To wonder about sunburnt children before suncream was popularised?

We were always made to limit time outdoors in hot sun to build up a base. 20 mins or so in sun then T shirts back on. Then we would get a factor 10 if we wanted to strip off later. The exposure time would be stretched gradually. There is some truth in it, I remember getting mild burns where you are hot and a bit pink but it's relieved by after sun cream and gone a few hours later. A few days of this burn 'management' and you don't really burn anymore, but if abroad we were always made avoid midday sun. My sister tanned well and rarely burned after the first few days of Summer, I never really fully climatised and never really got darker but just stopped burning. It was something I was always really jealous of actually.

Like many others I burned, and I peeled.

It hurt - a lot.

However I was partially eased via the cooling properties of calamine lotion.

I really don't get how seeing your child or others covered in painful burns and likely in absolute agony would not prompt parents to feel awful that their child was going through that be more careful and protective?!
I got severe sunburn in my early 20s due to forgetting to put suncream on, as it was hotter that day than expected, and it was worse pain than childbirth!
I just don't get alot of these practices of past generations....same as not feeding a baby when they cried in hunger, or comforting them when they cried out in the night.....surely people's brains were wired the same, with the same intelligence, ie; they must have known it was possible to burn if out in hot sun, so to keep their kids away from it, and to understand pain/emotional distress and show some empathy and care, for it to hurt them to see their child so upset.
But all these accounts in previous post of children being left or encouraged to burn sound so cruel and neglectful :(
Glad I was born in the late 80s to protective parents who always used suncream!

I had the weird mother who did put suncream on us in the 70s sadly we learned the hard way slapping it on once a day wasnt enogh I was a child who fried

I grew up in the 60s and 70s. We burnt, peeled, burnt again, and eventually tanned enough to stop burning.

I used to burn badly. Burn - peel - burn - peel - was just the norm. Huge blisters all over my back sometimes - fever and shivering. My mum used to treat the burns with natural yoghurt. I probably needed medical attention.

I was a kid in the 70s and don’t really remember getting badly burnt.

I do remember that factor 4 was really thick and seemed to protect you more than factor 50 today. Growing up, the thought that in the future I’d be putting on factor 50 would blow my mind.

I remember my mum and dad burning in the 80s on an English beach holiday. They burnt so badly they had to stay in bed for the day as every time they moved their skin bled, ouch! Think it happened to people once then they learned their lesson and covered up next time. I’m in my 40s and have horribly sun damaged skin from sun bathing as a kid/teen in the early 90s

My Dad is very fair and burns very easily, and he has had several skin cancers removed from his face over the past fifteen years (he was a 50s child).

I was an 80s child and I burned a bit, but am much more olive -skinned like my mum, so never burned to blisters. Did burn to peeling occasionally, especially on my nose. I remember having a sunhat and my mum making us wear baggy t-shirts. I also was a huge bookworm and couldn't see my book in the bright sun, so I would usually sit in the shade. Very grateful for that now.

I was an 80's child. We're from the ME (so winters would be around 20 degrees and summers over 40 degrees) and were always told NOT to sit out in the midday sun (stay in shade/indoors, always wear hats/sunscreen, keep hydrated). So we'd be outside in the early and late part of the days. My parents were pretty strict on that. We were lucky and never got burned. I used to be shocked when I saw tourists sunbathing all day.

Anyone remember the sunscreen that was used in the 80's? I remember it was really thick and sticky! I also remember the really cool tubs of fluorescent coloured sunscreen. I remember spending my pocket money on a tub of the bright pink stuff once and it ended up bloody melting in the sun!!!

Born in the early 70s and I remember severe sunburns all through childhood. My nose burnt and peeled so badly every year that I had a permanent scar across the bridge of my nose. My shoulders would blister and when the skin peeled off it would have a red, raw center and gradations of pink. My family took us to Florida and I got a severe sunburn and had heat stroke. My shaking was so bad that my cousin complained she couldn't share a bed with me. I don't know if anyone even offered me an aspirin. And that my friends was the benign neglect experienced by most of the kids at the time. I went to Cuba in the early 90s and the locals warned us to stay out of the sun from 10-2pm and that was probably the first time I realized other cultures practiced safe sun. Obviously very important in Cuba but they probably thought tourists were complete idiots lying on the beach all day and getting sunburnt. I have been obsessive about my kids' skin and they never got a sunburn as kids.

