The Factor Fifty Factor

My first overseas holiday was in 1987. In the company of a number of friends, including Paul Calvert, Graham Bull, Gerry Baker and his brother Brian, I went to C'an Pastilla on the Balearic island of Majorca. That holiday was also the first time I can recall ever using sun screen. Today, for a number of very good reasons, suntan lotion is something that we all use, liberally, both at home and abroad but somehow in 1987 it was only really associated with foreign holidays. Sun screen was deemed unnecessary in Britain, even at the height of summer.

The Alexandra Sol, C'an Pastilla.

Even for fair skinned people like me, protection from the sun in Britain thirty or forty years ago consisted largely of wearing a t-shirt and not staying out in it too long. To be honest, even after experiencing the power of the sun when on holiday abroad, and having come to understand the benefits of suntan lotion, I still sometimes underestimated the power of the sun at home. In fact the two worst cases of sunburn I have had were both received in England. Once in Brighton in the late 1970's when, deceived by a cooling breeze, I burnt my shoulders to the extent that I could not lie on my back in bed that night, and then, in 1993 when I failed to notice the strength of the sun in Cornwall and burned my head. A problem I have always had is that rather than turn an attractive shade of bronze when tanned by the sun, I have a propensity to go very pink and peel almost immediately. After my encounter with the Cornish sun my bright-red bonce started to flake the very next day, leaving me looking like a lobster with an acute case of dandruff - attractive it was not.

Experience has taught me (and many other people, I'm sure) that slathering on the Factor 50 is just as important in Romford as it is in Rome; in 1987 suntan lotion was (to me at least) generic - SPF meant nothing to me. Today I will not use anything less than SPF30 - often I use 50, because while lightly tanned skin may be a nice to have, 'pale and interesting' is OK by me if it means avoiding sunburn. 

Generous applications of this are the order of the day for me.

Apart from my inaugural use of suntan lotion, a major factor in my avoiding getting too burnt in Majorca all those years ago were the hours I kept. Having never been abroad before, and having flown only once before (to Jersey, which takes less than an hour), my trip to Majorca was notable for a few other firsts that we today take very much for granted. Most people will be familiar with that "whoomph" of hot air that greets you as you step off an aeroplane in some hot clime; that, accompanied by bunged up ears resulting from the descent into Palma airport are abiding memories for me. We arrived in the late evening, and that set the tone for the holiday really, with the late evening (stretching into the early hours of the morning) being our peak time. Mornings were generally spent a-bed, sleeping off the previous night's beer while afternoons were passed in the shade by the pool, consuming copious amounts of water. After dinner we would buy as many English daily newspapers as we could and read and swap them as we sipped the odd beer on the terrace before going out to some bar or other nearer midnight than any other hour.

It is well known that the reputation of the British abroad is not a particularly favourable one. The British, it is said, will have no truck with that foreign food, preferring fry up's for breakfast, roasts for dinner, and chips and lager with everything. My first foray into Europe was somewhat fraught on the food front it has to be said. A lot of the 'international' cuisine at the Alexandra Sol Hotel was unfamiliar, and while I may sometimes chide my younger daughter for her limited culinary horizons, they are a lot broader than mine were at her age. Which is something that, along with the exposure to other cultures and an appreciation of other countries, other people, must be a good thing. Fortunately, each successive generation is becoming more adventurous, more willing to try new things, less set in its ways. While it took me until I was approaching thirty before I got a passport and travelled abroad, my daughter has been travelling abroad with us on holiday practically from birth and those experiences can only be a good thing; travel really does broaden the mind. In contrast, my parents only went abroad once between the pair of them. My Father's only excursion overseas was during the Second World War, and my Mother never even owned a passport - her only trip by air was to Jersey, for her honeymoon. Incidentally, my Dad, who never sunbathed, never burned and never used suntan lotion, would tan at the drop of a hat, simply by pottering about in the garden for an hour or so every day during the summer.

I took this picture of C'an Pastilla in 2012 when Val and I visited for the day. The Alexandra Sol's terrace is in the background with the white umbrellas. The resort seemed little changed despite the passage of 25 years.

Mind you, the Germans seem to like their home comforts abroad; many resorts have as many German bars as they do British ones, and the most drink befuddled tourists I ever saw in Majorca were Swedish (or possibly Norwegian). Thrilled by the prospect of buying beer  at prices that didn't necessitate taking out a mortgage, a few Scandinavians we encountered that first year in C'an Pastilla appeared to be determined to drink a year's worth in a fortnight - or perhaps in just one evening.

These days I drink more of this than I do beer.

Having just returned from a holiday to Cyprus, it was interesting to note that there was little if anything in the way of the stereotypical behaviour of the English abroad. We stayed in Paphos, not the hot-bed of boisterous behaviour that might be found along the coast at Ayia Napa, perhaps but two examples of typical Brit behaviour were in evidence. One is the wearing of replica football shirts. It is only the British that seem to wear them other than at actual games once they get past the age of about ten, and the only football shirts in evidence and being worn by anyone beyond school age were Manchester United, Newcastle United, Celtic and Middlesbrough kits. Similarly, while the over exuberant riders of electric scooters up and down the front came from a wide range of nationalities among those under about sixteen, the only boisterous riders of more mature years (in age, if not in behaviour) were exclusively British. Part of the personality of the British male is an inability to grow up, it seems.

Here's a picture of a pelican. This one lives in Paphos.

After initially dipping my toe in foreign waters with a trip to C'an Pastilla, I returned with a similar cast of friends (supplemented by Keith Markham) the following year, which has set a regular pattern of pairs of holidays in more recent years. While Majorca is a regular haunt, I've done Hawaii twice, then Bandos in the Maldives twice and now Paphos twice, which has its benefits since by the second visit the better restaurants and bars have been scoped and the nicer places to visit have been weeded from the less attractive. Not that I subscribe to the idea of visiting the same place year after year, so next summer Paphos may well be supplanted by another venue. Wherever we go, the Factor 50 will follow.