SETTING OWN HAIR IS GIFT TO BE ENVIED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28895, 15 May 1959, Page 2

SETTING OWN HAIR IS GIFT TO BE ENVIED

If some fairy godmother should ever be rash enough to grant me the statutory 12 gifts 11 should ask her to put the [ability to manage my own hair 'somewhere in the first three, I writes Elizabeth Heresford in the "Scotsman.” It is a wonderful money-saving knack and one which —let us be honest about this—very few of us have. It is nothing whatever to- do with being handy. With acute concentration I can knit socks, make fiddly little furniture for the doll’s house, and fill in football coupons neatly. But put me in front of a mirror with a box of hairpins and some nice wet hanks of hair and I have had it. And it is not for want of trying. Many is the time when the housekeeping purse discloses only enough for the milk bill and two slightly-tired peppermints, have I brought out one of those neat little diagrams which shows you how to set your hair in six different ways. Everything goes splendidly for the first few inches, and then I get to the bit round the side where by a sense of touch you are supposed to pin in that devastating little row of curls. The next morning I present to the world a fascinating bush-like effect with two small pieces

sticking out at right angles over the ears. So it was with great delight that I heard from a kind friend that a very chic (very expensive) salon was going to stay open late on Tuesday nights in order to give cheap sets to model girls. The work was to be done by apprentices, and the whole arrangement was a sort of quid pro quo. I shuffled into the queue of willing guinea-pigs, and arrived at 6.30 p.m. trying to look like a mannequin. "Miss Hilda here’s your one,” called the receptionist. (No refinements like "Here’s your lady” on cheap nights). Running Battle Miss Hilda looked all of 16 and was obviously an Angry Young Woman. She cocooned me into a blue overall, ignoring my timid pleasantries, and thrust my head into a basin. While she held me there by sheer force she held a running battle with a third, unseen person. “Well, why does it always have to be me, then? Sheila gets off at 5.30 every Tuesday so why do I have to stay on? It’s not fair.” “Shut up, Hild,” said the unseen. “Well, all I can say is I shall complain. I shall go straight to Mr Chares and tell him straight out—up please—that I’m not going to do it—this way—this is my fourth Tuesday running—down here—and it’s not good enough.” The trouble was that she made me feel so mean. It seemed to be all my fault that she was missing her Tuesday night off and as she sulkily gave me the box of pins to hold I tried to apologise. “Oh, it’s not your fault,” Miss Hilda said magnanimously, “it’s the system. I’ll give you a roll on top and a wide effect at the sides because you need something to take away from the jawline, don’t you?” That shut me up, but Miss Hilda joined me in my silence pretty soon for the great Mr Charles himself came round and dismantled all her work and made her do it again. She never uttered a word and I was so embarrassed for her that I studiously avoided her eye in the glass all the time he was yanking my head backwards and forwards as though it was a troublesome piece of mechanism. At 10 past 10 I stumbled out into the street with a beautiful hair-

r style and racking hunger pains. 1 o kept it up with the cheap nights ;s for quite a time, but the long e hours wore me down in the end. r So it was back to the diagrams s, and the bush effect until a new e salon suddenly bloomed in our il local shopping centre. It was a e complete copy of the most fashionit able place you could find in the middle of town. The decor was o pink and grey, and washing, e setting, and drying were all done s, in the one vast room. The girls >r wore blue nylon sacks, and the > three young men wore brilliant it white shirts, tan trousers, and a thin gold chains round their e wrists. The only differences were d the much lower prices and the tyles. And, of course, us, the customers, e Instead of being dropped by our y chauffeurs outside the door and o sweeping in in a haze of expene sive scent and mink, we jumped t heavily off the bus at the traffic li lights and crept in (overcome by - it all) with our shopping baskets and a vague aroma of cooking. r It seems rather a shame that we I women should be so cowed into e accepting a , background that u makes us uneasy just because we - are told it is “right.” Sometimes e now I squint sideways at the e other clients to see how they like e having their hair done so pubs licly. Especially I feel sorry for the older women with their tired faces and workworn hands clasped in their laps. They must long for something a bit more private and cosy where nobody could see what they looked like with a net tied low over their foreheads and cotton wool pads bulging over their ears. So there we sit under the driers like a long row of patient sheep exposed to the inquisitive glances of any passer-by. And at the end of it all we emerge with identical < hair styles—i.e., two deep waves at the back, curls everywhere else But it is cheap, and I am quite i: friendly now with Miss Hazel, who always “does” me. I know all about her mother-in-law and her : husband's bad back, and which football club she supports. And three days after she has done me & I can batter those curls into quite r a respectable hair-style. However, I am still in the mart ket for that fairy godmother. In fact, I met a very chic hairdresser the other day and confessed in a moment of abandon how I wished r I could manage on my own , “But, my dear lady,” he said, ’’ shaking his little gold wristlet, “it e takes three years to learn how to . pin a curl properly, and one must have expert supervision all the d time.” . He can say that again.