The dermatologist raised an eye when I told him that I had been covering up from the fierce Dunedin sun, that a hat never left my head.
Kidney transplantees are more prone to skin cancer, and as I am also more prone to a fear of death, for the past four years I have been very careful.
"You can also do a lot of damage when you are very young," he said.
An icy chill snaked up my spine.
"How young?" I asked.
"Oh, you know, 9, 10, 11," he said nonchalantly.
I tend not to mention this at prestigious dinner parties, but when I was 9, 10 or 11, I was a nudist.
Every pore on my fair-skinned wafer-thin body was regularly roasted at a delightful sun and health club out on the Taieri, its exact location best left to the imagination of religious cranks and Stadium supporters, though it has to be said it was directly on the flight path to the Taieri Aerodrome.
I never flew in those days, but doubtless it was alluded to in aviatorial metaphor by the pilot ("Directly below us now you will see breasts").
But I never thought much of it then.
I didn't even know what nudism was.
Our family just worshipped the sun.
So did other families and couples at the club.
No singles were allowed. We squealed and threw quoits together and splashed in a pool.
There was a magazine. Everybody had a false name.
My father told me the real life identities of a couple of the members. They were quite famous in a local small pond sort of way.
I don't think people covered up then.
Worse than that, they used solar accelerants like coconut oil to go as brown as brown could be. I never went brown.
When I caked myself in coconut oil and lay naked in the sun, I'd crackle and spit for a while and then catch fire.
Howling pain from sunburn and bubbling blisters just seemed to me to be what happened when you worshipped the sun.
You don't question things at the age of 9, 10 or 11.
At 11 I know many boys worked this out before they were 11, but I was thick when it came to working things out I realised I had a penis, and that was the end of the sun and health club.
Phwoarr! I mean, even at 11, I had standards.
But there was one more nudism episode before closure finally came on this allegedly obscene pursuit.
A good friend in the club was a fireman.
It would be foolish to reveal his club and real names as there is every chance he has since won a Nobel Prize or Lotto, so I will give his false name a false name.
I will call him Sibelius, which is also the middle name of Ashley the butcher on Coronation Street.
Look it up.
Let us also believe that Sibelius' real name was Mick Jagger.
I was 14, and I had been left in charge of my younger brother and sister one night, one very cold night.
The fire was soon out of coke, so in order not to go out in the rain to replenish the bucket, I merely went into the back room to find something burnable.
I found a wardrobe full of shoes.
An hour later, Mr Oliver from across the road rang up to say the house was on fire. He had called the brigade. He knew I was an idiot.
The first fireman to burst into the lounge, where I sat by the fire rigid with fear and stupidity, was Sibelius.
"Sibelius! I cried. Thank Christ it's YOU!!"I never saw Sibelius again.
Back at the station, I daresay Mick Jagger had a lot of explaining to do.
He probably resigned on the spot and chose another career. - Roy Colbert