To wonder about sunburnt children before suncream was popularised?

[Leah5678]

Apparently wasn't popularised until the 70s. With children playing outside practically every day back in the days before television was invented how did they not burn? Did they just get used to it?
Apologies if this is an extremely stupid question just something I've been wondering about with the last few days of decent weather

As children in 60s and 70s, we were outside all the time, every day and evenings until sundown in spring and summer when not at school so our skins became used to it. That was the culture then. Dad used to put zinc cream on our noses before we went out, like mountaineers and surfers did. I don't remember sun protection until late 1970s.

There seems to be more power in the sun now. Even though I have been outdoors an awful lot ib my life, my arms are now burning in half an hour. I have to cover up.

Born mid 60s, family of pale blonds and gingers. We burnt then peeled, we enjoyed picking off the dead skin on our shoulders, tops of our ears. Eventually as the summer went on we would be tanned. From about the mid 70s we used suncream but even factor 15 was considered high so we still did burn. Even when my children were born in the 90s you could get factor 50 for children but hard to find for adults.

We were taught from a young age to stay in the shade when it is too hot. I don't wear suncream now and have never put it on DC unless they were going to be 'caught out' eg having to queue at a theme park on a hot day. I think suncream is great for very fair skinned people and when the sun is unavoidable but it is better to learn to understand your body's warnings that it is to hot imo!

But they would have much less exposed skin - back in the 1800s they would have worn hats, bonnets, shirts, trousers or long skirts. Before the 1920s no-one wanted a tan so the leisured classes would have covered up or stayed in the shade.

I've only read the OP but I'll read the rest of the thread shortly.

We burned. My parents took the approach sometimes that a bit of sunburn would give you a nice tan and then you were protected from the sun. This approach led me to being so badly burned as a toddler that, in their words, I was essentially one big blister.

They only started using Sun cream from the alte 1980s onwards when, as a family, we had such severe sunstroke the hotel called a doctor and apparently (this is gleaned from the joyful retelling my parents do, decades later) he told them off for such stupid behaviour. They have a series of photos, we look like we were grilled for 8 hours. Which we were, to be honest.

After that we had factor 15 or 20 slapped on us, but only on foreign soil. Because UK sun doesn't burn 🙄i don't remember it being applied unless we were spending the day on the beach and only then only if we were visibly red and burnt. Again, being sunburnt led to a tan and that meant we were protected, according to perceived wisdom.

When I send my DC to stay with my parents, they are supplied with factory 50 and baseball caps. The kids have been applying their own suncream since they were at nursery. My parents laugh, a lot, at my over-the-top "barrier cream". But I don't want the kids to have sun damage. We all burn easily and I do my best to protect them.

DH has a skin condition that benefits from not using any SPF but he also burns, so he uses it more than not.

So my recollection is summers being nicely crisped up, and then having some level of a tan afterwards which my parents approved of. Nobody wanted a peely-wally child cutting about the place.

I remember a Jilly Cooper novel (Imogen, perhaps?), written in the 1970s, where the heroine was pasty and overweight. Somehow she ended up going to the south of France with lots of glamorous, suntanned young things - I think it might have been to a tennis tournament - where she was a real ugly duckling. She got horribly red and sunburned and sick, then lo and behold, her skin peeled, leaving her with a beautiful golden tan, the sickness meant that she lost weight, and the young man everyone fancied suddenly noticed her and was smitten.

After reading that I used to let myself burn horribly in the hope that the same would happen to me. Obviously it didn't. Jilly Cooper has a lot to answer for.

I was regularly sunburnt! My parents’ attitude was that you didn’t need sunscreen in the U.K. They would go off abroad (presumably with sunscreen) and we would be at our grandparents house - playing out all day. We’d burn and granny would “treat” it with baby oil.

I let my Dad and his wife take my children to the beach just ONCE. I covered them both in high factor (one is ginger), packed their UV beach wear and more sunscreen. DFs wife declared their sunsuits “ugly” and went and bought “attractive” swimwear from the beachside shop when DD asked for more sunscreen she was told she wouldn’t be “pretty and tanned” - she was SEVEN FFS! This was southern France in August. Of course they were both burned and crying when they came back to me. Wife declared “but they’ll tan beautifully in future”. 😮 She also considered car seats absolutely ridiculous and said parents should just hold children on their laps!

I was small in the 80's and when I was with my mum I remember only having sun cream for the beach, not at any other time. My dad was more insistent on me using it on any hot day when we were going to be outside. I did get sunburn quite a lot. My mum is mixed race and goes very brown in the sun so probably didn't really consider it. In her family I'm the odd one out with my pale skin!

In the 70s would be regularly basted like turkeys with coconut smelling tanning oils (like the oil here) & sent out to play from morning until the streetlights came on.

We burned like bastards. I don’t remember a year until my teens when I didn’t have sunburn bad enough to peel great swathes of skin off whilst sitting in front of Tomorrow’s World.

When I started my family in the 1990s I’d use a minimum of Factor 30, and we still use it today. DD is a rare bird that is allergic to sunlight (even at 27!) so we had to up the sun team strength to hospital grade Factor 50 for her. So many articles and med studies written about her over the years!

A bandage would be thinner to be honest.

