lodges.

And he says he supports any move, such as filling in old, disused lodges, which will lessen the danger. "If private companies can't fill in a lodge because they need the water, they should at least fence it off and have proper warning notices," said Mr Hardman. "Just look at the signs in country parks and at reservoirs to see how it should be done."

Mr Hardman said the deep sense of loss has not diminished since John's death, which led to a TV appeal by one of his pals for children to stay away from water.