Life

Jake O'Kane: It's unusual to write a column which may save a life, but we need to educate people about the dangers of skin cancer and sunbeds

With thousands of people prepared to risk skin cancer in their search for a tan, this column may help save your life...

Jake O'Kane

Jake O'Kane

Jake is a comic, columnist and contrarian.

Heavy users of sunbeds should stop and ponder the risks they're taking
Heavy users of sunbeds should stop and ponder the risks they're taking Heavy users of sunbeds should stop and ponder the risks they're taking

I CANNOT remember how many times I was sunburnt as a child but I know it was a regular occurrence.

Having been a flaming redhead with skin as pale as parchment, it didn't take much sun for me to burn. With no TV, I spent my time peeling dead skin off my arms and face.

Before you condemn my parents, I'd remind you I'm talking 50 years ago. It was a simpler time, when Guinness was good for you, asbestos was a miraculous building material and every doctor's desk had an ashtray.

Sunshine was viewed as a health-giving blessing from God and the most terrifying threat a parent could utter was: "If you don't behave, I'll keep you in."

I can't remember ever staying indoors voluntarily. During the winter, my time was spent exploring derelict houses and rioting in Belfast.

Over the summer, I stayed with my Granny in Ballinascreen, where every day seemed to last a month as I explored in and around the farm, or went feral in the surrounding hills.

This was the late 1960s, when foreign holidays were still the preserve of the rich and famous. A sun tan was therefore a sure sign of wealth and success, lusted after by those confined to the more tepid climate of NI.

I wasted many summers vainly attempting to get that ever-elusive tan and it always ended badly, with me lying burnt and coated in camomile lotion.

I was in my twenties before the penny finally dropped and I realised the closest I'd ever come to a sun tan would be if my freckles joined up.

Most of my adult life has been spent avoiding the sun; I've long believed Count Dracula was a ginger.

On one holiday in Lanzarote I found my happy place - lying on a sun lounger, under a large sun umbrella, wearing sunglasses, a wide brimmed hat, a long-sleeved top with towels covering my legs, reading a book.

I doubt my own father would have recognised me but two biddies from home passed and I heard one say to the other, "Here, that's your man, what's his name, off the TV."

On another vacation I visited the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. I'd always been fascinated by Ancient Egypt and its Pharaohs and this should have been a wonderful experience, yet all I remember was the sun and heat. I spent the visit sprinting from one Pharaoh's tomb to the next, not to see what was inside, but to escape the blistering sun.

My hat-wearing began around 10 years ago after a visit to the Royal Victoria Hospital's dermatology clinic, following a scare around what my wife called my 'funny freckle'.

Receding hair has made a hat an essential piece of kit, and I seldom venture out without one.

I was shocked, then, when I watched a recent BBC NI True North documentary called Tanorama, dealing with the explosion in popularity of tanning salons.

Following devotees of a permanent tan, the documentary ended with a sobering visit by one of their number to a clinic where she was discovered to have skin damage which the clinicians found worrying.

It's unusual to write a column which may save a life, but this may be just that.

Every week, 11 people in NI are diagnosed with skin cancer, with the prevalence of the disease increasing threefold since the 1980s. There is little hope of that trend stopping until we face the reality that thousands of people - the majority of them young women - put themselves in mortal danger in search of a tan.

I'm not arguing we ban tanning studios as I don't believe that prohibition works. What I would argue is that we give people the relevant facts, and hope they make a sensible decision.

And the facts are incontrovertible. Skin cancer is the most common cancer in NI and the younger you start using sunbeds, the greater your risk of developing it in later life.

While it is illegal for anyone under 18 to use a sunbed, a cursory glance at the numbers of women under that age with deep tans seems to make a mockery of that law. Those using sunbeds expose themselves to UV levels 10 to 15 times higher than they would experience on a Mediterranean beach.

I'd urge heavy users of sunbeds to stop and ponder the risks they're taking; a tan isn't healthy, it's skin damage.

Remember, your sun tan will invariably fade but skin cancer won't, so stay pale and live long.

More about skin cancer prevention at the Public Health Agency website