An entire chapter was devoted to sunbathing. From the 1970s onwards, millions of white British travelled south in summer by cheap flights to spend hours each day spreadeagled by swimming pools and on beaches beneath a ferocious sun. The purpose was to turn white skin brown, which was considered a healthy and attractive look. That this idea coexisted with white racism was, the author suggested, one of the fascinating enigmas of social history. Even when medical science established the cancerous and ageing effects of excess exposure to sunlight, the practice continued well into the twenty-first
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