Here comes the sun

It is a glorious day here and as it is a bank holiday people will be out in their droves, milling around in parks and town centres, flopping about on beaches and exposing as much of their skins as possible to the damaging UV that makes us all feel so much better. Tomorrow there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth as the sunburn kicks in and the phrase “never again” will be heard all over the country.

The last time that I got burned in the sun was in 1968 and I remember it so well that I am very careful not to expose myself again. Having said that, exposing my body to the world is not a good idea. There comes a time in most people’s lives when most of them is best kept hidden and I hate to put people off their dinners. It was a day like this but probably in June. I was then at Teacher Training College in Southsea, and in those days I wanted to do everything. If there was a society that interested me in any way I’d join it. After all it was free and there were so many facilities that were at one’s disposal. As a member of the canoe club, we had access to some wonderful sea canoes, and even the odd life jacket or two, though in those days the concept of health and safety hadn’t been invented. Anyhow on that day we decided that we’d head off for Hayling Island, a relatively short trip over Langstone Harbour and the rather treacherous strip of water that linked the harbour to the open water. Hayling was then a quiet refuge for a few and was littered with sand dunes, and it is here that we spent a couple of hours without any shade. Sunscreen hadn’t been invented then either, or if it had we couldn’t afford it. We fried in the mid day sun without realising it, the pain only kicking in once the canoes had been put away at the end of the day. To say that it was painful does no justice to the experience. My back and shoulders were a shade of red that I had never seen before and it was hard to move let alone do anything. The only good that came out of the experience was the sympathy I received from two rather nice girls, who took me back to their room and covered me with oils and unguents with tender hands. Even that was painful though to some extent soothing. I was in agony for a couple of days and had learned a hard lesson.

Everyone knows these days about the hazards of sunbathing without protection and yet it would seem that we are not capable of learning from the mistakes of others. We all have to make our own mistakes, and live with the consequences.