Gales gusting up to 70mph battered Britain over the weekend, during which one man drowned in the sea and a father and his son were rescued from a swollen river.

As the first big winter storm of the year lashed the coast, swells off the Atlantic coast reached 40ft (12m) and in the Channel they rose to 25ft.

The South Coast bore the brunt of the ferocious winds, with gales of 70mph (113km/h) in the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. Police in Blackpool confirmed that the body of a 23-year-old man had been found on the beach on Sunday morning.

According to the coastguard, the man had been midway through a 999 phone call to report a friend lost in the sea when staff apparently heard him fall into the water. It is now feared that the dead man’s friend may also have died in the huge waves that struck the Lancashire coast. The Coastguard Service said that no body had been recovered so far.

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In another incident, a father and his nine-year-old son were saved by fire-fighters after they were swept away by the racing current of the River Lyn near Lynton, North Devon, at about 9.30am yesterday.

Chris Almond, national forecaster at the Met Office, said: “The middle of Sunday was the worst, when the winds peaked. The winds will continue to ease for the rest of the week but it will be fairly breezy. It’s going to be an unsettled week.”