Sittin’ in the hairdressers’ a pucklie weeks ago, somethin’ spookie happened.
On to Facebook and right at the top was one of the most popular sites for Aberdonians – old shops.
Newly posted was a line-up of photies of stylists from that once hugely popular Hair Affair.
Folk had already started commenting about how they loved it and remembering the girls. And Mo’s contribution? “One o’ those lovely quines, Morna, is doing my hair right now!” How spookie is that?
When I showed the post to the aforementioned, she was so shocked, she damnt near stuck the highlight foil right up my left nostril.
I never went to Hair Affair. Aye a bittie too trendie for me, who loathed every spindly strand of my thin, straight, fine hair. To me, their ‘clientelle’ aye seemed to be deeply glam with thick, do-onything locks.
My hair’s aye been the bane o’ my life
My hair’s aye been the bane o’ my life.
At Culter School, I was happy with my long pleats, but when we to moved into Aberdeen and mum worked full-time, her pal, Aggie, persuaded me to have them chopped to save the daily hassle. Big mistake.
How disgusted I was by my short, frequently permed (ie frizzed) heidie.
At 12, I’d the hairstyle of a 55-year-old, including the Queen.
If mum wasn’t doing it hersellie at the kitchen sink with the Twinkie lotion, she’d drag me to the top floor of Isaac Benzies for a major ‘shop’ perm.
Gads, I can still smell that pungent-mixed-with-burnt pong.
She once tried the hairdresser in the Co-opie arcade, which I thought was the best ever because the curls were bonnnie and gentle, not crinkly.
However, being a fan of the tight-stuff, ma reckoned she hadn’t got value for money and demanded I get another, freebie, stronger one. I could almost hear my follicles frazzle.
So phobic did I become about hairdressers, I spent mony years cutting my ain, growing it for my wedding, then cutting it soon after my babes were born.
Another big tonsorial mistake. Never really liked it much since then – half a century ago!
Meanwhile, my relationships with hairdressers have been tricky, to say the least. Like the couple and his wife I thought I was really pally with until… as features editor at the EE running a Win-A-Wedding competition.
I went the next time to pay for the cut with his wife, when she went skyte, tearing into me big-time for not arranging for their shop to do the winning bride’s hair. Shocked and furious, I never graced his scissors again.
Moved on to a guyo where my horror of hairdressers hit its nadir. He’d ‘goldened’ my locks a couple of times before so I was confident he kint fit he wis deein’.
How wrong could I be. I still recall actually feeling the panic coming through his fingers onto my scalp as he rinsed off the dye.
Again and again, afore whisperin’: “I don’t know what’s gone wrong … but I think we should re-colour.”
Daring to keek in the mirror, spied my napper as a skyrie fuchsia. I’d to phone home to say I’d be late while he lashed on a couple more potions.
The nosies of my Toots – high as kites at the drama of it all – were pressed to the window to see which colour their mum would eventually appear. Answer: candyfloss pink. Even worse, the same texture. Took me nearly a year to grow oot. However, after decades with the dear Morna, all my hairdresser-high-anxiety has gone. I can just relax in her chair and goss till the dye’s set. And we have a major thing in common: she has thin, fine hair, just like me.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press and Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
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