Cover Up.

Watching the BBC 'Spotlight' programme at lunchtime I noticed that there was a report naming the westcountry as a hotspot for skin cancer. I grew up in a period when getting a nice suntan without adequate protection was regarded as a sign of good health and , as a child, spent many happy hours in the summer out in the fields without ever having to think about the possible effects of the sun's rays. I remember getting particularly sunburnt as a child when on a boat of Exmouth, but that was just something that you had to put up with in those days.

Now we know differently. The incidence of melenoma, the most virulant type of skin cancer is rapidly increasing and death rates are on the rise. No one now would dream of long exposure to the sun without putting on an adequate layer of sun blocker. For us in what has traditionally been a cold climate where there now seems to be increasing evidence of climate change and increasing temperatures, it may well be that our long love affair with the sun's rays is going to become a more realistic understanding as to the effects of the sun on our bodies. Something that many who live in traditionally warmer climes have understood for most of human existence.