Blondie

Today

Back after 5 weeks in various parts of Europe, travelling with my niece and then aboard the Star Clipper on the Med. It's as I feared; my hair has gone blond.

Not a nice sun-kissed golden. More a kind of straw-like orange. And, despite hating to, I wore a hat most of the time. My fault partly, I guess, for having my hair dyed in denial of the advance of age.

In My Day

My father was the type of man who referred to women's hair as their "crowning glory". My mother always had long hair kept in a bun. Not particularly glorious as her hair was actually rather thin and inclined to whispiness (a trait which I've inherited, thanks, Mamma).

As girls we, too had long hair, usually plaited or in ponytails. My sister had a waterfall of wonderful straight golden hair. Mine was brown and, as stated before, inclined to whispiness. It always took ages to dry, as we didn't have a hair dryer, and I have an awful idea that hair washing night was on Sundays every three weeks.

When I was about twelve, probably as a result of a good deal of nagging on our parts, my sister and I had our hair cut. My father took a series of regretful pictures of our hair before it was cut. Beatrice's, as usual, looked wonderful (why did she want to cut it? it was never the same again), while mine looked like an afterthought.

Our hair was cut professionally. The cut took about 8 years off Beatrice's age, making her look like a five-year old, and added about 40 to mine, catapulting me into middle age in one easy step. It's no wonder that, after a short dalliance with '60s "mod" hair doos, I promptly allowed my hair to grow again into a hippie/student mane.

My father always said that, once you cut your hair, you had a life-long struggle managing it and lining the pockets of hairdressers.

And he was right, as usual.