My hair, being thick and wiry, made its own choices regarding the directions it would grow in. My head resembled an exploded mattress with the stuffing coming out. These days I can’t bear to look at any photos of myself from that era as they just make me cringe.

Then along came punk rock and my life was transformed.I had my hair chopped short and would regularly dye it with whatever came to hand. Food coloring was one of my favorite dyes. I liked it because it would wash out easily but this had its disadvantages as getting caught in the rain meant that I soon had colored streaks running down my face and back.

My hair dying escapades soon changed as I discovered henna and the rich, deep red color that was fashionable at the time, or so I thought. Applying henna was no simple task. I would make up the henna mixture using a couple of tea-bags, as a friend had said this would help deepen the dye. I’d then sit with the drying mud-like mixture on my head, covered in a polythene bag, for up to 2 hours. The result was a deep red, teak like colour that looked fantastic in the sunlight.

I was still wearing my hair very short, often spiked with either soap or sometimes glue. I then moved into a phase where I would shave the sides leaving a broad, Mohican like mop of deep red spikes running from my forehead to the base of my neck.

It was during the eighties that I found myself sadly influenced by the band King. They wore their hair in long mullets with the sides cropped really short but the back really long. This was an embarrassing direction that my hairstyle took but, luckily, it didn’t last and I soon returned to a short crop. One good thing that came out of this time was that I began to look after myself, leading a healthy lifestyle and even using a little moisturizer from time to time. I even got into using cleansers and toners in a vane attempt to hold back the wrinkles.

I then went completely retro, finding a barber who could give me a very passable flat-top. These were my rockabilly days so my modest flat top soon evolved into a super-monster quiff, held in place with liberal quantities of Black and White hair wax. I love my quiff.

Hop forward to today. Most of my hair has now vacated my scalp and I’m left with two clown-like tufts growing from either side of my head and not much more at the back. The rest of my head is bald and I look back on those days when I had a full head of hair with much fondness, except for the mullets.