Could you really call it a hairstyle? Yes, a pudding basin placed over the top of his head run around with drapers scissors could possibly be considered a style, but it had no ’style’.  Laughter in the playground, teasing and bullying, cat calls, weird names. He was used to it now, a sense of shame welling up like a volcano of anger about to explode every now and then, maybe he will maybe he won’t.

The school photographs he holds years later are a testament to the lack of attention to his appearance. The hair cavorting at odd angles against a blue indistinct back ground. This time it’s the ‘K-Tel’ razomatic cut – this one actually managed to eclipse the pudding bowl by a factor of 1.5. He had to stand in front of the bathroom mirror while his mother placed a brand new safety razor in what sufficed for a comb which was was swept in halting jerks over his locks. Shards of hair, wads of it parachuted to the floor and in the end his hair is a jumble of jagged furrows. The photograph speaks volumes showing a series of jagged edges like beach defences during world war two. Somehow though, there’s a smile from the slightly out of place teeth and a twinkle in the eye. Despite all this ‘being different’ , despite the rejection he still smiles and continues on.

Occasionally his hands run through the shards and they’re still like barbed wire angular and jutting, pointy. Only in the shower as the ‘Pears green apple’ shampoo smooths down the mop is there any peace for his strangled hedgerow. Sometimes the ‘Pears’ leaks down and into his mouth and the refreshing taste of soapy suds makes him spit and reach for a towel. Sometimes it gets in his eyes,  almost as if a poker has been stabbed in there. The water continues to cascade over him  just slightly past heated because his dad forgot to ignite the Briquette heater at Seven, instead it got put on at a quarter too eight, just warm enough like a feeble sun on a late autumn afternoon, just enough to make you smile.