IT'S sad I've reached an age where I was forced to produce an old photograph to prove to my children I was once ginger.
My daughter, who seldom misses the mark, pointed out she's only known me as grey, bald, or somewhere between the two. Indignant, I took to the attic and, after a few hours excavating, finally discovered a box of old photos which included one taken in 1993 when I'd appeared on the Gerry Kelly Show.
No, not that Gerry Kelly, the big jovial guy who had the first 'biggest show in the country'.
My children were amazed that artefacts such as this photo had survived and giggled when I told them my generation had to bring our film to the chemists to get developed. If I'd said I'd seen dinosaurs walking the streets, they couldn't have looked more astounded.
There was no sexting in my day as doing so would have involved buying a Polaroid instant camera and praying your lover's Da didn't open your letter by mistake.
Still, my point was proved, I was once a flaming ginger – and remain so, regarding my skin anyway. Adding insult to injury, my daughter staring intently at my photo enquired of her mother what she'd seen in me? I decided the best form of punishment was to explain to her how gingers came into existence.
Tying her to a chair, I began. Around 1.5 billion years ago, homo sapiens living in central Africa decided it was getting a tad hot, so packed up and headed north. Stopping for a pint in central Asia for a few thousand years, it was there the first ginger popped out.
I can't imagine what the tribe thought of the red-haired oddity, but thankfully its arrival must have coincided with a good crop as it survived to pass on its recessive gene (MC1R).
Suitably refreshed, the tribe once again headed north – accompanied by their good luck red-haired children – finally settling in northern Europe where UV levels didn't instantly incinerate gingers. Eventually, the Roman army arrived, and the tribe had a name – the Celts.
Gingers prospered, no doubt due to our stunning good looks, intelligence, and charm.
Sadly, my daughter missed hearing this scientifically proven fact, having already chewed through her bindings and escaped.
Gingers even invented habitation suitable to our fair skin, naming these structures 'pubs'. There within, packs of pallid drinkers would spend their idle hours, discussing the madness of darker-haired relatives cavorting outdoors in the sun's death rays.
As a child – back when photos were developed in chemists, adults hit children, and everyone smoked, especially children – the idea of sunshine being dangerous was viewed as ridiculous. And so, most summers, I was burnt to a crisp, shedding my skin like a lizard. My elders called this process 'getting a colour about ye'.
Luckily, I survived to an age when I realised that not only wasn't stout 'good for you' but my skin and the sun didn't mix. From that eureka moment, I've spent my life avoiding its damaging rays; fortunately living in Ireland that wasn't – until recently – a difficult task.
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PRIOR to my first trip to Africa, I'd only previously experienced temperatures over 40C upon opening our oven door. On departing the plane in Egypt, I'd a flashback to opening the oven and seriously considered returning to my seat, but my wife pushed me down the steps.
It was on that trip I experienced 42C whilst visiting the Valley of the Kings burial site. I spent most of that day sprinting for cover from tomb to tomb, fearful I was in danger of spontaneous combustion.
During another trip, this time to Venice, the temperature once again crawled above 40: I spent that day in our hotel room, lying under the air conditioner as my wife explored the city.
You've probably caught my point – we gingers haven't evolved for such heat.
So, like fellow Celts with bodies covered by translucent skin, I was horrified over the week as record temperatures hit 40C for the first time in the UK.
As the owners of sunbed parlours danced for rain, their customers stripped naked to bake in free UV rays, no doubt competing for the biggest carcinoma.
And, as a UK cinema chain – in an act of exemplary humanitarianism – offered free tickets to fleeing gingers, here in Ireland we'd long since retreated to our local pubs. There, gathered around windows, we bewilderedly observed the definition of lunacy: namely, Irish sunbathers.
