ALL I ever wanted was to come back from holiday with a sunkissed glow. But the sun didn’t kiss my skin - it scorched it so much it made me cry.

It always seemed unfair that I was born into a family of olive-skinned people, yet my own skin was so pale it was almost translucent. I remember returning from a summer holiday to France and a neighbour said: “You all look nice and brown, except for Emma who doesn’t look as if she’s been anywhere.”

The fact that I’d suffered sunburn so bad it felt like my skin was on fire was all for nothing. Unlike my siblings, who turned golden brown in the sun, the best I could hope for was blotchy pink, fading back to stark white. “You’re an English Rose,” my dad would say. “I don’t want to be an English Rose. I want a tan!” I’d wail.

I remember lying on a bed on holiday, aged about seven, sobbing because my legs were sunburnt. Even the brush of a sheet against my skin was agonising. I simply got told off for being a drama queen. This was the 1970s, and parents weren’t as meticulous with suncream as they are now.

Or maybe they’re not quite so meticulous, when you consider a worrying new poll revealing that almost four in 10 parents believe a sun tan is healthy. The poll, for the Met Office and NHS England, of 1,001 parents of children up to the age of 16 found 34per cent think a tan helps build resistance to the sun, while 37per cent think it’s a sign of good health. Alarmingly, seven per cent of parents have encouraged their child to use a lower factor suncream to get a tan, and some have never used suncream on their child. Four per cent said their child had been sunburned so severely they were admitted to hospital.

It’s a shockingly relaxed attitude to sun exposure, but I guess it’s to be expected from a nation of sun worshippers who still regard a tan as a ‘healthy glow’.

The answer to my tanning prayers came when I discovered sunbeds. Aged about 17, I started using them at a leisure centre after school. Regular 30-minute sessions under UV light turned my skin golden. For the first time ever I had a tan - and no sunburn! I used sunbeds for years, under the illusion I was topping up a 'healthy glow', and now I bitterly regret it.

Following a particularly nasty bout of sunburn a decade ago, when a deceptive sea breeze on an Algarve beach turned my face the colour of a tomato and the texture of a cheap handbag, I have been more sensible in the sun. But still there's a nagging fear that my reckless sunbed-using past, not to mention childhood sunburn, may one day catch up with me.

* The announcement that Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff is to star in Fat Friends - The Musical, coming to Bradford next year, was not good news for one of my Facebook friends - an actor who has worked hard hoofing in West End shows for 10 years. "Think I'm going to have a go at cricket," he posted. "Don't know why I bothered training...Someone who's trained since they were four will have gone into that role for about £700 a week. He'll be on thousands."

He has a point. It must irk trained actors no end when celebrities/sportspeople with no acting experience land high-profile lead roles. I feel the same when reality TV people, pop singers and models with zero journalism training become TV presenters overnight. Channel 4 has axed TV show Host The Week after ex-Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt's presenting stint last week drew just 470,000 viewers and was slammed as "unwatchable".

Scarlett is famous for sitting on a sofa, watching telly. I rest my case.

* A FOODIE friend recently attended a foraging workshop, and has now fully embraced the concept of wild food.

Foraging is cool, with hip restaurants and food fairs devoted to plants and fungi gathered from hedgerows and woodlands. For those of who went berry-picking as children, delving into brambles and filling plastic tubs with juicy blackberries, it's nothing new. When we discovered a local car park awash with raspberry bushes, my mum's prolific jam-making practically became a cottage industry. The sweetest of summer pleasures.

* NEWS that Daniel Day Lewis is to retire from acting has caused quite a stir.

Although it's a shame that we won't get to see him in any more films, I think it's commendable that at the age of 60 he has decided to bow out gracefully. He's at the top of his game, he has three Oscars, and maybe he just wants to live another life now.

So many thespians plod on, well past their sell-by date, because they can't bear being out of the spotlight. It's tiresome to hear them defiantly announce that "retirement isn't in my vocabulary". How pompous.

In such an ego-driven industry, it's refreshing that one of our greatest living actors can survive quite happily without the adoration and the applause. I wish him well.