A self-confessed sun-worshipper has warned about the dangers of skin damage after being diagnosed with cancer. Former Ford worker Gary Jones would strip off and get out in the sun whenever he could, even on lunch breaks from work, and went on sunshine holidays every year.
As a young man he rarely used sun block and only used low-factor creams when he got older. He even slathered himself in baby oil when he was younger to make his skin brown faster.
“It’s my own fault I got skin cancer,” Gary, 63, said, “It went on for years. I was even sunbathing when I was diagnosed with keratosis sun damage on my face four years ago. Keratosis can be the first sign of skin cancer.” You can get more news and other story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Rea d more: 'We'r e seeing mums whose cancer has become untreatable because the NHS backlog is too big'
The former Ford worker from Llantwit Fardre was diagnosed with squamous cell skin cancer on his head earlier this year and was told it had spread to his lymph nodes. After undergoing several operations he is now going through radiotherapy at Velindre Hospital.
“It started in November 2021 when I noticed a little scab on the top of my head that was not going away. Just before Christmas I noticed the scab had gone but there was a lump there,” he said.
Gary was seen by his GP on Christmas Eve and within two weeks had a biopsy and was told it was squamous cell skin cancer caused by years of sun damage. “The lump just grew and grew until it was 10m and growing daily out of the top of my head. It started erupting like a volcano and I couldn’t control the pain.”
Soon Gary was horrified to see a second lump appear. Surgeons at Prince Charles Hospital in Merthyr removed both lumps. Then a horrified Gary spotted lumps behind his ears.
A consultant told him the devastating news that the skin cancer had been removed from his head but spread to his lymph nodes. In May Gary underwent a four-and-a-half-hour operation at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital to remove his lymph nodes from behind both ears. Doctors told him they got the cancer out but he is now having three weeks of radiotherapy at Velindre Hospital in Cardiff.
“Doctors said it was all caused by the sun. My message to people now is to protect themselves if they’re out in the sun," said Gary.
“I was a great believer in the sun. I loved having a tan – it made me feel good about myself. I’d sunbathe and also used sunbeds a few times.
“Now when I see someone in the sun I would say: 'Be careful. Cover up and use sun protection.' The sun safety message wasn’t there when I was a teenager. I sunbathed in baby oil and coconut oil.”
When he goes out now Gary has to wear a hat and sunglasses and cover every bit of skin on his head and neck. “I worked in a factory for 40 years but was an avid sun-worshipper," he added. I sunbathed whenever I could. In any breaks from the Ford factory we would all be outside stripped off in the sun. It was the time of cheap summer holidays abroad starting in the 1970s and 1980s and I would use baby oil or factor 10 sun screen at most. “I would take cheap holidays abroad whenever I could and when I was 18 I would be down at the beach at Porthcawl in my swimming trunks, stripped off.
"I’d be down there all day and burn to a crisp. A lot of the time I didn’t put on any sun protection. The worst sunburn I got was when I was about 18. I would burn and peel and blister and just take cold showers. There were not the same warnings about sun damage as there are now. It was fashionable to have a tan. I have black hair, going grey now, and I’d burn and then go brown.”
Now Gary and his wife Helen, who never sunbathed to the same extent, warn their children and grandchildren about the dangers of tanning. “I was down in Porthcawl again last week smothered in factor 50 sun cream with a collar and hat on," said Gary. I can only stay out a couple of minutes now and just don’t go in the sun now.
“When I was diagnosed with cancer Helen was crying and I know it’s my own stupidity. Even when the sun message came out I didn’t take any notice. I went on holiday somewhere hot once a year and sometimes four times a year. I know it’s easy for me to preach now but I tell our four children and nine grandchildren to cover up and every time I see the nurses outside Velindre in the sunshine I say the same.”
“If I see people out in the sun without protection I feel like telling them to get a hat and sun cream on. I never did that years ago. I would also like to thank all the NHS staff. They were so important with my treatment – from the porters to the surgeons."
Read next:
- Cardiff father and son dead and three other family members in hospital as police 'investigate poisoning'
- Mum glasses teacher from her child's school outside pub
- Son in tears over Wales international's diagnosis
- Man, 75, dies after his car collides with lamppost in Aberdare
- 'Major disruption' expected as key routes near A465 to close for months
