FOUR out of 10 teenagers say they never wear sunscreen in the UK and one in three is unaware that prolonged exposure to the sun's rays can cause skin cancer.

Those are the kind of attitudes Macmillan skin cancer nurse specialist Jane Freak is up against in her battle to raise awareness of the dangers of sunbathing.

Although she has offered to go into schools to spread the message, she has had very little interest from them or health promotion teams, despite the fact that Dorset has one of the highest incidences of skin cancer in the south.

One notable exception is Wimborne First School, which has installed sunscreen dispensers in every classroom. Like some other schools, it also had a "no hat, no play" policy.

With our weather getting hotter, Jane thinks schools need to provide more outdoor shade and consider longer morning breaks instead of lunchtime breaks, when the sun is at its most damaging.

But most of all, children need to reject decades of fashion propaganda, which have brainwashed people into thinking they look healthier and more attractive with a suntan. The result is all too often leathery skin and skin cancer in middle age - or younger.

There could be signs the tide is turning, with female stars such as Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Dita von Teese, Drew Barrymore and Kirsten Dunst staying resolutely pale. Others make no secret of the fact that they use "fake bake".

"If you are getting a suntan, all you are doing is damaging your skin. The damage is permanent," said Jane firmly.

"We're seeing many more younger patients. I've been here for just over 18 months and the number of melanomas has increased quite a lot. Our workload is huge.

"I think people think it's never going to happen to them. They also think once a mole is removed, that's it. They can't see the damage it can do. When it starts spreading, you have approximately eight months left to live."

She thinks some people are also lulled into a false sense of security by high factor lotion, mistakenly thinking that smearing some on when they get to the beach or the pool in the morning enables them to lie out in the sun all day in safety.

"A lot of people don't realise they should be putting it on half an hour before they go outside. When people go away on holiday, they take sun protection and bring half of it back with them. They're not applying it thickly enough or often enough. Also, if you leave it in the sun, it loses its potency."

The youngest skin cancer patient Jane has ever seen was just 15. Marc's Line, the Salisbury-based skin cancer charity, was named after a young chef who died at 19.

Not surprisingly, Jane hates the idea of young people using tanning booths or sunbeds. "So many of these places are coin-operated, so nobody is monitoring how often they go."