When #Grace Jones slapped Russell Harty she created one of TVs’ iconic moments. Whatever you think of her response to her host turning his back on her, she did it with a very good hair cut. I know this because #Trevor Sorbi cut her hair. It’s not that I know Trevor, but I know a man who does. He’s the man who cuts my hair.
For fifty years I’d been buying bad hair cuts from hairdressers the length and breadth of the land. After we’d settled the question of what my boyfriend did for a living and where I was going on my holidays, the conversation always followed the same turn. My hair was very hard to cut. “It’s because it’s all one colour”, they said. So it was my fault.
A few of my hair cutting foes took me by surprise by asking how I got my roots that colour. “It’s all Gods work,” I’d usually reply, my blond hair being intimately connected with my lack of sight. “I’m a natural blond,” I’d boast. A hairdresser who can’t tell a natural blond at thirty centimetres doesn’t inspire confidence.
As these increasingly expensive hair cuts racked up, I’d look into the glare of the back lit mirror (too much trouble to be turned off) and wonder what was taking shape on the top sof my head. “That’s quite a helmet of a hair cut you’ve got,’ said a surprised friend as she opened the door to me. I thought it might be bad but I had no idea it was that bad.
One particularly bold hair cutting foe suggested I dye my hair brown. “I’d look ridiculous” I said. “It would make you look normal,” she replied. Normal. What is that? My anxieties about the way I look do not extend to the colour of my hair. I might not choose rubbish sight but the matching blond hair I can happily live with.
The Flat Mate always has good hair cuts and I went to keep her company while she had hers done and was transfixed as the hairdresser went about his work. It took twice as long as my hair cuts and involved Prosecco. I was impressed and said so. “I’d love to cut your hair,” he said. “It’s very difficult hair to cut.” I was being defensive.
He thoroughly ruffled my head. “I don’t see why.”
These days I love going to the hairdresser. Tom doesn’t find it a chore to switch off the mirror lights to take out the discomfort of the glare. He talks me through the hair cut, telling me about what I cannot see. He paints the picture as his cut takes shape. Sometimes he’ll ask if I want to stop and get close to the mirror to see what he means. At the end when the full glory of a really good hair cut is revealed and that big old mirror gets flashed behind my neck, he’ll use his hands to explain exactly what is happening on the back of my head, so that I can form a sort of map of my head in my head.
After eight years of good hair cuts I wonder how many of my former hair cutting foes thought that just because I couldn’t see I wouldn’t know a bad cut if I had one? I no longer blame myself. Difference need not be a bad thing. I celebrate my blond hair, and Toms talent, sometimes with Prosecco, sometimes with a cup of tea as he goes about his work. I’m emboldened by my good hair cut. If anyone suggests I dye my hair brown they might just be in for a slap.
