I HAVE a vacant position that needs filling as soon as possible.

Job description: Mr McDreamy required, for attending to sunburned skin.

Qualifications: Handsome, strong and gentle with good hand-to-eye co-ordination.

Job: Temporary position until October which may be reviewed for longer contract.

I am not sure that my advertisement is a) ethical or b) politically correct but I have been compelled to ask after Sunday’s debacle.

You see, on the hottest day of the year, I spent the whole delicious day at the beach hut.

I was so desperate to offer up my white (almost blue) body to the sun gods that I gave my usual factor 100 a miss, fed up with looking like the Pilsbury Dough Boy.

Having just returned from a freezing cold paddle with the Teen she said: “Mum. You look like a lobster. You are bright red.”

I looked down and noticed that my sunburn has revealed itself in the form of a fetching pair of red trousers. Just like a former colonel.

“Would you put some cream on my back please?” I asked before the sun could damage me further.

“Err, no. I can’t,” she scoffed. “As you can see I am about to revise for my maths GCSE, which is incidentally tomorrow, and the cream makes my hands slippery which means I won’t be able to hold my pen and the compass might slip, so I could accidently stab myself and then I won’t be able to do my exam and it would be all your fault.”

So I sat inside the wooden shed, on my own with the curtains drawn, because the lightest cotton layer was irritating my skin.

Bored, I started flicking through my mum’s Coast magazines, in which I read an article about sun cream.

Apparently few of us put enough sun cream and according to edition 326, it needs two people to do the job properly - one of who must be good looking, funny, romantic and clever.

I am expecting a flood of applicants.