There's too much obsession about sunscreen these days. Children play out at school for 15 minutes in the morning and about twenty five minutes at lunch time- yet parents expect them to reapply SPF every time they go out- a 5 year old can't manage to apply it anyway and by the time they've faffed about it's time to come in.

If they are wearing a t-shirt with sleeves and a hot then they will be fine for a short playtime- legs and arms don't catch the sun that quickly.

In the 70s nobody wore suncream- you built up a gradual tan starting in the spring when the sun is weaker with short exposures and by the time it was hot enough to burn you had a good base tan. If it was super-hot then mum made sure we played in the shade or took us inside if we looked like we were burning. I don't remember ever being burned. Kids played outside a lot more in those days so always had a good tan without burning.

I remember a heatwave in the early 90's
where my back got so badly burnt,it was one big scab

I remember my mother picking bits off-she didn't believe in suncream

I remember saving up for a bottle from mothercare/boots as a skint single mum to my baby in the late 90's and her being puzzled and shouting that I'd wasted my money

The first and last time I allowed her to take the kids to the beach,she didn't bother putting any on them (even tho I'd given her a brand new bottle,the kids kept telling her 'mum makes us put cream on' and me phoning her to remind her)

She 'forgot' apparently

Actually, I may be doing my parents a disservice. I remember being told to put a t-shirt on at the beach (UK and abroad) if our shoulders went red. I recall lots of summer photos of us in swimsuits and tshirts😂

The smell of aftersun takes me straight back to childhood summers. Aftersun stopped you burning, right?

Oh, and peeling sheets of skin off ourselves at service stations on the long road home from France.

And starting off on the factor 20, before dropping down to 12 then 8 (foreign holidays after the Doctor Scolding year).

Joy.

And yes, I keep an eye on moles.

I remember dDad getting an absolute bollocking from a French pharmacist when I was around 7 or 8. My back was blistered, it was horrific. I'm fair, rest of the family not so much. I'd had suncream on but didn't reapply when in and out of the sea (iirc the instructions weren't clear on this, and as a pp said around factor 15 was highest). Pharmacist was lovely to me and dressed the blisters). Don't think I took my t-shirt off in the sun for years after that!

Many years later I had a few moles removed (all clear but had looked dodgy/were catching on my bra strap and bleeding). Still got loads of moles but so far (40 odd years later) no other permanent damage 🤞

I remember my Mum putting Nivea face cream on me in the 60s

Grew up in the 80s/90s, never had sun cream on us and have no recollections of being burned - but I don’t remember starting to burn in the sun until I was pregnant as an adult. Now I need liberal lashings of the stuff!

Edited to add - I’m from the generation that put baby oil on as a teen and went to sunbathe though so perhaps we weren’t the smartest in the sun anyway

And also I think back then the ozone layer was thicker?

Yes, we burned! Getting sunburn was an annual rite of passage, peeling was a mark of honour, and "taking a tan" was considered a big compliment. I have lots of sun damage on my face, arms and upper back.

One of the few things I ever blew my stack about with my parents when I had my own children was their attitude to sun protection. By then, parents were taught to be meticulous about protecting our children from sunburn, and I was hot on hats, shirts and sunscreen, but my parents held on to the belief that a scorching did the children good, and would be like, "Oh, they screamed and ran away when I tried to put the sun cream on, and they look like a clown in that stupid hat," or, "Auntie Jeannie kindly offered to take them to the beach, and we gave her the sun cream, but you know what she's like, she has to do everything her own way and she brought them back like wee beetroots."

It would explain the huge amount of skin cancer in the uk.

I grew up in 80s/90s and my mum always put suncream on us

In the seventies nobody wore sunscreen and now, forty odd years later, rates of skin cancer are at their highest.

I wonder if there could be a connection? 😬

I burnt a lot as child in the 70s. But I also remember covering up a lot because people felt it was perfectly okay to openly comment on how pale you were 🙄. Like a PP, I can remember people saying "You dont look like you've been away" if you came home without a physically impossible to acquire tan.

My neck and top of the chest is where you can see the most sun damage now. Can still get caught out there if out on a hot day.

Skin cancer can take years to develop, most aren’t quick. Plus I think increase in skin cancer could be linked to more travel abroad. I’m in Cyprus at the moment and the amount of roasted english hams walking about it shocking. I’d rather look like a milk bottle.

Plus I think increase in skin cancer could be linked to more travel abroad. I’m in Cyprus at the moment and the amount of roasted english hams walking about it shocking. I’d rather look like a milk bottle.

i was born early 80s and always burnt on holidays. always naked too with no sun cream

The sun is the sun wether it’s here or abroad. Sun rays/UV light can also go through cloud. It doesn’t have to be a blazing hot day. A ‘base tan’ does not mean you can’t get skin cancer.

Also many people could have gotten skin cancer many decades ago but not realised it before more was known about it. Many probably died from melanomas and spread and knew nothing.

Sunscreen isn’t over hyped it’s saving lives all over the world. We’ve had several people who work with the elderly in this thread state it’s very common in the generations from the 40s onwards….. we’ve had people that have had nasty cancers removed.

I was burned as a kid in the 80s and probably didn’t use enough sun cream as a teen in the 90s. But i’ve looked after my skin ever since.