To wonder about sunburnt children before suncream was popularised?

We burned. If you went abroad it was normal to come back with red raw peeling backs, shoulders and nose. Even blisters.

A lipoma is a benign tumour though? So the nhs diagnosed you with a benign tumour, then the private hospital did too?

They don’t usually require treatment unless cosmetic.

i don’t trust private medicine as I have seen too many cases of over treatment 🤷‍♀️

i get a skin check on the nhs. GP, or actually the practice nurse, referred me to dermatology.

Yet...

Yeah we just burned and peeled and didn't die.

I still never wear it but also rarely burn

At our GP, you can have 'up to three' moles or lesions checked at a time. I've done this. But I have the sort of skin with hundreds if not thousands of moles...

I was born mid 70s. My mum was very forward thinking and when we went on holiday she bought the highest factor suncream she could get and would make us wear t shirts for the first week when swimming so we didn't burn. I don't know whether my dad being half greek made a difference to either her attitude or us burning - I have pretty fair skin but generally don't burn if I have sun cream on. My other half, however, went on hot holidays and his mum didn't put any sun cream on him, he used to burn badly and one time tells me of a blister the size of of entire upper back!!!!!!!! So painful on the plane home that he couldn't lean on the seat back! He worries about his risk of skin cancer now with repeat burning and lots of moles and now stays covered in the Summer.

We got burnt, but it was quite normal. You'd go red, peel, then you'd have a tan and you wouldn't get burnt so much. Children would be very dark brown in a hot summer - I remember one hot year the dark brown hair on my arms and legs bleached white, and I thought it looked cool against my deep oak brown skin. I'm naturally pale olive so didn't burn as badly as many.

We had to buy factor 20 for my dad as he has a skin graft on his thigh, and I remember that seeming like a crazy high factor, it was so thick and gloopy.

It's a good point. I'm 50. I don't R.E.M. burning much as a child just the odd but so guess k has suncream in the 70's

Many a fine I would lay in the garden as a teen so 1988 ish and use oil qns sizzle

Shudders now

What I hate seeing now is burnt kids

No need at all !!!

Mini blondes 7 is in f50. We are in tenerife. She will go brown. Tans well. Never burns

I have to work at it but use 30 sometimes higher for first week. Then maybe 20/15

You may be right, which is sad. I know the medical system in the US leaves a lot to be desired, but we get preventative and screening services (blood work, skin checks, mammograms, colonoscopies, annual gyno check ups, etc.) easily and for free or very low cost. I'm fortunate to have insurance of course, but I know that there are services available for uninsured people too.

I was born in 1978 and remember our annual holiday to nothing wales and regularly being burnt

You can pay for private skin checks if you want them done in the UK - or you can go to your GP if you have a suspicious mole you want looking at. Boots even do a skin check service but not at every store, so you may have to travel and you need to book.

Just been looking up old suntan lotion ads..... Coppertone, with a dog pulling down a young girls bikini bottoms, to reveal a white bottom! Haven't times changed, in so many ways!!

I know in Oz it's standard. I may be wrong but simply cannot imagine a UK GP would do it as standard.

I'm about to start an annual cancer screening through our nearest private hospital as I'm over 50 now and have little faith in my GP service. They misdiagnosed a neck lump as a lipoma for a start and told me it was cosmetic only. I went private to get it removed and the consultant found out pretty quickly it was not a lipoma but was a tumour. Thankfully benign and easily dealt with. The base amount I was quoted for a cancer screening (blood tests and skin check) was £500 so I'm going for it.

I was a teenager in the 70s. My go to concoction for sunbathing was factor 2 ambre solaire oil mixed with either lemon juice or sea water. I used to have an amazing tan! I did burn but only a little, I am much more sensitive now.

My kids born in the 90s wore factor 50 and never burnt, except my blond lad once who went out for the day with his friend and came back red and peeling. His friends mum was a nurse and had forgotten to put cream on him.

I’m an 80s child. We never wore suncream in the U.K. and I never remember burning in the U.K. either, despite those hot dry drought years. We wore suncream in the south of France during the summer holidays. Factor 15 the first week, factor 6 the second week. We always burned and I remember pulling threads of skin off my shoulders. But we were in and out of the water, so the suncream probably wasn’t much use. When not swimming we always wore hats. They probably helped.

I was born in the late 1950's, when we went to the hot countries for holiday my mum always put sun cream on. I remember her calling me out of the sea to top up my sun cream. I never got burnt.
My children were born in the 80's, I always put sun cream on them, much to their annoyance!

Always got burned, 70s and 80s my mum would also use oil and factor 2 on herself if really pushed but no protection for us kids. Apparently once you've been burned as a child its too late to try to do anything that will prevent anything from that burning so that worries me.

We used low spf creams and oils in the 70s in the UK, still managed to burn if we stayed out too long. I remember coming back off a holiday to France, and a colleague saying, " it can't have been a good holiday, you're not very brown!" My daughter was born in '83 and the highest spf you could but was factor 12- it was the consistency of toothpaste!

A dermatologist. An annual skin check is standard and covered by insurance in the US where I live. I don't know how it works on the NHS. I assume your GP would do it?

I have memories of my parents etc applying oil so that we tan faster … when we burnt would put on yogurt at night or just complain from the pain and not be able to sleep for nights and peel

I've never burnt to blisters, child of the 70's and 80's. Had some red burns and peeling skin, thankfully nothing worse.

Mum made us wear suncream from an early age but it couldn't have been waterproof as I used to burn after a day in the sea.

My mum DID use suncream - but she went for Factor 2 or 4 ‘oil’ and so seem to remember the one we used was only 8 or similar

70/80s childhood and I remember getting sunburnt and peeling regularly, and I lived in a part of the UK famed for its lack of sun!

We got burnt. And freckles and turned brown, some of us but no adult ever looked at you askance for being so - that’s the difference! Now if I saw a child outside with red shoulders, back, face in the sun I’d wonder why the hell the parent weren’t using suncream and making them wear a shirt and hat

We did burn, I was in agony often on holiday.

But generally, in UK, if you're outside all the time, you build up enough tan gradually that burning isn't a problem.

Born in the 50s, my own mother (very fair skinned and never tanned, only went 'red then white' as she used to say) suffered bad sunburn as a child (maybe because her mother was olive-skinned and didn't really think anything about it). As a result, she was very, very careful with me and did her best to make sure I didn't get sunburnt, or only mildly (quite hard for me to avoid entirely as this was in Australia and I was even fairer than mum.) I remember having suncream on me from an early age, told to come in out of the sun, had to wear a hat and/or T-shirt and was very conscious of the whole sunburn thing!

Fortunately my mother never developed skin cancer (nor have I) but I can only imagine how many people did as a result of over-exposure to the sun. Awareness of this came earlier in Australia, though.