Lady stops us in town "is she supposed to look like that?" Pointing @ 2yo's hair Me:"Um,No" Lady:"it's child cruelty!" & fixes hair - phew!

It's been almost 25 years since I had hair.

I can remember very clearly the first time I realised I was going bald.  I had a large wooden bed when I still lived at home with my parents in Devon.  It was dark, carved wood.

When I was nineteen, I remember laying my head back against it when I was reading in bed one autumn evening.  The bedhead felt colder against my scalp than normal.  I put my hand up to rub my crown, where my head had come into contact with the wood.  A few hairs came away in my fingers as I ran them through the hair at the back of my head.

My mother, bless her, tried for some time to convince me I had a 'double crown'.  By the time I was 21 it was clear the visible patch of skin forming on the back of my head wasn't a 'double crown' at all and that I could soon audition for a bit part in Cadfael.

I spent some time trying to hang on to my fast receding hair.  When I was 24 I was working in Godalming.  Next door was a hairdresser, where I went for a haircut just before I went on holiday one Friday.  The stylist asked me what I'd like done, "whatever you think's best,' I answered.

The shock on my face was clearly evident in the mirror as the stylist ran a razor from back to front over the top of my head, shaving my hair to a grade two cut.  It's stayed like that ever since and that was the last time I went to the hairdresser.

Being responsible for our children's hair wasn't a challenge while we just had our son.  

Trying to avoid the stress of taking him to the hairdresser, J and a well meaning friend decided to cut our little boy's hair when he first needed it soon after he came to live with us.

It seemed such an easy task.  In fact the resulting style was a perfect reproduction of a Romulan from Star Trek.  We didn't take our son out much for a few days after that and J took him to the barbers soon afterwards.

Both of our children are blessed with blonde hair.  

They also have in common the fact their hair was remarkably thin when they came to live with us.  As time passed their hair thickened as the effects of both a much better diet and a more settled and happy environment, improved their general well being.

As her hair has thickened our daughter has become much more aware of her hair, how long it is and how she wants it styled.

I took our little girl for her first hair cut after she had moved to live with us.  We went to the local children's hairdresser.

Settling our then 20 month old daughter in the chair the smiling stylist asked: "How would you like her hair cut?"

"Umm, I don't really know," I mumbled in reply. "Shorter?"

"Well, would you like a bob, or a pageboy cut?" The stylist clearly ascribed to me much greater knowledge of hair styling than was actually the case.

"Umm," kindly as she was, the hairdresser had just switched to speaking Mandarin as far as I was concerned. "Could you make her look nice please?"  I decided on the pathetically helpless approach.

"I'll just sort it out for you," the stylist said slowly and deliberated, clearly having decided she was dealing with an imbecile.

By the time she was approaching her third birthday, our daughter was accumulating a bewildering array of hair clips and bands.  She also had much thicker and longer hair.  

Our little girl decided she would like to have her hair in bunches.  I was busy.  So she asked her brother.  

"My girlfriends have shown me how to do it, it'll be fine," our son shouted from the sitting room.

I was less sure, but was overseeing some cooking so couldn't help.  After a short while our little girl appeared, delighted with her hairstyle that made her look not unlike a hedgehog.

The following day she wanted me to do her hair.  I did my best.  Not having had to worry with any kind of hair style for so many years it was something of a challenge.  So much so, she still looked like a hedgehog.  If a bit less spiky.

We had to go into town.  Our daughter was so proud of her new hair-clip enhanced hair style she insisted on no change.  Walking through our nearby market town we were stopped by a lady.  

"Did you do that?" She asked, pointing at my daughter's hair.

"Umm, yes," I replied embarrassed.

"Sending her out like that borders on child cruelty!" She replied.  "Here," she said, crouching down to sort my daughter's hair out.

"Thank you," I mumbled before scurrying away.

Things have got better.  A little.  Well, not much really.  

Our daughter doesn't look like a hedgehog when we go out any longer.  I prefer to think of the hairstyle I create for her as an homage to Björk.