We needed to get the first burn of the year over, and then we tanned.

I grew up in a sunny place and have a very wrinkly face at 50.

More clothing coverage back then too

Got really burnt several times in the 1970s.. I have overwhelming memories of lying in bed unable to turn over, or move, because the feel of sheets was excruciating against my burnt skin.

My boss was born in SA in the 60s. Her mum never bothered with suncream. She's had countless skin cancers cut out over the years.

My parents grew up in the 60s in South Africa. They just burnt or learnt to stay in the shade. My mum also told me that apparently a hot bath was recommended after a sun burn to ‘get the sting out’. Hot bath not cold! She said it was agony but just part of life. They also used to peel each other’s sunburn off which was seen as funny!

I am one of the people who goes pink then tans but over the last decade I’ve had a few bad sunburns and I do worry about what damage has been caused. I never thought about sunbeams unless abroad until the last few years. In my early 20’s I sat out for 8 hours and got a severe sunburn and had to stay off work as I actually couldn’t move my shoulders. I stupidly wore a strapless tube top..I was the tube lol.

My dad had black hair and dark eyes with olive skin, he could look out the window on a sunny day and be really dark. He was mistaken in Spain as a Spaniard, I remember he had to photocopy his passport once and back and white he was just very dark. We started calling him ‘Eduardo Suarez’ as a joke. My mother is the opppsite, she is very fair and blonde with ghostly skin, her mother was Ginger with skin that didn’t tan. Each holiday my dad would come home like polished wood my mum would look like a barbers pole. She’d say ‘it’ll be a tan once the redness goes…’ I have never seen her with a tan just peeling sunburn.

i remember one day seeing a small girl with red hair and very white skin wearing a vest too and shorts at the beach and at 11am she was already scarlet I would have hated to see the state of the wee mite by 3pm.

I think it’s also important to remember that a “tan” is actually a sign of skin damage.

@Leah5678 I grew up in Australia and sunscreen was a must, I try and wear it all year round, I also take a hat and sunglasses with me everywhere, it's just what I'm use to. At school they did a lot about sun safety and you weren't allowed to play outside unless you had sunscreen and a hat on (with the back flap at primary school and a broad brimmed sun hat at high school). There wasn't a teacher who couldn't show us scars from where they had skin cancer removed, I think that helped everyone keep reapplying.

I was a child of the 60s and spent most of my non school time outside with my siblings playing with other children. The only time we had sunscreen applied was when on holidays in southern Europe. According to my mother, I was as brown as a berry. I don’t remember ever getting sunburn.

I'm as pale as they get and never burnt- maybe my parents were sensible but I don't remember any of my friends getting burnt to the point of blistering either. We all had brown arms, legs and faces and white bodies. The only kids I remember peeling were those that had been abroad.

We burnt.

My mum was unusual as in she bought suncream but it was used sparingly as it was bloody expensive. And would only be used on holidays if we were sunbathing, other than that we burned away......it was the norm. I still remember a lad sat in my English class quietly crying because of the amount of pain he was in. Poor sod was red raw, kids slapping each others sunburn was the norm too. 🙄

I once cared for a woman of 37 who came into the emergency department with a chesty cough- she thought she had pneumonia but it turned out she had metastatic lung cancer secondary to a malignant melanoma that the doctors discovered on her back...

So skin cancer scares me.

I did get burnt a few times as a child but never went abroad until my early 20s & wore factor 15 in the sun from late childhood, now wear spf30 - spf50 reapplied regularly so I'm hoping I've got away with it. I had a skin check recently that was alright.

In the 80s and 90s I remember kids getting sunburnt. Even now , some people think that suncream isn't necessary in the UK, and are surprised if they burn.

Child of 80s and 90s. Sun cream was deemed an expensive luxury that my parents didn’t prioritise.